SWITCH Rumor Round-up

[JEMC]

JustBeingReal said:

Actually it is that simple, for one thing Polaris 10 is confirmed as the line for the high end desktop market, 11 is the mobile and smaller desktop line, but all use the same Polaris architecture.

Just because Nintendo are targeting 20 million units shipped by the end of Fiscal Year 2016 that doesn't mean they need all of those units at launch or even for this year. A few million units is plenty for launch, plus you have to remember that a wafer could produce way more SOCs at that level of performance for a Handheld than if they were used for high-end GPU chips.

Supply targets are only targets, tbh it's not reasonable that Nintendo would think they could sell 20 million units by even June 2017, not if they plan to release this Holiday. 20 million could maybe be sold before the Fall of 2017, if the NX handheld or whatever it is, was attractively priced to the point where they're flying off of shelves like Wii or PS2 did.

When Nintendo says they're targeting to ship by the end of 2016, they mean Fiscal year end, which is March 2016. If Polaris is available between July and September of this year, then Nintendo could start production when that begins. If Foxconn makes and ships 1 million NX devices a month from August through to November that's 3 million units available to sell by November.

Foundaries can provide higher chip volumes and Nintendo can ramp up volumes of consoles as we enter 2017 (calendar year), to increase shipped units to their target by the end of the fiscal year. Monthly quantities don't have to be the same, they can increase in output each month.

It's possible that AMD split between two foundaries, one for their own chips that they will sell to the consumer market for GPUs and the other for semi-custom parts (admitedly speculation, but logical, since these are different kinds of chips, with one incorporating CPU and GPU on one die).

My point about the use of Polaris for a handheld is that it fits the bill, so would a 14nm CPU with better architecture than AMD's Puma, it works with the power consumption necessary to fit in a handheld device like the one mentioned in that rumor, though it should of course still be taken with a grain of salt because it's a rumor.

As far as costs go, I was going by AMD's own target costs for the part they said they're aiming to be on par with their own R9 290x, they said they want this come under $349, releasing this back to school period. A 1.3TFlop part would need way less space than an 4TFlop one. I said 40 CU because AMD said themselves that they wanted to release a Card with the same performance as the 290X, which has 40CUs, unless with the newer core tech they've also improved performance per CU, without having to increase clock speed (which is possible, since there are a lot of changes to each GPU Core).

Wafer costs don't have to be the same if the volume of dies produced is greater than the 28nm die, with defects taken into consideration. AMD can still make more per 14nm wafer than on 28nm and produce cost competitive chips, but that would depend on the real production figures, which I don't think are public.

You are a lot more optimistic than me . That's why I'll only say two things.

1-Despite how bitter Nvidia is for being left out of the console business, to the point where they take every oportunity they can to dismiss it, there is one thing that's true: the profit margins from consoles are on the low side.

Yes, AMD is in desperate need for money, but they will make more money selling their own graphic cards and mobile parts than from the components made for Nintendo. It's because of that reason that expecting them to hinder their own Polaris and 14nm business for Nintendo (or Sony or MSoft) doesn't make sense.

 

2-It's been confirmed by everyone that 14nm production costs are a lot higher than the 28nm costs, and the resulting chips are also more expensive.

Take a look at this graph:

As it clearly says, it's how it costs to produce a wafer with each manufacturing process. Look at how much a 28/32nm costs: $6,000, now look how much a 14nm costs: $18,000. Three times more, but they won't get three times more chips (specially now that the 14nm process is still not perfect while the 28nm one is very mature).

 

I know that I won't make you change your mind, but don't be surprised when someone opens a NX (because Nintendo never tells those details) and we find out that its components are made with the 28nm process.