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Forums - Nintendo - Nintendo NX very likely will have AMD x86 chip, possible 14/16nm

Platina on 22 October 2015

Still a rumor, but if so, then 3rd Parties should have less difficultly porting to the NX



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VitroBahllee on 22 October 2015

What I don't understand is, does Nintendo really think everybody is going to be HDMI 2.0 enabled during the lifetime of the NX?



JEMC on 22 October 2015
Random_Matt said:
It won't have a CPU and GPU, quite sure it will be a APU like the other two.

An APU is the combination of a CPU and a GPU. That way, instead of having to produce two chips, solder them on a console board and make sure that they are connected one with the other so that they can "talk" between them, you only have to produce one chip and solder it on the board.

This pic is the board of a PS3. The 2 big chips are the CPU and GPU, and the dark lines between them are the connections to make them "talk" and work together. And this pic is from a PS4, with the big chip at the bottom being the APU.



Please excuse my bad English.

Former gaming PC: i5-4670k@stock (for now), 16Gb RAM 1600 MHz and a GTX 1070

Current gaming PC: R5-7600, 32GB RAM 6000MT/s (CL30) and a RX 9060XT 16GB

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Soundwave on 22 October 2015

I don't think Nintendo will give up much on NX until after the New Year. There's no benefit to them.



bowserthedog on 22 October 2015
JEMC said:

You are giving Wccftech too much credit. Keep in mind that they are a site that most of the time simply publishes the rumors that are floating around the industry without having any proof or facts to support their claims. That's why their info is either generic or labeled as "rumor".

Now, AMD (and Nvidia) pursuing 14/16nm is nothing new, and if things had gone as planned we would have today 14/16nm products in out hands. Things just went wrong and they will arrive in 2016, but that is only a coincidence and have nothing to do with Nintendo launching their new system(s) in 2016 (if they get launched by next year... but that's another matter).

Yes, Zen will launch next year, and also yes, their Artic ISlands GPUs will also launch next year, but since when has Nintendo used not only brand new hardware but hardware that isn't even in the market yet? They never have, and I don't see how or why they would change that now.. specially if the fusion concept is true, where there are so many things that can go wrong that the last thing you want is have to deal with hardware related problems.

Now, if you look at the same wccftech, the have an article today that is not speculation:

AMD’s Embedded Carrizo ‘Merlin Falcon’ SOCs Launched

http://wccftech.com/amds-embedded-carrizo-merlin-falcon-socs-launched-amd-platform-support-ddr4-memory/

Those new SoC (System on Chips) include Excavator cores for the CPU part (they are the newest CPU cores AMD has right now, and are much, much better than the Jaguar chips that power the PS4/X1) paired with the latest GCN design for its GPU (the one that can be found in Tonga and Fiji).

And now look at this table:

 

SKU Name RX-421BD RX-418GD RX-216GD RX-421ND RX-216TD
Cores/Threads 4/4 4/4 2/2 4/4 2/2
Base Clock (15W) 2.1 GHz 1.8 GHz 1.6 GHz 2.1 GHz 1.6 GHz
Max Clock (>15W) 3.4 GHz 3.2 GHz 3.0 GHz 3.4 GHz 3.0 GHz
L2 Cache 2 MB 2 MB 1 MB 2 MB 1 MB
iGPU Radeon R7 Radeon R6 Radeon R5 N/A N/A
GCN CUs 8 CUs 6 CUs 4 CUs N/A N/A
GCN SPs 512 SPs 384 SPs 256 SPs N/A N/A
iGPU Clock 800 MHz 800 MHz 800 Mhz N/A N/A
TDP 12-35W 12-35W 12-15W 12-35W 12-15W
DDR4 Data Rate 2400 MHz 2400 MHz 1600 MHz 2400 MHz 1600 MHz

Now, given that AMD first talked about these chips way back in 2014, it is much more logical (but also inherently wrong) to assume that Nintendo could use them to power their machines.

Why wouldn't Nintendo use the most powerful of those SoC, the 421BD, as the base of their home console, just dial down the CPU frequency to 1.6GHz but double the amount of GPU cores from 8 to 16 (or even 20 like the PS4) to keep it around the 20W mark, and use the 216GD as the base for their handheld part of NX tweaking it to keep it into the 10W mark?

Porting between the home and handheld would be a lot easier having the same components (but in different number), they both would use tried and tested components, given their nature of SoC chips they wouldn't be too pricey for the performance they give and, surprisingly enough, the home console could be more powerful than the PS4. It's a win-win escenario for Nintendo!

Now, am I going to say that Nintendo will use those chips? Of course not! There were SoC more powerful than WiiU long before it launched and Nintendo didn't use them back then, so no one can say what Nintendo will do.

But if I had to bet, I'd bet on one of these chips rather than on a Zen+Artic Islands GPU.


I just don't think you can look the wiiu and say what Nintendo did at that time and then suggest this will guide what Nintendo does with NX.  There are a couple of things to keep in mind here.  The first is that what Nintendo did with the Wiiu didn't end up working. So for that reason alone you wouldn't look to the wiiu as guidance for nx predictions. #2 is that the new Nintendo President didn't agree with the Wiiu strategy and has since been promoted to being the president.



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JEMC on 22 October 2015
bowserthedog said:
JEMC said:
**too long to quote again**

Now, am I going to say that Nintendo will use those chips? Of course not! There were SoC more powerful than WiiU long before it launched and Nintendo didn't use them back then, so no one can say what Nintendo will do.

But if I had to bet, I'd bet on one of these chips rather than on a Zen+Artic Islands GPU.


I just don't think you can look the wiiu and say what Nintendo did at that time and then suggest this will guide what Nintendo does with NX.  There are a couple of things to keep in mind here.  The first is that what Nintendo did with the Wiiu didn't end up working. So for that reason alone you wouldn't look to the wiiu as guidance for nx predictions. #2 is that the new Nintendo President didn't agree with the Wiiu strategy and has since been promoted to being the president.

To your first point, I agree that this time Nintendo can (and maybe should) do thing differently, but they have never, ever, used new parts or components. Ever since the NES they have used tried and tested components (that also happened to be cheap enough). So yes, while Nintendo could use one of those SoC, it would be very, very surprising if they went with components so new that they could be the first to use.

And to your second point, Kimishima has only been president for a couple of months at most. Most of the design and planning for NX was long done before we became the president and could do anything to change it. And if he has really changed something, that will have delayed the launch of NX.



Please excuse my bad English.

Former gaming PC: i5-4670k@stock (for now), 16Gb RAM 1600 MHz and a GTX 1070

Current gaming PC: R5-7600, 32GB RAM 6000MT/s (CL30) and a RX 9060XT 16GB

Steam / Live / NNID : jonxiquet    Add me if you want, but I'm a single player gamer.

VitroBahllee on 22 October 2015

Nintendo can't have it both ways. If they use a 96.2c baseband, they are going to leave half of the households in the US (and even more in Japan) high and dry. To do that six years into the future? I don't see it.



bowserthedog on 22 October 2015
JEMC said:
bowserthedog said:
JEMC said:
**too long to quote again**

Now, am I going to say that Nintendo will use those chips? Of course not! There were SoC more powerful than WiiU long before it launched and Nintendo didn't use them back then, so no one can say what Nintendo will do.

But if I had to bet, I'd bet on one of these chips rather than on a Zen+Artic Islands GPU.


I just don't think you can look the wiiu and say what Nintendo did at that time and then suggest this will guide what Nintendo does with NX.  There are a couple of things to keep in mind here.  The first is that what Nintendo did with the Wiiu didn't end up working. So for that reason alone you wouldn't look to the wiiu as guidance for nx predictions. #2 is that the new Nintendo President didn't agree with the Wiiu strategy and has since been promoted to being the president.

To your first point, I agree that this time Nintendo can (and maybe should) do thing differently, but they have never, ever, used new parts or components. Ever since the NES they have used tried and tested components (that also happened to be cheap enough). So yes, while Nintendo could use one of those SoC, it would be very, very surprising if they went with components so new that they could be the first to use.

And to your second point, Kimishima has only been president for a couple of months at most. Most of the design and planning for NX was long done before we became the president and could do anything to change it. And if he has really changed something, that will have delayed the launch of NX.

That's a good point about Kimishima and I understand these plans were in place already.  But I'm more saying that the fact they chose him after opposing the wiiu tells me that he would be the best choice to follow through on a new plan and a new way of doing things and some of the new direction of nx may very well have come from him to begin with.



https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0JquK6FGR6O-0O-6L-VAuw

Frogger on 22 October 2015
bowserthedog said:

That's a good point about Kimishima and I understand these plans were in place already.  But I'm more saying that the fact they chose him after opposing the wiiu tells me that he would be the best choice to follow through on a new plan and a new way of doing things and some of the new direction of nx may very well have come from him to begin with.


Doubt his oposition has to do with anything. It's coincidence. He was likely chosen because Iwata's death was unexpected and they needed an interim who was qualified. Kimishima was qualified. Also, just because he didn't agree with the Wii U doesn't mean he doesn't agree with the NX. Iwata stated they were changing a lot within the company well before he passed. No reason to believe he wasn't on board with these changes and wasn't in support of Iwata's new direction.



Vena on 22 October 2015

JEMC said:

Puma+... I hope they go with something better, because this gen of consoles has very weak processors that have been hurting them almost since their launch, and Puma+, while being better, would still be a disappointment.


Nintendo won't use Puma or Puma+, it provides nothing over high-end(ish) ARM in draws.

Zen would be the only trojan horse into x86 for Nintendo. Of course, Zen would mean that Nintendo is (re)entering the fray by kicking the door down and pissing all over the Jaguar in terms of performance in all aspects with less cores and considerably lower TDP. As such I do not expect this to actually occur.