Next Switch tech talk

[Pemalite]

Captain_Yuri said:

Assuming that it's all true, we still don't know what further customization Nintendo will require for it such as will it have Tensor cores? RT cores? Clock Speed? CPU? etc. It's highly unlikely it will have 12 core CPU so similar to his thoughts of halving the cuda cores, halving the CPUs would make sense.

Any chips that uses Xavier (Volta) or later has Tensor cores.
I would hope Switch 2 is based on Atlan (Ada Lovelace)... But even if it's based on the older Orin (Ampere), then Ray Tracing is in.

For CPU cores I wouldn't expect anymore than 8... With 4 and 6 core cortex-A78AE also being plausible... Less CPU means more GPU at the same TDP.

Captain_Yuri said:

So what that means is that the Switch 2's SoC should be called T239 based on GA10F which is Ampere using Samsung's 8nm. It could have 1024 Cuda cores. Theoretically this would make sense assuming the Switch 2 launches in 2024sh because the original Switch was based on Maxwell that launched during Nvidia's Pascal era, Switch 2 would be based on Ampere and launch during Nvidia's Lovelace era. T239 is a customized version of T234:

Hopefully it's more than that... But realistic expectations and all that, Nintendo tends to be conservative with it's hardware.

farlaff said:

In theory, every day that passes could mean a more powerful device down the road, and with the tech currently available they could come close to the Series S performance, at least in docked mode. The thing is, this is Nintendo and even if I do want a powerful enough machine, they haven't cared about raw power for a while.

Point in case, what I would like to get is just that: a machine that comes close to the Series S in power, thus attractive for devs to drop by many multiplats and providing a "buffer", so to speak, of 3-4 years that allows Nintendo to come up with their devices after the two other ones have released theirs, but always powered by more modern technology (especially from the handheld perspective) that allows them to not be so far away from the competition in terms of graphical output. But what I really think we'll have is a similar sized hybrid from today's machine, that will be capable of putting PS4 level graphics and that's all, even with all the available R&D time, so it can be a cheap product.

What do you think?

You see... The PS4 was based on an old, inefficient graphics core next GPU architecture... Whilst the Switch was based on Maxwell.
Anyone who knows anything about PC hardware will know that Maxwell was leagues superior to graphics core next in terms of hardware efficiency, which meant the Switch could punch above it's "specs weight" when compared to the Xbox One/Playstation 4.

Next time around, nVidia will not have that same advantage, RDNA2 in the Series S has proven to be extremely capable from an efficiency standpoint.

I am glad that finally in 2022 we aren't comparing devices just using tflops now.