Nintendo Switch

[DrHouse64]

"much more powerful than the Wii U"

Hum, not that much. Sure, we don't know much about the X2, but if it's a X1 then it will be only slightly faster, depending on the situation.

[Kurausukun]

It doesn't really matter how much more powerful it is IMO. Once you have CPUs/GPUs at the level of around the 360/PS3/WiiU, you can make games look and run perfectly fine. Yes, we haven't quite hit the point of diminishing returns yet, but I really think that people care way too much about how powerful the system is. What's more important is that companies should optimize their fucking games.

[MayImilae]

DrHouse64 Wrote:but if it's a X1 then it will be only slightly faster, depending on the situation.

Ok! Did some research. By sharing the same architecture (RV700 series), clock speed (550mhz), and graphics core count (320 stream processors), the Wii U GPU is equivalent to the Radeon Mobility HD4650. Though the Wii U has half the texture processors (Wii U 320:16:8, Mobility HD4650 320:32:8), they are otherwise identical. Digital Foundry came to the same conclusion (though they compared it to a desktop 4650 with an underclock, but that's what the Mobility HD4650 is) so I'm quite confident in this analysis.

So let's see how these manage GFXBench!

T-Rex Offscreen
AMD Mobility Radeon HD4650 - 3664
Nvidia Shield Android TV (Tegra X1) - 6655

ALU
AMD Mobility Radeon HD4650 - 12690
Nvidia Shield Android TV - 27963

So um, the Tegra X1 is pretty much double the Wii U equivalent. That's a LOT! And if it is a Tegra X2 it would be even more.

This matches with footage we've seen of Breath of the Wild running much nicer on the Switch version than the Wii U version.

Sources:
Wii U specs
List of Mobility Radeon GPUs
GFXBench Comparison

[Shonumi]

I am the only one amazed by the thermal limits / performance ratio of devices like this these days? I think we take for granted that there's being a lot squeezed into a small package without catching fire. I mean, we don't know if the Switch will feel warm in our hands or if the vents or whatever are any good, but I don't think it'll be noticeable.

[DrHouse64]

Aw you got a point.

Can we also compare WiiU PPC CPU and X1 CPU ?

Speaking of thermal things, some developers claims that Switch dock adds additional cooling, allowing the hardware to be overclocked for 1080p rendering/upscale.

[MayImilae]

All evidence of the base doing anything has been put aside by this point. The current evidence is that the base doesn't do anything but help provide a steady steam of power (and since it's away from the player the fan will likely spin up faster) so it can increase to its max performance. That in turn lets it go from 720p to 1080p. And since the portable screen is only 720p, that works great.

[DrHouse64]

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2016-nintendo-switch-spec-analysis

GPU :
768MHz docked
307.2MHz undocked

Tegra X1 is 1 Ghz

:/

[admin89]

So Nvidia lied ...again

Nvidia Wrote: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.

Lol that . Nvidia top end card is ether Pascal GTX 1080 (for consumer) or GTX Titan XP (for rich dude). I would be amazed if the Custom Tegra chip had 10% the power of a GTX 1080
The sad truth is : Tegra X1 performance is somewhere between Intel HD 4600 and HD 530 (according to notebookcheck's benchmark )

[MayImilae]

*just woke up and is all caught up on eurogamer coverage*

Everything makes sense, really, so I'm pretty sure this leak is accurate. It's a Tegra X1! So shocking. I was definitely a little disappointed in the clockspeed reductions while docked. But as eurogamer explained, by lowering the clocks it is keeping thermals super stable so it never throttles. Not to mention it drops the power requirements quite a bit too. It makes sense. And still way stronger than a Wii U, so, eh.

As for the clockspeed while undocked, it completely makes sense. 1080p is 250% more pixels than 720p. 40 times 2.5 = 100! Simple.

So anyway, none of this is all that surprising, the Tegra X1 has been the center of the rumors for some time. I know some people were wanting the Switch to compete with the PS4 while being $200 while being a portable with 10 hours of battery life, but, that is really silly. This is still much more powerful than the Wii U, and it's a portable. You can think of it as a console that is much stronger than last gen but not current gen performance, and/or as the strongest portable console that has ever been made. Either way, it's a big leap for Nintendo.

Btw, even though it is maxwell, I'd like to point out that it's more complicated than that. As eurogamer explained, the Shield Android TV is (Maxwell Gen 2) and integrates a lot of features that weren't in Maxwell desktop GPUs but did end up in Pascal cards. Maxwell is very similar to Pascal after all, so a lot of these newer features could be added with Nintendo's customization. So don't get too fussy about the difference in architectures. The main difference between Maxwell and Pascal was the 16nm FINFET process, which allowed it to reach much higher clockspeeds with reasonable thermals. From the clockspeeds it is likely 20nm, or it could be 16nm and just super cool and quiet. We'll see which it is in time.

[DrHouse64]

You sure know how to demonstrate whatever Nintendo do is clever and good lol.

Well, let's hope for good games
And Nintendo please, make a good OS. WiiU one was slow and bad.

But 307.2 instead of 1000 MHz, ouch ! ><