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A Nintendo Switch has been taken apart

J

joesiv

Member
Becuase I was curious, I have compared both the X1 die and the die shot of the Switch, and indeed they do look near identical, hard to tell 100% sure because the quality of the X1 die shot. But if you overlay them on top of each other, and flip between them, it's hard to find any difference (btw, the switch shot is 90% flipped compared to the X1 one)

Nvidia-T210-med.jpg


g7C1bQq.jpg


I made a nice PSD for easy comparison, but I can't seem to log into my fileserver right from work.
 
L

lutheran

Member
Not surprising at all, Nvidia and their 500 man years remark was just marketing BS. Like everyone else you get caught up in the hype a little and hope for something surprising but when you realize it is Nintendo and add in the form factor and portable nature of the hardware and well this was probably the only logical outcome. Still by far the most powerful handheld console every made and still it is at least 2 times as powerful as a Wii U (a system, IMO anyway, that had some pretty damn nice looking games). I just hope it is powerful enough to not dissuade 3rd party console developers from considering this system going forward. The 3DS developers SHOULD have a field day with this system, hopefully the Switch is Nintendo's only device going forward (if not hopefully the other device is a cheaper Switch derivative that can play all the same games but only in portable mode and vice versa)
 
K

KingSnake

The Birthday Skeleton
Hermii said:
Yea it still could be 16nm I suppose.

Really doubt it though.
Click to expand...

As I said in the other thread too, no it can't be 16nm since it's specifically stated in their analysis that it's a Maxwell. More so it's a GM20B Maxwell core. GM20B being the exact same GPU that it's in the Jetson TX1.
 
blu

blu

Wants the largest console games publisher to avoid Nintendo's platforms.
Nvidia_T210_med.png
Click to expand...
So, green - A53 cluster (with L2 caches), yellow - A57 cluster (with L2) and red - SMs?

And, no, I definitely did not expect an off-the-shelf SoC* in a nintendo console. That's a first.

* Which must be the case if they kept the A53's as dark silicon in there.
 
H

Hermii

Member
KingSnake said:
As I said in the other thread too, no it can't be 16nm since it's specifically stated in their analysis that it's a Maxwell. More so it's a GM20B Maxwell core. GM20B being the exact same GPU that it's in the Jetson TX1.
Click to expand...
Yea I saw your response in the other thread.

If it's the exact same with a die shrink, wouldn't it be called the same? When other consoles get slim versions, does that change anything about architecture or chip names?

Not that I think it's 16nm btw.
 
K

KingSnake

The Birthday Skeleton
Hermii said:
Yea I saw your response in the other thread.

If it's the exact same with a die shrink, wouldn't it be called the same? When other consoles get slim versions, does that change anything about architecture or chip names?

Not that I think it's 16nm btw.
Click to expand...

It wouldn't be Maxwell architecture anymore.

And the GPU name changes based on the architecture:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tegra

GK20A (Kepler)

GM20B (Maxwell)

GP10B (Pascal)

Probably a GV10B will exists at some point.
 
blu

blu

Wants the largest console games publisher to avoid Nintendo's platforms.
BTW, where did the original TX1 die shot come from?
 
O

OryoN

Member
I remember the Wii U die shot raising more questions than answers, at least initially. This Switch die shot kinda makes things simple in that regard. Is it fair to say that the final piece to this puzzle is clock CPU/GPU speed?
 
D

Donnie

Member
Well quite amazing if they've altered absolutely nothing, is this the first time ever in console or handheld that they've used a off the shelf part with absolutely no alterations?, must be. Haven't even removed CPU cores that aren't being used..
 
R

Rodin

Member
blu said:
So, green - A53 cluster (with L2 caches), yellow - A57 cluster (with L2) and red - SMs?

And, no, I definitely did not expect an off-the-shelf SoC* in a nintendo console. That's a first.

* Which must be the case if they kept the A53's as dark silicon in there.
Click to expand...

Can that cache be used by both the CPU and the GPU and act a bit like the Wii U's eDRAM thanks to TBR? Or it's a different thing?

I'm trying to understand if they have more peak bandwidth compared to the 25.6GB/s of the main pool.

McMilhouse said:
Haha I said this would be a underclocked stock tegra x1 and people tore me to pieces
Click to expand...

There's another thread for these posts mate
 
LordOfChaos

LordOfChaos

Member
Rodin said:
Can that cache be used by both the CPU and the GPU and act a bit like the Wii U's eDRAM thanks to TBR? Or it's a different thing?

I'm trying to understand if they have more peak bandwidth compared to the 25.6GB/s of the main pool.



There's another thread for these posts mate
Click to expand...

Afaik, the GPU L2 is just enough for TBR, so not something you'd use as a CPU-GPU stratchpad like the Wii U memory could be. But, on the principal of being an SoC rather than a multi-chip module, it may be less of a problem anyways.

Anyone know if the TX1 was HSA compliant?
 
T

T0wRen

Member
Any idea if they were able to mod it enough to keep the A53 cores simultaneously active with the A57 cores? Meaning, the OS and networking could be completely off-loaded to the A53 cores while the A57's are 100% dedicated to games?
 
O

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
LordOfChaos said:
Afaik, the GPU L2 is just enough for TBR, so not something you'd use as a CPU-GPU stratchpad like the Wii U memory could be. But, on the principal of being an SoC rather than a multi-chip module, it may be less of a problem anyways.

Anyone know if the TX1 was HSA compliant?
Click to expand...

Nope, NVIDIA was rumoured to be introducing HSA-like unified memory access with X2.

See the (UMA) reference in this pic:

NVDA_DRIVEPX2_4_Compute.jpg



T0wRen said:
Any idea if they were able to mod it enough to keep the A53 cores simultaneously active with the A57 cores? Meaning, the OS and networking could be completely off-loaded to the A53 cores while the A57's are 100% dedicated to games?
Click to expand...

No, there is no visible difference to the stock X1 die, it has the same layout and therefore uses the same custom cluster interconnect with the same limitations.
 
O

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
Rodin said:
I thought about this too but i'm not sure about how it works.


Could this be one of the customizations of the chip?
Click to expand...

No, as I stated above, that would be visible as a pretty large difference between the die-shots, the Switch SoC and X1 share the same identical layout including NVIDIA's custom cluster interconnect.
 
C

Clessidor

Member
So those A53 chips will probably never be used by the Switch itself and are just there because of the TX1 design. Well to be fair we never expect them to be there in the first place.

Or would be there any cases where it might make sense for the Switch to switch from A57 cores to the A53 ones?
 
S

Smurfman256

Member
Clessidor said:
So those A53 chips will probably never be used by the Switch itself and are just there because of the TX1 design. Well to be fair we never expect them to be there in the first place.

Or would be there any cases where it might make sense for the Switch to switch from A57 cores to the A53 ones?
Click to expand...

If Nintendo were to re-write their firmware to run off of the A53 cores, but I do believe someone said that the Tegra X1 can't run both clusters simultaneously (then why fucking PUT THEM IN THERE, NVIDIA?!), so it's pretty much wasted silicon.
 
J

joesiv

Member
Smurfman256 said:
If Nintendo were to re-write their firmware to run off of the A53 cores, but I do believe someone said that the Tegra X1 can't run both clusters simultaneously (then why fucking PUT THEM IN THERE, NVIDIA?!), so it's pretty much wasted silicon.
Click to expand...
well if not gaming, say using Netflix or the browser you could have better battery life.... maybe when you are suspended or in the is it already swaps cores. its supposed to be seamless....
 
blu

blu

Wants the largest console games publisher to avoid Nintendo's platforms.
LordOfChaos said:
Fritzchens Fritz working off a retail Shield TV TX1.
Click to expand...
Yes, I checked his work on flickr - impressive, to say the least.

Rodin said:
Can that cache be used by both the CPU and the GPU and act a bit like the Wii U's eDRAM thanks to TBR? Or it's a different thing?
Click to expand...
You're referring to the A53 cluster cache, right?

Not out of the question, but very unlikely nevertheless. Keep in mind this is a pre-HMP CCI, so its coherence capabilities are lower than those of newer CCIs (which is where the whole HMP hoopla comes from). Whether its AMBA AXI is up to the task *and* could be entirely dedicated to GPU communication... We might never know, safe for some clever sw analysis. Here's a good paper for one to get educated on AMBA.


LordOfChaos said:
Anyone know if the TX1 was HSA compliant?
Click to expand...
Your question largely overlaps with Rodin's question above - it really depends what AMBA AXI level sits in there. NV never touted TX1 as UMA (fun fact: NV got HSA's chief architect in 2015), but ARM's recent CCI's are HSA-compliant (ARM is a HSA Foundation member).

Osiris said:
Nope, NVIDIA was rumoured to be introducing HSA-like unified memory access with X2.

See the (UMA) reference in this pic:
<snip>
Click to expand...
Keep in mind NV's idea of UMA and HSA Foundation's idea of, well, HSA, might not entirely overlap. HSA's memory model is relaxed enough that a program written entirely in atomic operations of relaxed order can be perfectly valid. We don't know what NV imply by UMA - it could be a strong memory model, a weak memory model, or a relaxed model, where HSA's "relaxed" and NV's "relaxed" don't match.
 
T

Thraktor

Member
The decision to use a stock TX1 is certainly surprising, as far as I'm aware its the first time ever that Nintendo have used an off the shelf SoC in any of their consoles or handhelds. It doesn't have a whole lot of an effect on performance expectations (I wasnt expecting anything drastically different from TX1 anyway), but it's interesting from the point of view of Switch's design process. Is it possible, for example, that the planned NX under Iwata was quite different to the Switch we've got from Kimishima? If Kimishima had decided to change course in late 2015 shortly after taking over it may have been decided that using an off the shelf TX1 was the only way to guarantee a timely release.

In other news, it seems like Switch actually has a pretty well-featured browser hidden in there. Case in point: I'm posting from it right now ;)
 
H

Hermii

Member
Thraktor said:
The decision to use a stock TX1 is certainly surprising, as far as I'm aware its the first time ever that Nintendo have used an off the shelf SoC in any of their consoles or handhelds. It doesn't have a whole lot of an effect on performance expectations (I wasnt expecting anything drastically different from TX1 anyway), but it's interesting from the point of view of Switch's design process. Is it possible, for example, that the planned NX under Iwata was quite different to the Switch we've got from Kimishima? If Kimishima had decided to change course in late 2015 shortly after taking over it may have been decided that using an off the shelf TX1 was the only way to guarantee a timely release.

In other news, it seems like Switch actually has a pretty well-featured browser hidden in there. Case in point: I'm posting from it right now ;)
Click to expand...

Early leaks were pointing to a state of the art soc, and Nate drake heard Nintendo considered pascal but decided maxwell in the end. We may never know the full story of how stock hardware ended up in the Switch.
 
jts

jts

...hate me...
Thraktor said:
The decision to use a stock TX1 is certainly surprising, as far as I'm aware its the first time ever that Nintendo have used an off the shelf SoC in any of their consoles or handhelds. It doesn't have a whole lot of an effect on performance expectations (I wasnt expecting anything drastically different from TX1 anyway), but it's interesting from the point of view of Switch's design process. Is it possible, for example, that the planned NX under Iwata was quite different to the Switch we've got from Kimishima? If Kimishima had decided to change course in late 2015 shortly after taking over it may have been decided that using an off the shelf TX1 was the only way to guarantee a timely release.

In other news, it seems like Switch actually has a pretty well-featured browser hidden in there. Case in point: I'm posting from it right now ;)
Click to expand...

Does it play nice with Youtube?
 
LordOfChaos

LordOfChaos

Member
Thraktor said:
The decision to use a stock TX1 is certainly surprising, as far as I'm aware its the first time ever that Nintendo have used an off the shelf SoC in any of their consoles or handhelds. It doesn't have a whole lot of an effect on performance expectations (I wasnt expecting anything drastically different from TX1 anyway), but it's interesting from the point of view of Switch's design process. Is it possible, for example, that the planned NX under Iwata was quite different to the Switch we've got from Kimishima? If Kimishima had decided to change course in late 2015 shortly after taking over it may have been decided that using an off the shelf TX1 was the only way to guarantee a timely release.

In other news, it seems like Switch actually has a pretty well-featured browser hidden in there. Case in point: I'm posting from it right now ;)
Click to expand...

Hah, nice twist ending :p

Can you tell what the browser is based off? Webkit? What version?
 
T

Thraktor

Member
jts said:
Does it play nice with Youtube?
Click to expand...

Yep.

LordOfChaos said:
Hah, nice twist ending :p

Can you tell what the browser is based off? Webkit? What version?
Click to expand...

Here's the user agent string:

Mozilla/5.0 (Nintendo Switch; WifiWebAuthApplet) AppleWebKit/601.6 (KHTML, like Gecko) NF/4.0.0.5.9 NintendoBrowser/5.1.0.13341

EleventhHourSuperpower said:
Less than two weeks so I hope this bump is okay. Someone seems to have opened a Switch game card to show us what's inside.

Nintendo Switch Game Card Teardown & Taste Test

Looks exactly like you'd expect it to, ROM chip, nothing else. Looks kind of neat imo
Click to expand...

Not entirely surprising, given they dropped on-card saves, but interesting to see nonetheless. I'd be interested to see a variety of different games opened up to compare the codes on the ROM chips to see if we could decipher them, but I doubt anyone wants to donate their copy of Zelda to the cause.
 
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