| Soundwave said: I would not honestly mind if the NX is basically just a chip like this, this is roughly 15x more powerful than a Vita. Not only that but the A9X has a monstrous amount of memory bandwidth for a portable device at 50GB/sec. I have to wonder if at 960x540 resolution if it could maybe even handle PS4 engine ports. Of course not many devs will try. |
Where are you getting 15X faster than the Vita estimate?
I am going to put it bluntly -> Even if Apple designed a CPU/GPU 100X faster than PS4/XB1's or what Intel/AMD can do on the desktop for PC gaming, it means squat because without a proper eco-system, 1st party support and anyone interested in any serious gaming on an Apple device, it's all just a marketing gimmick. I never once picked up my iPad and iPhone thinking OMG I want to engage in 2-3 hours of serious gaming. As far as gaming is concerned, those devices are good for little kids of casual adult gamers, that's it.
As far as the NX goes, it's too hard to say what it will have but the key to the NX is gaining back 3rd party support and providing unique gaming experiences. Gaining 3rd party support first and foremost means allowing console developers to easily port XB1/PS4/PC games -- that automatically should rule out an ARM/A9/A10 style chip as it would be a total failure in this regard. Nintendo would be incredible stupid if they do not go with an x86 CPU and an AMD GPU (aka AMD APU) for the NX. Why? Because x86 guarantees that all future Nintendo consoles would have the greatest chance of being backwards compatible and having the x86 CPU+AMD GCN GPU provides the most seamless path for game companies to consider porting XB1/PS4/PC games directly to the NX. Furthermore, with its Asynchronous Compute Engines (ACEs), GCN architecture is easily the most future-proof architecture as far as graphics go for Nintendo. We have no clue how good the PowerVR graphics is for DX12/low-level API but we know from all the key developers working on games like Rise of the Tomb Raider, Uncharted 4, Gears of War Ultimate (PC), Ashes of Singularity, that Asynchronous Compute provides up to 30% or greater boost in performance. From this perspective, Apple's A9/A9X/A10 inside the NX shouldn't even be a part of the conversation. Further, there is no way Apple would sell its proprietary designed A9/A9X/A10 SOCs for cheap to Nintendo. Why would they when they can sell them for MASSIVE profit margins to Apple's customers? That's another reason why it's pointless to even contemplate the idea that Apple's SOC would find its way in the NX.
Either way, the graphics performance for budget desktop 2015 AMD GPU is so far ahead of A9/A9X, Apple isn't even on the map. Same for Nvidia:
GTX750Ti currently retails for $100 (which means this entire package can probably be purchased directly for $50-60 maximum!):
Since the NX is slated for 2016, this gives Nintendo even more room to cram a CPU+GPU combination that's as powerful as XB1/PS4 for an even lower cost than MS/Sony pay for AMD's APUs now. It's rumored that PS4 will soon get a price drop to $349 and by 2016, it's probably likely XB1 will drop to $299. If the NX can't even match the horsepower of XB1/PS4 graphically, Nintendo are really clueless about hardware design and they will get steamrolled as their NX console will end up as a stop-gap between PS4/XB1 and PS5/XB2. If Nintendo can't match the current consoles, they are doomed to fail because 3rd party developers will once again skip the NX.
