• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

“NEW” Nintendo Switch review and Unboxing ( revision with Mariko SOC)

kraspkibble

Permabanned.
better battery life AND improved joycons? count me in.

would it be too much to ask for improved an improved wifi chip? might be pushing my luck here....i got an ethernet adapter for my Switch so no big deal but they absolutely NEED a better wifi chip on the Lite if it's not gonna get docked.
 
Last edited:

Javthusiast

Banned
Hmm, I have to make a decision. Get the cheaper Switch LITE on features, or this more expensive one with better battery and dock functionality.
 

McRazzle

Member
Hmm, I have to make a decision. Get the cheaper Switch LITE on features, or this more expensive one with better battery and dock functionality.
The Lite is a really bad value considering the battery life of the Switch revision, you also might want to wait and see how much ram is in the revision.
 

DESTROYA

Member
Better perf has to be placebo.
Not necessarily, switching to a smaller SOC can offer reduced power draw and run more efficiently which can lead higher sustained speeds for the GPU/CPU creating less heat and less throttling thus make it more stable .
I’m no expert but until we get a hands on detailed review by Digital Foundry I’m hoping for the best, not expecting a performance boost but more stable or less dips in frame rates preventing less stuttering in more demanding games.
Don’t ruin my fantasy bro :messenger_squinting_tongue:
 

McRazzle

Member
Better perf has to be placebo.
Nintendo says the Switch revision can run 4.5-9 hours in portable mode, and apparently the Switch is running somewhere around 5.5-6 hours in Fire Emblem and Zelda, so obviously it can run at higher clocks as it capable pf draining the battery faster than it currently is.
And if the Switch revision is using 2.6 watts on a 15.9 whr battery for Zelda in portable mode, the Switch Lite, which would run at the same clocks wouldn't have any need for a fan and an air vent, the only reason for the Lite to have them is if Nintendo is going to allow it to clock much higher.
 

Pimpbaa

Member
Not necessarily, switching to a smaller SOC can offer reduced power draw and run more efficiently which can lead higher sustained speeds for the GPU/CPU creating less heat and less throttling thus make it more stable .
I’m no expert but until we get a hands on detailed review by Digital Foundry I’m hoping for the best, not expecting a performance boost but more stable or less dips in frame rates preventing less stuttering in more demanding games.
Don’t ruin my fantasy bro :messenger_squinting_tongue:

Yeah but Nintendo don't run their mobile SoCs to the point of throttling like phone/tablet makers do. So it's as stable as it's going to get. If their was significant performance in this new revision, they would have put something on the box (or at least they should have). I mean the box art is only slightly different. It would just add a lot confusion among consumers and people working at the stores.
 

EverydayBeast

thinks Halo Infinite is a new graphical benchmark
Even though Nintendo releases new consoles, not one will matter given all the exclusives Nintendo has, which matters most.
 

ultrazilla

Member
From various reports Targets and Gamestops started receiving the revised Switch models today! Good luck
and post if you find/buy one!
 
Interesting review



Pros:

Improved battery life
Slightly improved performance
Better build quality on the joy-cons

Cons:
Its not the Pro we were hoping for
Overall I would say it’s a pretty significant revision , what do you guys think?


Did anyone expect this to be the Pro? It honestly sounds like a really good revision over the previous model. The battery life sounds much improved, going by that "Dreamcast Guy" video. Also, the performance upgrade is interesting. Especially in his Doom demonstration.

I guess we will have to wait for the Digital Foundry breakdown for some actual numbers, though.
 

Ovek

7Member7
Gonna wait until someone like ifixit rips one of the new ones apart to see if they have made improvements to the joycons and build quality in general.
 

JCK75

Member
Any other videos? I don't like this guy.

Glad I'm not the only one, I don't know why I don't like him he just seems really snarky about things he doesn't really understand, and I think it doesn't help that he looks like Corky from "Life Goes On" got hate fucked by Edward James Olmos.
 

McRazzle

Member
Spawn wave has the best unboxing until now .. he open it up and have side by side pic between the New and old chip


The die size hasn't really changed which means it's on 16nm, as there's no density improvement between 20nm and 16nm.
Reading about the TX2, it seems it provides twice the power per watt of the TX1, and taking into account the LPDDR4x would explain the battery life of the revision.

And someone has updated the Wikipedia entry for Tegra 214 (aka Mariko), according to it, it does a maximum of 649 Gflops, which I believe is about twice the OG Switch performance in docked mode.

 

DESTROYA

Member
The die size hasn't really changed which means it's on 16nm, as there's no density improvement between 20nm and 16nm.
Reading about the TX2, it seems it provides twice the power per watt of the TX1, and taking into account the LPDDR4x would explain the battery life of the revision.

And someone has updated the Wikipedia entry for Tegra 214 (aka Mariko), according to it, it does a maximum of 649 Gflops, which I believe is about twice the OG Switch performance in docked mode.

Using lower power RAM will not increase battery life up to two times using the same size battery, so there’s something else going on.
Don’t think they are using the TX2.
 

McRazzle

Member
Using lower power RAM will not increase battery life up to two times using the same size battery, so there’s something else going on.
Don’t think they are using the TX2.
They're using Mariko not TX2, but the power per watt should be similar.
Lpddr4x uses approximately 20% less power than lpddr4, and lpddr4x on 10nm uses 30% less power than regular lpddr4..
 

DESTROYA

Member
They're using Mariko not TX2, but the power per watt should be similar.
Lpddr4x uses approximately 20% less power than lpddr4, and lpddr4x on 10nm uses 30% less power than regular lpddr4..
That still wouldn’t explain almost twice the battery life, RAM doesn’t draw much power to begin with.
There’s more to the story than just low power RAM.
 

tkscz

Member
Did anyone over 25 yo really expect a pro version already? Not mockingly just.... Nintendo has barely started taking online serious, who thought theyd be on board for a niche hardware? Thats not their game.

With Nintendo it would follow the trend for their Handhelds with the exception of GB to GBC. GBA got upgraded with the GBA:SP about two years in. DS/DSlite got upgraded with the DSi (more RAM, better CPU, internal storage) two years in, and the 3DS got upgraded with the New 3DS (double the RAM, two more cores added to the CPU plus the clock speeds going from 233MHz to 822MHz) two years into it's life. If Nintendo follows this trend they have, we should be seeing an upgraded Switch sometime soon. Most likely it'll just double the RAM of 4GB to 8GB and increase the clocks.
 
Last edited:

Animagic

Banned
Sounds like the way I play is only minimally impacted (docked, handheld around the house). I will just stick with what I’ve got until revision 3.
 

Codes 208

Member
Don’t you have to do a system transfer?
The switch doesnt lock accounts to systems (theyve finally learned from the shitty wii u and 3ds policies...) If you factory reset your switch, sell it, buy a new one you can just put your account back on easy peasy.

As for save files, if you have a nintendo online sub, you have cloud saves that you can simply re-download.
 
Last edited:

ExpandKong

Banned
The switch doesnt lock accounts to systems (theyve finally learned from the shitty wii u and 3ds policies...) If you factory reset your switch, sell it, buy a new one you can just put your account back on easy peasy.

As for save files, if you have a nintendo online sub, you have cloud saves that you can simply re-download.

Is that so? Hoping that’s the case as I’m mulling over trading up. I googled around and I’m finding a bunch of fairly recent articles about “How to do a Switch system transfer” and they run through the whole process (sounds similar to the 3DS process, was added in the 4.0 firmware update).

Have you confirmed that your way works? And what about my SD card? Could I just pop it out of the old one, factory reset it, log into my account on the new one, pop in the SD card and be good to go?
 

McRazzle

Member
Spawn wave has the best unboxing until now .. he open it up and have side by side pic between the New and old chip



Unfortunately there's only 4GB of ram in the new Switch.

The writing on the ram in SpawnWave's video is K4U6E354AMMGCL.
The 6 stands for 16 Gigabits which is 2GB., and the MGCL is a suffix that stands for the operating temperature which is, -25c-85c
The closest I was able to find on Samsung's website was K4U6E354AM- with three different models with the suffixes -GFCL ,-GHCL and -GUCL; all of which indicate higher operating temperatures, than the MGCL suffix.
The speed of the ram listed on Samsung's website is 4266 Mbps, but considering the MGCL suffix on the revision, it likely means a lower clock for the ram.

 

Cattlyst

Member
Maybe I'm missing something, but what is the point of doing an boxing video of a console that looks exactly the same as the Switch most of us already own? I mean, if it looked physically different then maybe, but this seems pointless.
 

Ulysses 31

Member
Maybe I'm missing something, but what is the point of doing an boxing video of a console that looks exactly the same as the Switch most of us already own? I mean, if it looked physically different then maybe, but this seems pointless.
Clicks/views?
 

DESTROYA

Member
Maybe I'm missing something, but what is the point of doing an boxing video of a console that looks exactly the same as the Switch most of us already own? I mean, if it looked physically different then maybe, but this seems pointless.

Personally I’m not really into any unboxing videos either but more interesting in how it performs different or is more of the same old same old.

Clicks/views?


Maybe, but hopefully with these vids they can tell us if Nintendo addressed the joy-con drift some owners are having.
 

chaseroni

Member
Maybe I'm missing something, but what is the point of doing an boxing video of a console that looks exactly the same as the Switch most of us already own? I mean, if it looked physically different then maybe, but this seems pointless.
How would we know of any differences in hardware without taking it out of the box? Hardware revisions are interesting, even if they are minor in detail.
 

Codes 208

Member
Is that so? Hoping that’s the case as I’m mulling over trading up. I googled around and I’m finding a bunch of fairly recent articles about “How to do a Switch system transfer” and they run through the whole process (sounds similar to the 3DS process, was added in the 4.0 firmware update).

Have you confirmed that your way works? And what about my SD card? Could I just pop it out of the old one, factory reset it, log into my account on the new one, pop in the SD card and be good to go?
I can confirm because i ended up returning my first switch due to a screen defect a few months after i got it. After i bought a new one, it was like putting it on the first time.

And about three months ago i did a factory reset (i was planning on selling my switch to make a bit of money since i had been unemployeed for a couple months at that point) and as soon as i did i got a call from my parents who ended up borrowing my switch as collateral for helping me pay my bills. But before i did that, i set my account back up and it was a pretty simple process, no need to call nintendo support unlike the 3ds line, I assure you.

As for the sd card, if you reformat it, you should be good, but just remember saves wont transfer that way since saves are actually a part of the internal memory on the switch. But again, if you have a NOS you can redownload your saves via the cloud (this is what i did when i reformatted my switch.)
 

Codes 208

Member
Maybe I'm missing something, but what is the point of doing an boxing video of a console that looks exactly the same as the Switch most of us already own? I mean, if it looked physically different then maybe, but this seems pointless.
Some people are curious as to if theres other changes aside from better battery life. Keep in mind not everyone is up to date on gaming trends.
 

SonGoku

Member
I think it’s a pretty easy decision, just pay the extra $100 bucks and you get the full Nintendo Switch experience.While the Lite is still cool I think it’s portable only mode is to limiting .
plus some games look and play like shit on handheld mode
 

alf717

Member
For me its more than just the un-boxing. Spawn hit all of my interests in his video. I want to see what is inside the new revision not just some possible placebo talk that it works better because the box is red. So we know the RAM has been revised as well as the SOC these two components alone are where the power save is coming from but more importantly will be the break down of the SOC. Could it be possible that the JoyCon controllers themselves could save on battery as well? Perhaps they require less power to recharge.
 

DESTROYA

Member
Most people’s complaints about the joy-cons is the stick drift issue not necessarily battery life, but if you can get almost double the battery life it’s a win in my book.
 

ExpandKong

Banned
I can confirm because i ended up returning my first switch due to a screen defect a few months after i got it. After i bought a new one, it was like putting it on the first time.

And about three months ago i did a factory reset (i was planning on selling my switch to make a bit of money since i had been unemployeed for a couple months at that point) and as soon as i did i got a call from my parents who ended up borrowing my switch as collateral for helping me pay my bills. But before i did that, i set my account back up and it was a pretty simple process, no need to call nintendo support unlike the 3ds line, I assure you.

As for the sd card, if you reformat it, you should be good, but just remember saves wont transfer that way since saves are actually a part of the internal memory on the switch. But again, if you have a NOS you can redownload your saves via the cloud (this is what i did when i reformatted my switch.)

So for the second one, if I’m understanding you correctly, it was basically just reactivating the account on the same Switch, right?

I’m inclined to believe it’ll work out the way you describe...wondering if anyone can provide more confirmation. Worst case scenario I guess is I have to call Nintendo with the serials and have them switch over the licenses (like they’d do on lost/stolen 3DS systems).

Don’t think my Gamestop has any of the new ones yet anyway.
 
Last edited:

DarkestHour

Banned
The switch doesnt lock accounts to systems (theyve finally learned from the shitty wii u and 3ds policies...) If you factory reset your switch, sell it, buy a new one you can just put your account back on easy peasy.

As for save files, if you have a nintendo online sub, you have cloud saves that you can simply re-download.

What if I want to have my games on two Switch units like Sony permits with the PS4, can I do that?
 
Top Bottom