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Forums - Nintendo - Tegra X1 successor Detailed by Nvidia (likely NX SoC)

Miyamotoo on 23 August 2016
vivster said:
Good thing that Nintendo always uses high end cutting edge technology or else people might think this is NOT the NX SOC.

To be fair Wall Street Journal reported in October that Nintendo NX will use "industry-leading chips", that pretty sums this X2.

http://www.polygon.com/2015/10/16/9550113/wsj-nintendo-nx-console-handheld



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Werix357 on 23 August 2016
Soundwave said:
Werix357 said:

Yeah if it uses this chip it will be a great portable console, but i think Mobile SoC's are still bandwidth limited which is probably one of the reasons Nvidia stuck with 256 CUDA cores

I think Nintendo will go for th 128-bit bus which would give them 50GB/sec and Nvidia's tiling based rendering might help reduce bandwidth needs a lot, but yeah seems like they're stuck at 256 CUDA cores. 

Would be interesting if the SCD patent is actually a real thing and it can link up two Tegra X2s in unison, I'd be curious to see what type of games such a little unit could pump out. 

It is a hell of a portable chip though no doubt about, how close Nintendo can get it to 100% clock speed is the question. The Google Pixel C tablet runs the Tegra X1 at 80% clock and it can run for 4-5 hours running the T-Rex graphics demo, which isn't bad. 

 True, Nvidia have shown that they are able more out of less bandwidth when compared with others.

I'm not aware of the SCD patent but could see Nintendo release a home console based on this but with diferent memory solution and of course with higher clocks.



Werix357 on 23 August 2016
torok said:
Soundwave said:
For a mobile chip it sounds like a pretty kick ass chip, likely the best in class (though Apple's A10x may have something to say about that).

For a home console chip though ... it's definitely no XB1 or PS4, so y'know I guess whether you are happy about this will depend on your POV.

Mind that mobile devices usually go for extremely high resolutions, with most high-end devices using 1080p or 1440p screens. As those are pretty expensive, I can see Nintendo using a 720p-900p screen to cut costs and also avoid taxing the GPU. It's more like what Vita did with a 540p, it has a bunch of games that still look better than current high-end mobile games.

Yeah I definitely think that will be the case as it will give the NX a bit longer life on the technical side.



torok on 23 August 2016
Soundwave said:

Yeah a nice quality 720p display at 7-inches or so would be fine I would think. My cheapo Samsung 8-inch Galaxy Tab 3 has a 1280x800 screen and honestly it's still quite pretty to look at (it's a regular LCD panel too, not OLED). Hopefully Nintendo doesn't pick a shit quality screen like the Wii U has. 

Vita Slim has a pretty decent 540p LCD panel and it retails for around 180 bucks now, so a 720p or better screen and a decent price point won't be an issue.



Bet with jetforcejiminy: PS4 will pass the Wii lifetime numbers.

Soundwave on 23 August 2016
torok said:
Soundwave said:

Yeah a nice quality 720p display at 7-inches or so would be fine I would think. My cheapo Samsung 8-inch Galaxy Tab 3 has a 1280x800 screen and honestly it's still quite pretty to look at (it's a regular LCD panel too, not OLED). Hopefully Nintendo doesn't pick a shit quality screen like the Wii U has. 

Vita Slim has a pretty decent 540p LCD panel and it retails for around 180 bucks now, so a 720p or better screen and a decent price point won't be an issue.

Yeah LCD displays are the least of Nintendo's worries. I see 1280x800 7-inch tablets for like $99 retail. They'll be able to get a decent screen for dirt cheap thanks to the mobile boom those components cost peanuts now. It might actually cost more money for them to find a screen that's lower resolution than that because no one makes them, lol. 



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Miyamotoo on 23 August 2016
Werix357 said:
torok said:

Mind that mobile devices usually go for extremely high resolutions, with most high-end devices using 1080p or 1440p screens. As those are pretty expensive, I can see Nintendo using a 720p-900p screen to cut costs and also avoid taxing the GPU. It's more like what Vita did with a 540p, it has a bunch of games that still look better than current high-end mobile games.

Yeah I definitely think that will be the case as it will give the NX a bit longer life on the technical side.

You think last Tegra chip will last more than Wii U hardware that on Wii U launch was already around 5+ years old!? :)



Lonely_Dolphin on 23 August 2016

Where are you getting the "most likely NX" from? Just speculation or is there actually a hint somewhere in all that tech talk?



JEMC on 23 August 2016

The two problems I see with that chip are that

A) It features the same 256 shader units (or cores) that the older X1 model. Sure, they are Pascal based instead of Maxwell, but the performance won't be much higher. All that without knowing the frequency it will run at, which is crucial for Pascal.

And B) As fatslob noted in another thread, Nvidia has gone with a "big.SUPER" approach instead of the "big.LITTLE" one found in the X1 and most mobile chips. That would drain the battery a lot faster.

Simply put, Nvidia hasn't designed the Tegra Parker/X2 with gaming in mind. The X1 would be a better choice for Nintendo.



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Soundwave on 23 August 2016
JEMC said:

The two problems I see with that chip are that

A) It features the same 256 shader units (or cores) that the older X1 model. Sure, they are Pascal based instead of Maxwell, but the performance won't be much higher. All that without knowing the frequency it will run at, which is crucial for Pascal.

And B) As fatslob noted in another thread, Nvidia has gone with a "big.SUPER" approach instead of the "big.LITTLE" one found in the X1 and most mobile chips. That would drain the battery a lot faster.

Simply put, Nvidia hasn't designed the Tegra Parker/X2 with gaming in mind. The X1 would be a better choice for Nintendo.

The thing is one of their slides specifically mentions automotive and *gaming* functionality specifically for that CPU config though, so I dunno. 

Probable the chip underclocks in portable mode. 

The chip Nintendo uses may just be a Pascal version of the X1 though since there doesn't seem to be a huge difference in performance from X1 to X2. Maybe by using Pascal architecture and shrinking to 16nm it gives Nintendo enough leeway to run the TX1 level performance at full clock without needing a fan or something. 



dongo8 on 23 August 2016
Soundwave said:
JEMC said:

The two problems I see with that chip are that

A) It features the same 256 shader units (or cores) that the older X1 model. Sure, they are Pascal based instead of Maxwell, but the performance won't be much higher. All that without knowing the frequency it will run at, which is crucial for Pascal.

And B) As fatslob noted in another thread, Nvidia has gone with a "big.SUPER" approach instead of the "big.LITTLE" one found in the X1 and most mobile chips. That would drain the battery a lot faster.

Simply put, Nvidia hasn't designed the Tegra Parker/X2 with gaming in mind. The X1 would be a better choice for Nintendo.

The thing is one of their slides specifically mentions automotive and *gaming* functionality specifically for that CPU config though, so I dunno. 

Probable the chip underclocks in portable mode. 

The chip Nintendo uses may just be a Pascal version of the X1 though since there doesn't seem to be a huge difference in performance from X1 to X2. Maybe by using Pascal architecture and shrinking to 16nm it gives Nintendo enough leeway to run the TX1 level performance at full clock without needing a fan or something. 

I think we also have to keep in mind that there is a high probability that the chip(s) going into the NX is/are most likely custom chips, so while the specs are interesting to look at, they most likely don't match exactly what will be in the NX. I can't wait until we get some official details of the darn thing! Another month or so...jeeeeeeeez



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