Nintendo Switch Tech Speculation discussion

[Shifty Geezer]

Well, obviously you can't read very well because I never said anything about bringing 50 W down to 15 W. I looked at the XB1S theoretical performance per watt (28 GFlops FP32 / W) and guestimated how efficient Switch might end up because of nVidia's more power efficient GPU cores, more power efficient ARM CPU and more power efficient memory. I speculated that it could end up twice as efficient as XB1S (edit: per watt), i.e. 58 GFlops FP32 / W. Further I speculated that a docked Switch might have a power consumption of 15 W, ending up with 15 * 58 = 0.84 TFlops FP32 or 60% of XB1S in that case.

However you never provided any facts or hard data that my speculation was wrong. You just wrote something about a few watts being negligible in a system that consumes 15 W at max. Good job!

Calm down. Everyone seems really antsy here. Okay, not 50 watts down to 15, but you did speculate up to 50% power savings, and I was then entering into the argument questioning whether such efficiencies are really possible. If my argument is wrong, it can be argued. And someone being wrong doesn't make them stupid nor incapable of reading coherently. As for facts, I've already deferred to more knowledgeable folk and only commented on my interpretation of the data presented. I'm not against your position and am not trying to find evidence to disprove it.

Lastly, let me quote myself:

And all I'm doing is debating your speculation. And I accept I had a slightly wrong angle in my last post (either because of my inability to read, or because the thread jumbles multiple lines of discussion and sometimes they get muddled).

For those saying 50 W down to 15 W, a few watts here and there doesn't count. For those saying double efficiencies overall (yourself), maybe so.

 

[bunnybug]

The leaked specs of the dev kit. DEV KIT! As opposed to FINAL PRODUCT!

quote from eurogamer. remember this coming from multiple sources.

"is worth stressing with a firm emphasis that everything we have heard so far points to Tegra X1 as the SoC of choice for Nintendo NX"

I guess you can keep the hope alive, but anybody with common sense can see this has a 90% chance of using a custom TX1.

 

[loekf]

quote from eurogamer. remember this coming from multiple sources.

"is worth stressing with a firm emphasis that everything we have heard so far points to Tegra X1 as the SoC of choice for Nintendo NX"

I guess you can keep the hope alive, but anybody with common sense can see this has a 90% chance of using a custom TX1.

So basically, history repeats itself for Nintendo. We get desktop-class GPU paired with a lousy CPU ?

I can't believe they are working on this console for so long, seems like ages and it's still not out. Why would you release a new product in March btw ?

 

[Benetanegia]

For all we know Xavier could have a much larger than usual amount of SRAM soaking up transistors. It wouldn't be that out of place. The video encode/decode is also pretty high end.

With the way nVidia is proposing these "deep learning" operations it at least sounds like they're pushing this for more applications than what their GPUs are optimized for. Maybe this is just marketing BS, or maybe they really did add a lot of stuff that goes beyond their typical GPU stuff.

Maybe. Or maybe a GPU company put a big GPU in a high-end SoC...

 

[N00b]

Calm down. Everyone seems really antsy here. Okay, not 50 watts down to 15, but you did speculate up to 50% power savings, and I was then entering into the argument questioning whether such efficiencies are really possible. If my argument is wrong, it can be argued. And someone being wrong doesn't make them stupid nor incapable of reading coherently. As for facts, I've already deferred to more knowledgeable folk and only commented on my interpretation of the data presented. I'm not against your position and am not trying to find evidence to disprove it.

And all I'm doing is debating your speculation. And I accept I had a slightly wrong angle in my last post (either because of my inability to read, or because the thread jumbles multiple lines of discussion and sometimes they get muddled).

For those saying 50 W down to 15 W, a few watts here and there doesn't count. For those saying double efficiencies overall (yourself), maybe so.

No hard feelings!

And just of the press: Japanese gaming journalist says Switch is Parker & Pascal: http://wccftech.com/nintendo-switch-nvidia-tegra-pascal/

 

[BRiT]

I can't believe they are working on this console for so long, seems like ages and it's still not out. Why would you release a new product in March btw ?

Software issues.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

No hard feelings!

None taken.

And just of the press: Japanese gaming journalist says Switch is Parker & Pascal: http://wccftech.com/nintendo-switch-nvidia-tegra-pascal/

Little clarification - Journalist 'speculates' Parker, at least as I understand it from the link. Perhaps a Japanese reader can go to the source and give a better translation of the info? Otherwise it seems to be the same sort of speculation we're going through.

 

[Malo]

Does it have a rear facing camera?

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

None taken.
Little clarification - Journalist 'speculates' Parker, at least as I understand it from the link. Perhaps a Japanese reader can go to the source and give a better translation of the info? Otherwise it seems to be the same sort of speculation we're going through.

Google translate might be better than my Japanese(certainly when it comes to kanji hehe) but as far as I can feel it's just speculation.

Basically he says while there is a chance Switch uses a Maxwell bases soc the most logical would be a Pascal based soc. He comes to this conclusion based on Nvidia blog post saying Switch uses the latest GPU tech and that the fact Nvidia already announced other Pascal bases 16nm socs.

 

[BRiT]

There's always a chance the writer got his speculation from here or similar online forums.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Well it's definitely a possibility, and some are going to think the current tech is more plausible than the older tech. My guess is maybe 20% chance at not Maxwell. If Nintendo do actually go with Pascal, their shares will jump and it'd bode reasonably well for them, as it'd signify a change in mentality that will be more competitive and not just be recycling their ageing, dwindling fanbase.

 

[Benetanegia]

Hnestly, I don't know what makes some of you think that Maxwell is cheaper than Pascal...

 

[Esrever]

Hnestly, I don't know what makes some of you think that Maxwell is cheaper than Pascal...

because maxwell is cheaper than pascal..

 

[McHuj]

because maxwell is cheaper than pascal..

Yes, 28nm Maxwell is cheaper than 16nm Pascal.

However, in a custom design on 16nm (or 14nm which IMO is a possibility for this), the cost difference between the two maybe negligible. We don't have a good apples to apple comparison because the desktop designs are on different nodes.

 

[Goodtwin]

Has the Tegra X1 ever been manufactured on anything other than 20nm? Even assuming custom X1, we still don't know click speed or memory bus size. Are the ARM A54 cores still there or did they remove them?

Sent from my SM-G360V using Tapatalk

 

[Benetanegia]

because maxwell is cheaper than pascal..

Based on what?

 

[McHuj]

The latest rumors from GAF are 4GB of RAM (and 3.2 available for games). Personally, I don't expect any thing more than 25.6 GB/sec for the bandwidth.

This is a device designed to be cost effective, imo. However, it will be faster than the WiiU and and orders of magnitude faster than than the 3DS. Even if it was close to Xbox power, it would still be less and that wouldn't provide the best experience for multi-platform releases so ultimately who cares if it's 1/4 or 1/2 of Xbox 1 power. This is a console for Nintendo games.

 

[Esrever]

Based on what?

Cheapest maxwell card vs cheapest pascal card.

 

[Malo]

And Skyrim

 

[Benetanegia]

Cheapest maxwell card vs cheapest pascal card.

I was not aware of the Switch using a desktop card...