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A Nintendo Switch has been taken apart
- Thread starter Dystify
- Start date
Cuningas de Häme
Member
We've known for a while that at least a majority of it is true. Performance unknown still.
Yup. capcom specifically brought up 2 gigs, they told Nintendo it wasn't enough. The next time around, Capcom was very pleased with the amount of RAM. That means it increased and for them to be pleased it probably wasn't just throwing one extra gig in. They AT LEAST doubled it. They could have even put more than 4 in tbh, but for cost reasons that's probably where it topped out. capcom has had no issues getting games to run it...
and they are even getting RE 7's engine to work on it. I mean, the Switch is no PS4/Scorpio,m but for what it does... it's pretty enticing stuff.
It's a potentially untapped market. Nintendo is betting the farm on it. So much so we now know that EA, Activision, AND CAPCOM all played a role in the system in some way during development, while Nintendo went with a western based company to make the tech and dev tools.
I wish we could glean something more from this tear down, but we need one of those... what are they, board x-ray shots? Something like that to even begin proper analyzing. Otherwise it's just black and silver boxes with us wondering what's below. I doubt anyone is going to take them off either, as it could massively damage the parts.
Inspectah_Deck
Member
I made something explaining the cooling, for all the people that don´t know what they are looking at, but are still curious:
No they didn't. They just said that they asked Nintendo to increase the RAM amount, which they did.
frankie_baby
Member
Yeah probably, its just the increading it at capcpom's request that throws me, i honestly can't see them have been originally planning on 2 so that only leaves going from 3 to 4 or 4 to 6 as possibilities
UnemployedVillain
Member
No they didn't. A specific number was never mentioned
There's no proof of this. Logically, it makes sense that they were planning on 3 at a minimum considering that's what the default Tegra X1 has
Cool, pun intended. They seem to also cool the battery at the same time.
Also, is it an alu block on the ram chips?
Arent your cool air and hot air arrows switched and upside down?I made something explaining the cooling, for all the people that don´t know what they are looking at, but are still curious:
JonnyDBrit
Member
After looking, the bottom code on the RAM looks something like... E9K4889D, though the two '9's look different from each other so I'm not certain.
Meanwhile, the numbers beneath the 31 in SEC 531 look to be 33, and the same line starts with a K - unfortunately the Chinese characters cover up anything in between.
Edit:
Cool air drawn in from the back, while heat from the CPU is transferred along the pipe and blown out by the fan, I think is what they're going for.
Rushersauce
Banned
It would be amazing if it's 6. But I doubt it.
HD Rumble is probably little more than some linear actuators at the top and bottom of every joy con, coupled with a few of the oldschool rotating vibration motors. It likely similar to Apple's taptic engine used in iPhones and macbooks.
For example, the ball counting minigame in 12S. The virtual balls roll towards the top of the controller, once they hit the virtual edge you'll feel two or three little taps out of the linear actuator at the top of the joy-con that simulates the balls hitting the edge. Roll it back and it'll do the same for the other side.
It's really not that miraculous and I doubt it'll change games much, but it's a neat addition.
Snarfington
Member
I guess this explains why the battery isn't removable. It's organised so that everything perfectly fits the space. I'm glad to see that and I'd take something carefully engineered to this degree over a replaceable battery. Never had to replace a Nintendo system battery, anyways.
Just about every Nintendo hardware has pretty good PCB layout. This is just another example of this, and it's pretty impressive how consistent their quality is when it come to that part of the design.
3 to 4 makes sense. 3 is the amount Shield TV has, so considering 0.75GB for the OS they would've only had 2.25GB of RAM to work with. 3.25 is a lot better, it's "only" 1.75GB less than what current gen consoles have.
Pancake Mix
Copied someone else's pancake recipe
There's no fan in the dock, it would defy the laws of physics. We've seen the dock from pretty much every angle, there's no vents in it for starters.
Thanks!
Damn, I must have misread the tweets/quotes then. I swore they said 2 gigs somewhere. Oh well, it's still highly likely to be more than 2 gigs for Capcom to be happy and consider making AAA games for it.
The unit is upside down in the image.
Inspectah_Deck
Member
Nah, that way the fan would push the hot air from the heatsink into the unit.
pinkurocket
Member
Yes, I initially posted a misinterpreted picture showing the Switch fan near a big piece of plastic which I thought was the dock taken apart. But it wasn't. u_u
LordOfChaos
Member
Die scan yesterday plox!
JonnyDBrit
Member
2 gigs is based on the fact that's what the Wii U had, and since the Switch would presumably have been built to at least match Wii U performance in a portable form factor, the conclusion was drawn that they may have thought they could stick with the same amount again.
KidGalactus
Member
You can get Surface Pro tablets with 8 gigs of RAM, but nowhere near the cost of this thing.
Xdrive05
Member
Realistically when can we expect a die scan? Any chance before launch?
People kept mentioning the Gamecube, so I looked it up
Holy fuck
The GC was such a beautifully designed piece of kit
One thing I am curious about with the dock though.
So for cooling, air is sucked through the bottom basically and spit out the top. That's fine in handheld gaming and makes sense. Blow the hot air away from the player. However, when docked, it sits in there really snug. If there are no vents on the dock, where exactly is the Switch pulling air in to cool things? Especially if the rumors of it running faster when docked are true?
If you cover the intake vents on your computer, it heats up badly and can easily overheat. While this is a tablet, it doesn't really feature passive cooling like say, a phone does. It has active cooling, so wouldn't covering up any possible air intakes massive negate it's ability to cool?
Maybe we're wrong is assuming where the air is being pulled from?
So for cooling, air is sucked through the bottom basically and spit out the top. That's fine in handheld gaming and makes sense. Blow the hot air away from the player. However, when docked, it sits in there really snug. If there are no vents on the dock, where exactly is the Switch pulling air in to cool things? Especially if the rumors of it running faster when docked are true?
If you cover the intake vents on your computer, it heats up badly and can easily overheat. While this is a tablet, it doesn't really feature passive cooling like say, a phone does. It has active cooling, so wouldn't covering up any possible air intakes massive negate it's ability to cool?
Maybe we're wrong is assuming where the air is being pulled from?
LordOfChaos
Member
Does this confirm 20nm? Was a pretty leaky fab, but might be a new revision.
Pancake Mix
Copied someone else's pancake recipe
It's no problem, I don't mean to gang up on you, sorry but I saw a few posters reply that there was one or may be one. I just wanted to repeat it for a new page since we've seen the dock from pretty much every angle now.
No. It's a custom chip and we don't know enough about it. Seems pretty obvious based on everything we know though.
Probably not. Nothing really new to significant.
frankie_baby
Member
With the system being a good chunk more powerful than Wii U i dont for a second think nintendo would have ever considered just having the same amount of ram as it
UnemployedVillain
Member
That makes no sense. No Nintendo system has ever kept the same amount of RAM as its predecessor. There was no chance of it only being 2GB like the Wii U. Also people are forgetting the leaked docs say DDR4, while the Wii U had 2GB of DDR3 (granted it also had a 32MB eDRAM pool), so in addition to more it's also faster
frankie_baby
Member
It looks like it, but the problem is that I can actually find a photo online matching SEC 531, which is this one from Samsung's press website:
The first issue is that, looking up the chip in the photo, it's a 3GB 3733MT/s module, not a 2GB 3200MT/s module that we would expect from the leak. Even aside from that, it's not the same shape as the one we see on Switch's motherboard, looking like a square (or almost square) module, whereas the RAM modules we're looking at are rectangular.
In terms of package size, the most likely candidate would be K4F6E304HB-MGCH, which is Samsung's only listed 15mm x 10mm LPDDR4 module, matching what we see here. It's also a 2GB 3200MT/s module, which matches what we've heard from all the leaks thus far.
It's not impossible that it may be a custom RAM module, with Nintendo favouring using a different memory configuration in a 15x10 package just because they're squeezed for space, but I wouldn't necessarily expect that.
For the moment my money's on K4F6E304HB-MGCH, but I'll wait until we have a higher-res photo to be sure.
Cool, thanks. I'm glad you all get some new details to nerd out on at least.
https://www.google.com/amp/www.poly...oes-the-nintendo-switch-dock-do?client=safari
If you look at the picture of the dock it has an elongated hole in the back where the switches vents presumably are. Maybe that hole is for cooling purposes?
Yes, some users around here went "lol Nintendo wanted to go with 2GB lololol" without any proof, unsurprisingly
What would the bus be with these chips? 64 or 128 bit?
JonnyDBrit
Member
I suspect that may explain why there's the hole in the back of the dock here:
As well as a grill design above the presumable hub. Air is drawn in through those to the back of the Switch while docked.
I'm thinking I might go this route as well, except I already own a PS4. Honestly, with my decreasing free time and adult responsibilities, I may just go Nintendo/PC in the future.
Skittzo0413
Member
It looks more to me like SEC 521 than 531, though google isn't showing me anything for 521. Custom seems possible though yeah.
Some higher res pictures would indeed be nice.
JonnyDBrit
Member
Hey, I never said it was a necessarily correct conclusion for people to make.
I've been looking at this too - I saw E9K4885D (or E9K4BB5D) (5 could also be an S). I also don't think this info is the product/part number (edited in this part). At any rate, I don't think I need to have them exactly right to find a matching product - the start is enough. I've been browsing Samsungs product data sheets to see if I can find a match - so far, no luck. Here is where I'm looking: https://memorylink.samsung.com/ecom...hones&appNo=smartPhones&appLabel=Smart Phones
Yes, some users around here went "lol Nintendo wanted to go with 2GB lololol" without any proof, unsurprisingly
What would the bus be with these chips? 64 or 128 bit?
Oh, yeah, I should have included that.
The SEC 531 chip pictured is K3RG4G40MM-MGCJ, which is 3GB, 3733 MT/s with a 64-bit interface, meaning a maximum total bandwidth of 59.5GB/s on a 128-bit bus.
The 10x15mm chip is K4F6E304HB-MGCH, which is 2GB, 3200MT/s with a 32-bit interface, meaning a total of 25.6GB/s of bandwidth on a 64-bit bus.
just need ps now to include the ps4 games and we get best of all worlds ..
frankie_baby
Member
dampflokfreund
Banned
Gosh, I hope its a 128 Bit Bus. 64 Bit would be a gigantic bottleneck. And also, 128 Bit would confirm 16nm, am I right?
Skittzo0413
Member
Thats 100% definitely 531
Ah! Didn't look for it in that picture, my bad.
When zoomed in it could look like 631 or even 831 but that's probably just my eyes playing tricks on me.