JEMC said:
Everything involved in NX is quite confusing and hard to guess. I'd say that the option of Nintendo using an Nvidia chip is minuscule. When it comes to hardware, Nintendo tends to be very conservative and that makes them keep working with the same partners gen after gen. Given that they have always worked with ATI/AMD and that we've never heard of any problems between them, I don't see why they'll change to Nvidia (specially after how things went between Nvidia and MSoft and Sony in previous gens). As for Polaris 11/RX 460, if the leaked 3DMark score is real, then it's a bit slower than the HD 7870, but faster than the GTX 750Ti that DigitalFoundry uses in its budget PC build against the PS4/X1 (and that usually performs better than the consoles). It's not a bad option but I would personally prefer if they go with the Tonga chip that powers the R9 285 or the R9 380 running at lower frequencies to reduce power consumption. The problem is that, given that we don't know what kind of machine will the NX be and what's Nintendo's strategy with it, we don't know what power requirements it may need in terms of raw power or efficiency. |
The 7870 is a 2.5+ tf card, we know the PS4 is a cut down version (1.84).
The R9 270, rated at 2.3 tf got a 7850 score, lower than the rx460. So this card is a healthy bump over PS4 and they can cut it down further if nec. Im guessing.
You're right we don't know the requirements, but it seems to me if the goal for NX is to match current gen, it will have to be done on the new process node if Nintendo wants to avoid an unusually large tdp compared to their expected standard.
