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Confirmed: The Nintendo Switch is powered by an Nvidia Tegra X1

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The Third Heat

Neo Member
If sales drop, they will absolutely do that. Why else do you think Nintendo did a quick price drop for the 3DS or even did that $100 price drop for the GameCube? They didn't do it for the Wii U because they knew that it was more or less dead in the water

Well yeah, sure, but I think a bundle accomplishes that as much as a price drop. I'm mostly talking about the folks who speak of it as a given rather than a possibility, most likely looking at recent successes with PS4/XONE discounted bundles. It's not outside the realm of possibility, but I doubt we'll see a price drop in addition to bundles. One or the other. Nintendo does not like to be perceived as a discounted gaming company and I think they're very careful about how they handle pricing in regards to perception of value.
 

ethomaz

Banned
I just don't understand why Maxwell Tegra and not Pascal Tegra... the GPU on Pascal Tegra can reach 1.5Ghz while the Maxwell Tegra... and there are others enhancements like 8GB RAM with 128bits @ 58.4GB/s (vs 4GB 64bits @ 25.6GB/s).

It is a way better deal in terms of GPU.

CPU I don't know... maybe that is the case... 4x A57 in both but Pascal Tegra has 2x Denver while Maxwell Tegra has 4x A53... the clocks on Pascal reach 2.0Ghz while in Maxwel 1.9Ghz.

The CPU is that different to not be possible to use Pascal Tegra???
 

mario_O

Member
Yep, I can deal with the X1 without any problem, custom or not. I mean, I played with the Switch and no matter what the chipset inside is, I still enjoyed it! :lol

The thing is that they proclaimed that it was a customized chip, which is shady imo.

Well it is custom, they turned off the a53's. :p
 

KingSnake

The Birthday Skeleton
And what about SRAM? No way it handles games at up to 4.5x the resolution compared to Wii U with 25.6GB/s.

If it's a standard TX1 and we know that the RAM is also a standard Samsung LPDDR4, the 25GB/s bandwidth is pretty much guaranteed.

You have to consider that the RAM memory bandwidth of Wii U was also very low. It was helped by the ESRAM, but given the size of the latter restricted quite a bit how much it could compensate.

4.5 resolution is just the specific case of FRN, which as we discussed in the other thread was probably limited by the advanced graphical features that it tried to pull rather than anything else. And it's the exception.

All the other ports are a max of 2.5 increase in resolution.
 

Danny Dudekisser

I paid good money for this Dynex!
Ehh... I would feel the same. Nvidia said themselves its a customized Tegra, which is not the case and this is revealed after launch day so some people didn't even knew what they bought. This is misleading advertising. It is no joke. My question: How can you NOT be outrageous about this?!

Well, I agree that you're being outrageous about this, but this isn't misleading advertising. Frankly, I'm not even sure how you arrived at that conclusion.
 

guek

Banned
So Switch is only slightly more powerfull than the Wii? :p

What the fuck is this shit. Get your DBZ lore straight. Vegeta was humiliated by Android 18 in their first encounter and then came back to clown Imperfect Cell after a year in the RoSaT. Do you have any idea the gains he made in there? The situps? The pushups? The juice he drank? GTFO!
 
I think that those disappointed by the tech need to remember what the Switch actually is. It is a tablet computer. This image has the joy-cons still attached so it's actually even smaller than it appears to be here.

The Switch is absolutely tiny so when people say it's somewhere between Wii U and Xbox One that is a pretty great accomplishment. Sure it could be powered by a Tegra X2 but I'm sure that would have bumped up the price seeming as the processor isn't the only component of the Switch. There's the bundled joy-cons, the screen, the battery and various other parts. Sounds like Nintendo got a good deal on the X1 so I imagine anything more powerful would have bumped up the retail price.

That's what kills me. Seeing enthusiast gamers who should know better comparing this little thing to an f'in ps4. It's fine to have wanted something more powerful, but the comparison seems crazy ridiculous.
 

Bsigg12

Member
I would be OK with an iterative model for the Switch where every few years they update to a newer version of Tegra to allow it to be more capable while maintaining compatibility.
 

Padinn

Member
Being a straight tegra, while somewhat disappointing, bodes well for backwards compatibility on future consoles or revisions. Nintendi will have an upgrade path for the next several years like they did for GameCube through Wii U.

The custom work could be in the API and other aspects of the design.

As for Nvidias statement locking the clocks at lower speed could make it custom. These are the guys who sold the 970...
 

Astral Dog

Member
So Nintendo closed the gap somewhat compared to the systems already available but not by much...there was a time Nintendo consoles could stand toe-to-toe with the competition when it came to horsepower....all that now is but distant memory....

And with the issue being that as it is this hybrid console will barely last what 2 years before it becomes out-dated or 3rd party engines are incompatiable with it, how long before the Switch Scorpio or Switch Pro....? By that time we'll probably be on PS6 and Xbox-Alpha..
Lol. You think if they went more powerful it would make a difference for the Switch?
 

senj

Member
I'm not really into the technical talk, but can't the a53 work alongside the a57?

No. The OS can choose whether it wants to run all tasks on the 57's, or the low-power 53's, but it's an all-or-nothing choice. One bank of CPUs is powered down when the other is active.
 
They can be used, just not at the same time as any of the A57 cores, so if you could run the OS off them you could switch off the A57's, run the O/S off the A53's and benefit from a saving in power consumption due to the difference in power requirements of the core types, this is why the big.LITTLE design exists in the first place.

Unfortunately unlike other mobile devices, the Switch spends most of it's time requiring the beefier A57 cores, so the gains from switching are minimal, hence their likely lack of use.

Is this ultimately a hardware feature? Or is that something that can be changed with customization?
 

NOLA_Gaffer

Banned
I think that those disappointed by the tech need to remember what the Switch actually is. It is a tablet computer. This image has the joy-cons still attached so it's actually even smaller than it appears to be here.

On top of that less than half of the interior of the Switch is actual computing power. Most of it is battery and cooling.

inside-switch-.jpg
 
Well, I agree that you're being outrageous about this, but this isn't misleading advertising. Frankly, I'm not even sure how you arrived at that conclusion.

Looks like you are missing some information. Here you go:

https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2016/10/20/nintendo-switch/

Nintendo Switch is powered by the performance of the custom Tegra processor. The high-efficiency scalable processor includes an NVIDIA GPU based on the same architecture as the world’s top-performing GeForce gaming graphics cards.
 
This.

Glad this is over and done with. Now more people can talk about upcoming games for the system.
Or hell the NeoGAF past time of being armchair analysts and talking about specs instead of enjoying the games releasing by played them

Why cant people ask that the games like BOTW not run at bloody 20fps? whats wrong with asking that
 

LucidFlux

Member
As was expected, although the most optimistic scenarios for the hardware weren't going to make a dramatic difference in the end results we see on screen. It's obviously a bit disappointing they seemingly went with a stock TX1 with little to no hardware customizations as far as we can tell, but it's not like they promised us shield TV like performance and we ended up with another vita instead.

The people regretting their purchases or throwing a tantrum are way out of line. You may need a hug. We've known the general performance profile from the software we've seen. Like it or not, this is the only way you'll be able to enjoy many of these games for quite some time. Time to play!
 

Seik

Banned
Why am I supposed to pay 330 Euros for this tech then? HD Rumble lol?

-The touch screen
-RAM
-Two Joy-Cons
-Dock
-Joy-Con Grip
-Micro SD reader
-Wi-Fi board
-Cartridge reader port

ETC ETC ETC

I mean, come on guys, the retail price is not ONLY for the fucking chip. :lol
 

phanphare

Banned
I just cancelled my pre order

but seriously glad this is known. will be interesting to see how Nintendo goes about hardware iterations in the future.

edit: dammit felipepl!
 

Osiris

I permanently banned my 6 year old daughter from using the PS4 for mistakenly sending grief reports as it's too hard to watch or talk to her
Is this ultimately a hardware feature? Or is that something that can be changed with customization?

Well the cluster switching never worked too well anyway, so even nVidia doesnt use it on the X1 / Shield itself, so I can't see them activating it going forward.
 
So it has 4 A53's? What are they used for?

I think they are disabled. It's so stupid to literally buy on the shelf parts and claim to spend years designing the system lol. It's a lot less customized than MS's or Sony's systems. A positive thing is that games will be easy to emulated on PC and other ARM processors in the near future. I would say in the next year or so we will be seeing working emulators. Heck, I wouldn't be surprised if someone manages to clone a Switch into a shield tablet.
 

Hermii

Member
Well, thereitis.webm.

As it was most likely and expected. And as was said multiple times by Eurogamer. I hope now we can move on from the Foxconn clocks and 16nm dreams.
They say nothing about fabrication node, technically that could be the only customization.
 
Why cant people ask that the games like BOTW not run at bloody 20fps? whats wrong with asking that

It runs at 30 most of the time and drops rarely last for more than a handful of seconds (and drops are minor in handheld mode), also it's a launch port of a game built for the Wii U's ass backwards hardware and with more time the performance could have been much better, but they may fix it with a patch. Fast RMX runs at a higher resolution, a more stable frame rate and with better graphics than the Wii U game it's based on and Mario Kart 8 runs at a perfect 1080p 60fps compared to the Wii U's 720p 60fps.
Next question.
 
There was a rumor a long time ago that Nvidia had too much 20nm wafer's around, Tegra wasn't selling well, and Nvidia decided that they needed to cut a deal with someone for the wafers as they would lose more from the penalty of not using the foundry than selling at cost.

It was never confirmed, but it sure would explain why the Switch is what it is (Nintendo got one hell of a sweetheart deal).
 
Didn't someone in the other Switch spec thread test the Shield and found that it throttles?

Yeah it basically can only run the theoretical clocks for a few minutes before the termal throttling goes into effect. It averages put to the switches clocks over time.
 
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