SWITCH Rumor Round-up

[JEMC]

JustBeingReal said:

JEMC said:

And that's where it stops making sense.

Let's keep things sensible, shall we? No console that launches this year will have a Polaris based GPU. It's too new, too expensive and in too limited quantities to make any kind of sense to use them. Even the PS4/X1, that launched in late 2013, used graphic tech from early 2012 (which is when the HD 7870 was launched), because by then there were no problems with availability and the cost was low enough to make them feasible.

The NX won't have Polaris (or Zen, for the same reasons).

Actually it stays making sense thanks, considering that Polaris desktop and laptop parts are coming July to September it's entirely logical that Nintendo could have a SOC with those parts in it's system at the end of 2016.

Cost wise the actual chips used in a GPU usually account for about 1/3rd of the price of a retail Card's RRP, considering AMD plans to release a 40 CU model, which has performance of an R9 290x at under $349 thise would be entirely feasible for a dedicated gaming handheld device.

Costs are based on how many chips you can get off of one wafer, 14nm makes it possible to get many APUs off of one wafer and that basically improves the cost per unit considerably. New doesn't necessarily mean expensive, actually output being high makes costs cheap.

 

Please don't insult people by making out that this isn't sensible, when it actually is. I provided the source for a rumor and actually explained how it could be feasible for a handheld device. The tech exists, is launching to the mass market this year (the fabs are high performance, not low output), within the desktop and laptop markets, which are usually later to get newer parts than the server market is.

AMD wouldn't be releasing to the consumer market if volumes weren't high enough and the potential for handheld sales is high, so it makes perfect sense for this to be used in such a device.

The only real question is whether Nintendo would want handheld with that level of performance. Maybe they are going to bring a dedicated console, which would still need Polaris and Zen to be small form factor like Nintendo have shown themselves to be interested in using for their consoles since the Wii.

It's not as easy or simple as you think.

AMD has only stated that they'll start shipping thir Polaris GPUs between June and September for the important "Back to School" season, and portable GPU are expected to come first. We still don't know when desktop parts will come.

The 14nm manufacturing process (I'll leave the competing 16nm from TSMC aside as AMD won't use it for Polaris) is still fairly new to the point that AMD has split supplier between Global Foundries and Samsung. That's because the production volume is still not high enough to guarantee a good supply with only one source and also because while the process efficiency is acceptable enough to start mass producing them, that doesn't mean that it's as good as they would want it to be.

You are also forgetting that while NX could launch in November (that's when Nintendo usually launches its consoles), they will have to start producing them weeks before to have at least a certain amount to meet the demand at launch. Let's not forget the Digitimes report where they stated that Nintendo was targeting shipping 20 million NX in 2016. Even if they only reach half that production, that means months of production, not weeks.

Lastly, while you are completely correct saying that costs are based on how many chips you can get off of one wafer and that with 14nm you'll get more chips per waffer, you are forgetting two important things. 1- right now the process is not efficient enough and that the percentage of faulty chips is a lot higher than the 28nm counterpart; and 2-You are assuming that the 14 and 28nm cost of producing a waffer is the same, but it's not. 14nm demands better equipment and is considerably more expensive than 28nm, so even with the extra chips that they can get from it, the cost per chip is higher than a similar size chip at 28nm.

Oh, and that 40 CU chip from AMD is just speculation. We know from a leak that there will be a Polaris 10 chip with 36 CUs, and some are guessing that there will also be a higher version with 40, but nothing has been confirmed (or denied). And we don't know if that chip will replace the 290/390 series or if it will improve their performance.