Inuhanyou
Veteran
Right. I can't see Nintendo going for a 4nm process though atleast for first revision. If it's 8nm I wonder where it leaves their power budget based on current switch constraints
Switch 2 Speculation
- Thread starter Goodtwin
- Start date
If the information about 12 SM's holds true from the Nvidia leak, then 8nm would be a very odd choice. It would have to be clocked very low to fit within the Switch power constraints. It would be very curious to have so much silicon running very low clock speeds rather than less cores with higher clock speeds.
Inuhanyou
Veteran
I see..what is the realistic scaling for the docked mode? You said 1tflop tops for the handheld, so like 2 tflops max?
Yes about that. Switch's handheld GPU clocks are 40%, 50% and 60% of docked mode - 307.2 MHz, 384 MHz, and 460 MHz handheld (latter added later), 768 MHz docked. Clocks for 12SMs @ 1 or 2Tflops are 326MHz handheld, 652MHz docked which sounds about right given the system's power budget aims.
Knowing Nintendo I wouldn't be surprised if those specs are hopes and dreams rather than reality because they like to be frugal but we'll see. Like how T239 has 8x A78 cores, doesn't sound too Nintendo but we can hope
Knowing Nintendo I wouldn't be surprised if those specs are hopes and dreams rather than reality because they like to be frugal but we'll see. Like how T239 has 8x A78 cores, doesn't sound too Nintendo but we can hope
Inuhanyou
Veteran
I am also very sceptical cuz it's Nintendo
All they need for themselves is a suitable jump from the switch, so I can see them ultra conservative with the machine and it would still be a big upgrade that satisfies their core user base.
From what I recall, the max gflop count for the switch was like 400gflops max in docked mode. So 3 to 4 times that seems like something that is likely and doesn't break the bank for them.
My guess was always around Xbox one S levels of power, or roughly 1.4tflops docked..that way it still would be last gen levels of power, and a full next gen upgrade over the switch, but still well within their heat/watt and budget spec.
1.4tflop GPU, 8GB of ram and a suitably faster CPU than the switch is something realistic..will it be an 8 core CPU is hard to tell
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They would have to go out of their way to release something worse than a 3 to 4 times performance upliftI am also very sceptical cuz it's Nintendo
All they need for themselves is a suitable jump from the switch, so I can see them ultra conservative with the machine and it would still be a big upgrade that satisfies their core user base.
From what I recall, the max gflop count for the switch was like 400gflops max in docked mode. So 3 to 4 times that seems like something that is likely and doesn't break the bank for them.
My guess was always around Xbox one S levels of power, or roughly 1.4tflops docked..that way it still would be last gen levels of power, and a full next gen upgrade over the switch, but still well within their heat/watt and budget spec.
1.4tflop GPU, 8GB of ram and a suitably faster CPU than the switch is something realistic..will it be an 8 core CPU is hard to tell
Inuhanyou
Veteran
That's right, which is why I think 3 to 4 times is realistic for them, it's a somewhat conservative target but being Nintendo it's right in line with expectations.They would have to go out of their way to release something worse than a 3 to 4 times performance uplift
You say they would have to go out of their way to make something worse, than we are on the same page
that's why being just above "going out of their way" makes sense...unless it's the Wii U..or the Wii...or the new 3ds...or the dsxl...Could be better or could be worse. So much of that depends on the node process. If its 8nm, I could see a sub 1 Tflop in portable and around 1.6-1.8 Tflop in docked. Ampere is significantly more efficient than GCN is with the Xbox One and PS4, so this Switch would get far better performance per flop, and DLSS would drastically improve docked image quality. If it ends up being produced on 4N, it could be 50% higher performance than that. Its hard to know because we do not know the timeline. If Switch 2 isn't coming till late 2024, the 4N process isn't nearly as cutting edge as it is today in early 2023. We would be talking about a product releasing almost two years from now.
Inuhanyou
Veteran
I guess we will see, but I am not convinced they will wait till late 2024, I expect very early 2024 like switch in 2017. My guess is they already are already on the way for announcement late this year
Yep it does, but I have a hard time believing Nintendo will go for a wider and more expensive design if they think they can get away with a relatively narrow and slow one instead. 8 SMs, 700MHz is still 1.4Tflops for example and 768MHz (same as Switch) is 1.57Tflops, I can imagine them thinking similar to last gen home console performance is "good enough" because that's been their MO the last few generations. I keep thinking they're always going to take the route of profitable console/near so on release, with 1 game/accessory/online sub/etc being the difference at worst. I hope we get a relatively powerful platform with all the bells and whistles (12 SM, 8x A78s, DLSS etc) but Nintendo can always underwhelm in a very Nintendo way. Maybe Nvidia have warehouses full of Orin chips they want to get rid of like they did with the X1 and will help facilitate that, who knows
They would be better off on an even older TSMC process then.
Samsung is quite awful with power efficiency. Their 5nm and 4nm process is worse than TSMC 7nm.
It really all depends on what nintendo we get. Do they go to nvidia and just ask for the cheapest modern soc nvidia is producing or do they go extremely cutting edge ?
My guess is either Xavier on 5 or 7nm instead of 12nm . Xavier is a Carmel Armv8.2 8 core cpu , volta based 512 cuda core gpu up to 1.4tflops . 5 or 7nm may allow them to get the apu down from 15w to 5 watts
Other option is Orin . Orian is up to 12 arm cortex a78ae hercule cores . You have ampere in this one. This would give you a max of 5.3 TFlops fp32 or 10 tflop fp16
I think the Orin nx 16GB would be the most likely as it has an 8 core a78ae 2ghz cpu clock , has an ampere gpu at up to 918mhz for 1.88 Tflops and a 100GB of bandwidth. They could go up or down from there. The Orin 32GB doubles the tflops and the 64GB brings up to 5.32tflops. I doubt that nintendo goes that high end. Orin chips seem to be just releasing now in late dec 22 and early 2023 so it may be to new or may be just in time who knows
Altan was canceled and I think Thor was just announced in Sept so likely way to soon for it to be released since all the other ones seem to have a 3-4 year time to market from announcement
With the existance of the xbox series s Nintendo just has to get close to that performance in all metrics and it should see great port support.
I think for nintendo its more important to get BC running and make it seemless to go from the switch to whatever is next
Inuhanyou
Veteran
I feel like nintendo doesn't care about third party ports, but the fact that their third party partners feel switch is long in the tooth.
With this in mind even using Xavier with a proven node like 7nm would be right up Nintendo's ally and a jump in line with expectations.
The third parties nintendo cares about are primarily making exclusives for switch to begin with . But their ambition is outstripping the switch. So making a stronger switch that is, just as an example, on the same level as Xbox one would shut all the complaints up for another generation while Nintendo continued to rake in the profits
For me, that still would be impressive tech to see in a dedicated handheld machine. I can only think about how big of a machine the original Xbox one is and see that miniaturized into a small handheld form factor and be blown away
Technology certainly advances doesn't it
With this in mind even using Xavier with a proven node like 7nm would be right up Nintendo's ally and a jump in line with expectations.
The third parties nintendo cares about are primarily making exclusives for switch to begin with . But their ambition is outstripping the switch. So making a stronger switch that is, just as an example, on the same level as Xbox one would shut all the complaints up for another generation while Nintendo continued to rake in the profits
For me, that still would be impressive tech to see in a dedicated handheld machine. I can only think about how big of a machine the original Xbox one is and see that miniaturized into a small handheld form factor and be blown away
Technology certainly advances doesn't it
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How is density for TSMC 7nm compared to 8nm Samsung? Unlike Nvidias desktop GPU's where Ampere on 8nm was fine because power efficiency doesn't matter and die size is less relevant, I would suspect whatever they are crafting for Nintendo would target a more power efficient process. Not to mention the process is very mature at this point so TSMC 7nm would have been a cost effective node for Nvidia to to spec when designing something for Nintendo.
Kopite7kimi has a very good track record with Nvidia leaks, and he originally leaked the T239 for the next Switch back in 2021 and was backed up with the Nvidia leak documents pertaining to NVN2. I think its very unlikely that Nintendo is using something like Xavier at this point. All the lower spec Orin SOC's are just binned Orin ships, so they are still far to big at 450mm2 to use in the Switch 2. This doesn't mean that the chip is 100% custom or exclusive to Nintendo. Nintendo had already signed on with Nvidia for the X1 before the X1 released and multiple products used the X1 before Switch ever released. Nvidia could plan to use this in their Shield products, perhaps some ARM based micro PC's and open to whoever else is interested in using it. Having exclusivity to this chip would not be a thing Nintendo cares about and it offers Nvidia mores ways to recoup r&d cost.
Meh It's a mixed bag. Early on in the switches life there were extremely popular 3rd party indie games like hollow night and dead cells. Even now companies like square have resorted to running kingdom hearts remastard through a bastard cloud cart. You have the same with dying light 2. I am sure that third parties would just want to port the game over vs jumping through all these hoops
Inuhanyou
Veteran
For the devs your referencing tho, porting those games would probably still not be a factor since even in best case scenario for Nintendo(around 2 tflop max), it's still the same ratio of gap for the PS5 and switch 2 as the ps4 and switch 1, which still only got a few ports from the last gen as you noted. Architecturally they would be up to date, but ports would still require them another sku to focus on that's significantly lower than the ones they are targeting otherwise.
Devs just don't wanna put in the work for that, especially if they are gonna move onto the current gen fully and drop ps4 and Xbox one too when the switch 2 will be starting at zero userbase.
I'll eat a hat if nintendo ever again puts in hardware considerations from third parties banking on their support as opposed to doing their own thing with the idea that the devs who want in to their ecosystem will make the effort regardless of what machine they put out. Indie devs feel like prime candidates tbh
I didn't remembered the T239 leak.
At the moment the closest model is Orin NX with thermal between 10W and 25W. I don't know if they are counting memory consumption too.
Remove half the ram.
Remove all the automotive specific stuff.
Move from sam 8nm to tsmc 7nm++ and gain 30% just from this.
It's in the switch range but still too much.
Aaaaaaaaaanyway... Why are we all supposing that it will just be exactly like the switch but faster?
At the moment the closest model is Orin NX with thermal between 10W and 25W. I don't know if they are counting memory consumption too.
Remove half the ram.
Remove all the automotive specific stuff.
Move from sam 8nm to tsmc 7nm++ and gain 30% just from this.
It's in the switch range but still too much.
Aaaaaaaaaanyway... Why are we all supposing that it will just be exactly like the switch but faster?
