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Soundwave on 10 May 2024
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Chrkeller said:
Soundwave said:

You're moving the goal posts now, we're talking about whether 12GB is enough size, it is for most modern games, the Series S is already proof of that, GTA VI will run on it at 8GB so does virtually every next gen game to date. 

Given the available choices, Nintendo actually went with higher bandwidth performance (LPDDR5X instead of LPDDR5). If they went with LPDDR5 like Steam Deck and ROG Ally you're likely talking about only 80-88GB/sec bandwidth, this will be a healthy amount more than that. 

LPDDR5X is about the best you can get right now for a device that has to be portable, this is RAM generally reserved for $1000 phones and tablets at the moment, and there's more of it than the Series S. This is terrific news and bodes well for a GPU that is quite powerful as well. 

I'm not moving anything.  Performance is ram and bandwidth.  The S2 has 20% more ram but minus 50% speed.  Just facts.  The bandwidth is the limiting factor like I've said for a year now.

By comparison to high, the 4090 has 24 gb, which is great, but it is also 1000 gb/s.  Don't under estimate bandwidth. 

The good news is the deck runs games, and the S2 is more powerful.  Low resolution, low settings and 30 fps on big games is feasible.  

Nintendo chose the higher bandwidth solution. A Switch 2 the size of a laptop is a Switch 2 that only sells 20-30 million units, Nintendo is in the business of selling 150 million systems, not a niche amount of hardware for tech nerds. 

LPDDR5X is a fantastic performance choice, it's the higher end of the two options they realistically had the chose from (LPDDR5X or LPDDR5). Switch 2 will have more RAM than the Series S and higher bandwidth than the Steam Deck and ROG Ally ... this is a very nice compromise that still is cognizant of a having a good performing machine. Wii/DS/3DS/Wii U this definitely is not, 12GB of LPDDR5X RAM even today is something really only used in quite expensive mobile devices. Nintendo fans should be quite happy with this news, the main reason to use LPDDR5X is if you want higher performance from your hardware, the fact that they went that route indicates they want a system that has a fairly good level of performance, otherwise you don't need the more expensive RAM choice.