Nintendo announce: Nintendo NX

[Megadrive1988]

I don't think Nintendo would have considered Nvidia for NX, especially after they dropped Tegra from 3DS.

In January Eurogamer reported that around 18 months ago (now more than 2 years ago) that PowerVR and AMD were the two under consideration.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/d...-next-gen-hardware-and-the-strategy-behind-it

 

[east of eastside]

I think it's some evolution, or generational advance, of AMD's Carrizo APU at 16nm FinFet+.

(Hexa-core CPU,12-14 CU cores. ARM a57 rather than x86 based, possibly.)

This should be good for ~1.4 -1.6 GFLOPS @ ~20-30 watts.

 

[cheapchips]

I'd assumed from AMD comments that they were providing both a x86 and arm solution to Nintendo, unless one of them is for a non Nintendo embedded product.

Would a x86 'base station' be able to make meaningful use of CU's in the portable unit's ARM chip?

 

[Grall]

Would a x86 'base station' be able to make meaningful use of CU's in the portable unit's ARM chip?

If the box could do DX12-style frame splitting across both GPUs, sure. If the portable could handle full-rez game assets, that is... However, would Nintendo be able to implement something like that? I really rather doubt it, TBH. This is the company that stuck a DX8-class GPU in their most recent portable after all, more than ten years after DX8 went out of style.

It's like, if it isn't fucking obsolete, they aren't the least bit interested in it...

 

[cheapchips]

If the box could do DX12-style frame splitting across both GPUs, sure. If the portable could handle full-rez game assets, that is... However, would Nintendo be able to implement something like that? I really rather doubt it, TBH. This is the company that stuck a DX8-class GPU in their most recent portable after all, more than ten years after DX8 went out of style.

It's like, if it isn't fucking obsolete, they aren't the least bit interested in it...

I doubt a dx12 style approach too. I'm still going to ponder at the high end of what if until something's announced, rather than a more realistic view based Nintendo's 15? year bargin bin run.

Tough to cram in a differentiating feature and ps4ish power for a give BOM. They're still going to go for the former when push comes to shove.

 

[east of eastside]

I'd assumed from AMD comments that they were providing both a x86 and arm solution to Nintendo, unless one of them is for a non Nintendo embedded product.

Xbox One mini, digital streaming device (x86) and NX (ARM).

 

[cheapchips]

Xbox One mini, digital streaming device (x86) and NX (ARM).

Hard to the current Xbox team releasing the steaming only product from the original Xbone vision document (if that's what you meant)

 

[Shifty Geezer]

As can AMD.

I didn't think AMD had a solution for single-digit wattage. Isn't their small-scale netbook level?

 

[DieH@rd]

Takashi Mochizuki [the WSJ journalist who reported recent NX "industry leading/cutting edge" chips] has responded to the question of the fan who asked via email if he knows anything more specific about NX hardware:

Hello David,

The quick answer is "I don't know." Sorry!

-Several people who said who have seen a demo said what they saw is impossible to run on a computer without a "industry-leading" or "cutting-edge" chips. Cutting-edge in what way, they refused to elaborate.
-And an important thing to remember, probably you know well already, is that chip specs won't be finalized until much closer date to the release.

hope this helps, and plz ask me follow-up questions if you have.

thanks,

mochi

 

[Pixel]

In my mind that could just be 'spin' for being fabricated on a smaller node then the 28nm PS4/XO, or a newer architecture, yet still be overall inferior in performance to these 2 consoles.

 

[east of eastside]

AMD tweeted this a few days ago--

Get ready to soar into the future of @AMDEmbedded solutions. Something is ready to take flight!

https://twitter.com/AMD/status/654713374933037057

Apparently it's 'Merlin Falcon' the embedded version of Carrizo.

Very likely NX is a custom derivative of Merlin Falcon (or next gen R series) high performance SoC for the console, and Lanner Falcon (or next gen G series) low power (ARM based) SoC for the portable.

http://wccftech.com/amd-embedded-roadmap-2014-2016-leaked-insight-gen-apus-gpus/
(embedded AMD roadmap with details in article)

 

[DieH@rd]

AMD has a good parts. If nintendo picks ANYTHING from their 2015/2016 schedule, that would be awesome. There is no bad part on that list.

I think that Merlin Falcon would be too much though. Devs want more cores, and Excavator cores are big. Chip with 8 cores and big GPU will be huge [and power hungry], larger than the one from PS4.

 

[east of eastside]

Carrizo APU is 819 gflops at 35w tdp.

A successor of this with a hexacore processor and 12-14 cu's in 16nm FinFet+ would be perfectly suited for delivering 1.4 gflops at a 20-30w tdp.

 

[Grall]

We don't want a Nintendo console with fewer flops than PS4, years after PS4. It would just be not quite almost enough, and late to the party to boot.

Why would we want 20-30W TDP in a stationary console? It didn't grant Wuu any measure of success at all, if anything it just held the system back. Wuu is ~50% the volume of PS4 and only a fifth the power dissipation, yet even less than a fifth in actual computing performance, of course. Once you go below a certain level of computing power you cease to really scale down in physical size, at least as long as you want an optical drive inside the casing as well, and I think we all assume Nintendo would want that. If you get too small, you start running into Ouya territory where your box is so small and light the cables attached to it will manhandle it, and the whole product just feels dumb and cheap.

 

[McHuj]

In going with the prediction that the NX home console will be priced $199-249 and the handheld $149-179. Neither will be sold at a loss. Nintendo will offer as much hardware as that kind of budget will allow.

I don't think there's enough power gain at 16/14nm to provide enough differentiating gain over the PS4 at a $399 price point (at least for average joe to recognize). So I think Nintendo leaping either X1 or PS4 is extremely unlikely. Best case, imo, the NX will be close enough to get 720p ports of 900p X1 games.

 

[pjbliverpool]

Devs want more cores, and Excavator cores are big.

Do they? I'd assume they simply want more performance and the fewer cores that they can achieve that with the better. Putting die size/cost aside (as it's Nintendo's problem from devs pov) I'd assume devs would prefer 4 high clocked Excavator cores that 8 low clocked Puma cores.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Is core count still an issue? I imagine everything's properly multicore, multithreaded now. Certainly from this gen on, everything will be job based to work on 6+ cores. But as you say, it's simply processing power that really matters. Whether 16 small cores or one large 10 GHz core makes no odds to the devs.

 

[DieH@rd]

Carrizo APU is 819 gflops at 35w tdp.

Wow, that's very nice. Can we more precisely extrapolate gains that 10nm finfet will enable when the time for PS5 deployment arrives?

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Wrong thread to discuss next-gen PlayStations.

 

[Megadrive1988]

If Nintendo's next TV console does not, at the very least, equal PS4 in 2016, they shouldn't even bother.