Unverified dev guesses: NX might more powerful than PS4/XBONE, based on a PC demo...

[JEMC]

se7en7thre3 said:

JEMC said:

se7en7thre3 said:

If Nintendo does go with Arctic Islands NX can very well match or exceed PS4

AMD 14nm/16nm Arctic Islands GPUs Arriving In 2016

 "Su confirmed that AMD is set to update its entire graphics portfolio in 2016.  The new family of GPUs will feature significant architectural enhancements as well as cutting edge FinFET process technology to deliver twice the performance per watt of AMD’s current graphics offerings."

"This graphics architecture will power everything from next generation mobile and desktop GPUs to APUs and semi-custom chips. There’s also strong evidence to suggest that Nindendo’s next generation gaming device “Nintendo NX” – which is coming next year – will be powered by an AMD semi-custom SOC. Making it a very likely candidate to feature AMD’s 3rd generation “Arctic Islands” GCN architecture." 

Be careful with Wccftech. What they publish is mostly industry rumors (without verifying if they are true or not), and that last sentence is pure and simply a guess.

Also, just to say it all, "Artic Islands" is the code name of the next gen of graphic cards from AMD, but in those "Artic Islands" there are three different designs: Greenland for the high end, Ellesmere for the mid-range and Baffin for the low end, so even if Nintendo used one of the Artic Islands chips, it could be weaker than PS4/X1.

In summary, don't believe anything about NX unless it comes Nintendo or from one of those articles where a console is teared appart and its components are revealed.

Arctic Islands would also fit the "leading industry chips" statement, and as far as the different design levels, most of us agree Nintendo will be on the conservative side.  But again, its the TWICE PERFORMANCE PER WATT, that gives the possibility for decent grunt, that may be around or even exceed PS4.  

The purpose, for nintendo, is not bragging rights, but to secure and eliminate bad port excuses from third parties.  NX is launching mid gen so there is a lot of time left for nintendo to capitalize off of ports to stabilize their library.  This is in contrast to wii u, which launched at the end of a gen and didnt enjoy ports for more than a year.  There is good incentive this time around for Nintendo to match power of the competition, for at least one of the NX iterations.

The "twice performance per watt" is theorical, and with a new process that won't be possible with the first products, so don't bet on it in 2016/2017. Also, the "twice performance per watt" statement can also be read as "same performance while cutting the watts in half". Nintendo has been very focused on low power consoles, and if they somehow end up using an Artic Islands family chip, they could use one with very low power consumption that would still be less powerful than a PS4 (a PS4 uses around 130-140W when gaming, cutting that in half is still 70W or almost twice what Wii U uses).

And last but not least, you have to take into consideration two things: the current AMD products are "industry leading chips", because it's the best thing AMD has now. And it's now that we have had that article. It's important to know that AMD only tapped out Zen and Greenland in July as this wccftech article mentioned. Those samples are for engineering purposes and once they left the fab where they were made, they went to AMD to never leave because they will be used to learn how to improve their manufacturing design (to get more working chips) and to determine the optimal voltage and frequencies. It's impossible that one of those chips were on that dev kit.