Although there has been plenty of speculation on there being a Switch Pro; I am of the opinion that it is more likely for Nintendo to release a true successor to the Switch in 2022 or 2023 at the latest. I feel like a 5-6 year generation is long enough, and will allow the OG switch to be sold for a few more years at a very attractive price carried by its extensive catalog of games already released. Essentially giving Nintendo the opportunity to sell a wider variety of hardware SKU's.
The processor is likely to be custom this time, but unlikely to be exotic. Looking at the current line up of ARM CPU cores, the A77 cores seem to support the same instruction set as the A57 cores, making backwards capability simple (feel free to correct me if I am mistaken on this). There is always the possibility that 4 A57 cores could be retained for this as well, seeing as how they arent going to take up much dye space.
GPU cores would most likely be made of of Volta cores. They are rather new at the moment, but this is Nintendo we are talking about, in 2022, do we really expect Nintendo to be using anything more modern? Doubtful. The 7nm process would be pretty inexpensive at this point, and would in theory make 1024 GPU Volta cores at 1-1.5Ghz plausible within the power constraints of a portable system.
Memory bandwidth is hard to speculate because of how rapidly LPDDR memory is advancing. However, the move to a 128 bit memory bus at the very least is almost a sure thing. Being somewhat memory bandwidth limited is likely to remain a burden for portable processors for many years to come.
There have been rumors that Nintendo has partnered with Sharp for a new LCD screen. I do not see much benefit from going beyond a 1080p resolution in a screen that will likely be no larger than 7 inches, but color and contrast, as well as blacks are always a variable with LCD screens.
Nintendo has proven with Switch that their hybrid platform doesn't need, nor will it have parity with competing console manufactures when it comes to third party software support. So while the performance I have laid out in my speculation hardly puts it within a stones throw of what the PS5 will be capable of, it also wont be in all that different of a deficit as the Switch is with the PS4/X1, with the added benefit of being a proven platform that consumers are eager to purchase.
The processor is likely to be custom this time, but unlikely to be exotic. Looking at the current line up of ARM CPU cores, the A77 cores seem to support the same instruction set as the A57 cores, making backwards capability simple (feel free to correct me if I am mistaken on this). There is always the possibility that 4 A57 cores could be retained for this as well, seeing as how they arent going to take up much dye space.
GPU cores would most likely be made of of Volta cores. They are rather new at the moment, but this is Nintendo we are talking about, in 2022, do we really expect Nintendo to be using anything more modern? Doubtful. The 7nm process would be pretty inexpensive at this point, and would in theory make 1024 GPU Volta cores at 1-1.5Ghz plausible within the power constraints of a portable system.
Memory bandwidth is hard to speculate because of how rapidly LPDDR memory is advancing. However, the move to a 128 bit memory bus at the very least is almost a sure thing. Being somewhat memory bandwidth limited is likely to remain a burden for portable processors for many years to come.
There have been rumors that Nintendo has partnered with Sharp for a new LCD screen. I do not see much benefit from going beyond a 1080p resolution in a screen that will likely be no larger than 7 inches, but color and contrast, as well as blacks are always a variable with LCD screens.
Nintendo has proven with Switch that their hybrid platform doesn't need, nor will it have parity with competing console manufactures when it comes to third party software support. So while the performance I have laid out in my speculation hardly puts it within a stones throw of what the PS5 will be capable of, it also wont be in all that different of a deficit as the Switch is with the PS4/X1, with the added benefit of being a proven platform that consumers are eager to purchase.