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Agente42 on 09 March 2021
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Pemalite said:
Dulfite said:

New info - Nvidia are apparently going to stop making Switch chips and start making a new Tegra one. I'm not surprised about Switch Pro coming, but ending production of the basic Switch is shocking to me if this is true.

https://www-hardwaretimes-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/www.hardwaretimes.com/nvidia-reportedly-stopping-manufacture-of-nintendo-switch-soc-soon/amp/?amp_gsa=1&amp_js_v=a6&usqp=mq331AQFKAGwASA%3D#amp_tf=From%20%251%24s&aoh=16152061698259&csi=0&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&ampshare=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.hardwaretimes.com%2Fnvidia-reportedly-stopping-manufacture-of-nintendo-switch-soc-soon%2F

nVidia doesn't make the chips, TSMC does.
nVidia is a fabless company.

I think the issue is partly economics... TSMC is seeing industrial/defense/space/IoT/Automotive/5G contracts for it's super mature 16nm process pickup significantly. - Just 6 months ago utilization rates of their 16nm node was at 90% and could start trending higher with the world-wide chip manufacturing shortage.

And when they have that kind of utilization, TSMC can increase prices due to supply/demand... And when that happens it may be economically more feasible to simply shift chip manufacturing to a newer node... And then you might as well use a newer chip design with paths optimized for the smaller geometries.

Darc Requiem said:

Interesting article. Based on some of things they've I don't necessarily share their conclusions. If its a half gen upgrade Tegra X2 could provide that sort of performance jump if it runs at full clocks. The X1 in the Switch only has around 75% of the power it could have. 393 GLOPS instead of 512 GFLOPS. It's why the overclocked Switch's see such a performance boost. They are just running the X1 at full clocks. X2 is a 750 GLOPS running at full speed. That's nearly double the Switch's reduced clocks but the main issue is DLSS. Pascal based GPUs lack Tensor Cores. Those are needed to run DLSS. If it weren't for multiple reliable sources insisting on DLSS the X2 would be a no brainer. Maybe they could have an additional chip added to handle it? Not sure how feasible that would be. With Xavier they could just use an off the shelf design. Even under clocked like the X1 it would be more powerful than a X2. Very curious to see what will ultimately go into the revision.

Side note: Given how old the Maxwell architecture is at this point maybe its just being sunset. It's 5 generations old. Its been succeeded by Pascal, Volta, Turing, and now Ampere. Nintendo may not have the option of using the old SoC any longer.

GFLOP's isn't a chips complete performance profile.

X2 at the same clocks and GFLOP's as X1... The X2 will be faster.

Shaunodon said:

On their new weekly news show/podcast, DF spend the first 10mins on this subject. Seems they expect something lowkey-- basic upgraded screen with basic upscaling to 4k for most titles. @ruffy37 they do mention why you can't just enhance the system purely through a dock.

I like that they didn't spend too much time on the subject and wrapped it up by saying 'most of what people seem to want from a "Switch Pro", they should really just wait for "Switch 2."' Sound advice.

I share digital foundries sentiments on this.

DF bias you see a distant