Can't really see Nintendo ever making a console that size of an XBox One (original), like even the PS4 Pro is pretty huge. 

What they could do is take like 3 Tegra X2 processors and put them into one box (or make a custom version of the chip that's effectively 3X more powerful; scale it up to 768 CUDA cores) for easy/cheap NX "home console".

That likely would give you performance right around a PS4 for probably about 50-60 watts. Either increase eDRAM or change the main memory bus to 256-bit and your LPDDR4 RAM could clock in at over 100GB/sec giving it pretty good memory bandwidth. Using the tiling approach that Nvidia has, this would give them similar bandwidth to a PS4 (140GB/sec effective). 

I dunno if Nintendo wants to offer different models or a "seperate console" at first though, they probably want to make hay with the hybrid concept (one device that does it all) and having a seperate home console model muddies that message. 

That rumor is complete bonkers. There's no way Nintendo would use a Power 8 CPU or go with only 4GB of RAM, or put the hardware of Wii U (both CPU and RAM) inside the NX console.

That said, no, I don't think today's Nintendo would make a big console. That said, if they go with a closed liquid cooler, the necessary size of the device could be a lot smaller, with most of it coming from the optical drive... which we now know that won't have.

Oh, and stop hypothesizing about Nintendo using not two, but now 3 Tegra chips. There's a reason why no console manufacturer uses multiple processors, and that's because they're a nightmare to develop for. That, and also because their theoretical performance won't have a perfect scale.

Or they could just scale up the chip of the Tegra X2 (lets presume) that they're using to be 3x more powerful (768 CUDA cores vs 256 CUDA cores for instance).

Though Nvidia already uses the Tegra X2 is multi-processor configs, that Drive PX2 system uses two Tegra X2's in unison. 

The truth is I don't think even if Nintendo offered this setup that they'd want devs really pushing the console to max ability. What they would want is the games to be made first and foremost for the *portable setup*, and then developers would be allowed to use the extra grunt to maybe get a home version that's 1080P + 60fps versus say 600P + 30fps on the portable. But the portable model has to be the focus. And that's IF they even offer a console model NX, which at this point I'm unsure of. 

It will likely use the same chip/tech as the portable NX. So Tegra X1/2 or whatever customized version of it that Nintendo is using. Just scaled up. They're not going to spend a shit ton of money on a completely separate custom GPU design, nor would it make much sense in a unified software ecosystem (there's a reason the iPad and iPhone use the same family of processors, it makes software compatibility easy; the iPad just gets better versions of said chip).

But the basic idea ... Hybrid NX has 1 Tegra X2 custom processor. OK, great. Now could you put that in a Wii-sized console (remember the disc drive is gone) and scale it up to the point where it matches a PS4 more or less running off walled power? Yeah, I think that would be possible with not a lot of fuss. Would Nintendo want to offer this option is the bigger queston. 

If you do that, you're not customizing a chip, you're making a new one.

The Drive PX 2 uses multiple chips, yes, but they aren't used for gaming. There are some computational tasks that have 100% scaling across different cores and processors, but gaming is not one of them. That's why no console manufacturer uses that configuration for their machines.

Lastly, it's not Nintendo who decides how developers use their machines... at least not unless the give them dev kits that hold them back on purpose. And that's a very, very bad idea.

Or Nintendo could just say the hybrid is the only model and you get nothing else. 

I'd prefer the option of having NX dock or console at some point. Since Nintendo is likely not going to want to spend a ton of money on it, it could be built off the Tegra X1/2. 

Better than nothing. If all it does is make NX games run at 1080P instead of 540-720p ... fine with me. 

Developers/consumers are really not in a position to beg Nintendo for anything here, Nintendo I could see very easily just doing this hybrid setup and enjoy your 600 GFLOP Tegra X/2 for the next 4-5 years. Nintendo doesn't give two fucks. I'd rather have an option for something better for home use if its possible. 

Is an Apple A9X a "new chip" from an Apple A9? I doubt Apple seriously pays double the R&D, they're just two processors from the same family, but the A9X has some significant customizations that make it considerably more powerful (along with a different memory layout). 

Tegra X1/X2 is not bad tech. If you put it into a Wii-sized box with a fan and gave it wall power and told Nvidia engineers to scale it up so that it could consume 45-60 watts of electricity, I'd say that would be one monster of a little chip. 

You would like a hybrid device plus a powered dock, and I would prefer to have a handheld and a home console. It doesn't matter what we want, we'll have to deal with whatever Nintendo has decided to design.

But even if they do have a powered dock like you prefer, they don't really need a second Tegra chip. The Tegra X2 is a very CPU heavy device. So much that, Nintendo could "disable" the two Denver cores on it while NX is used as a handheld device and only enable them at full speed while docked, and pair it with a more powerful GPU on the dock. That way you'd get a handheld with the power of a Tegra X1, and a console with the power of, for example, a GTX 1060 3GB, enough to put the PS4/X1 to shame.

Oh, and developers won't beg Nintendo anything. They get what they want or they move forward and forget about that platform.

Well yeah, but Nintendo has also equally shown that they don't give one fat fuck about what developers want, lol. 

I'd be OK with a dock, I think Nintendo is leaning that way too. 

Just my guess, but I think they want to avoid the "you have to buy two seperate Nintendo hardware to play Nintendo games" ... that comes out to $600 right now, and even most Nintendo fans have been choosing (at least 2/3 of the last generations) to say no to that model. 

So a dock could be a solution to at least give people and developers an option and Nintendo could paint it as such (just an option). Like I said though we'll be lucky if we even get that I think, I'd say it's a less than 50-50 chance that Nintendo even bothers going that far. 

That said it would be doable I'm sure by Nvidia engineers if that's what Nintendo wanted. A Tegra X1/X2 scaled up for wall-power use and free of battery power restrictions would be a little beast for sure, I'd bet better than anything AMD could offer in a similar power envelope. 

Yes, and we've seen how developers respond to that attitude.

The problem with that is the enclosure. You simply can't have a fully cased device like a handheld, smartphone or tablet and, just by having it plugget to the wall, make the chip inside run at full speed because it will overheat. Even with a fan in the dock to cool down the device, it would end overheating.

Of course, you could add a fan to the NX itself but, in my personal opinion, that would be a disaster in terms of design.

I kinda wonder if the NX 'dock' has the fan and the unit somehow plugs into that and pushes cool air into the design in "dock mode" (no fan for portable mode). The dock itself seems kinda odd, because why not just have the NX stream to a HDMI dongle like Google does or basically the just the technology Nintendo already made for Wii U in reverse. I think there's something going on with that dock. 

The Tegra X1 is already in a mini-console casing anyway which does have a fan though it rarely uses it ...

If Nintendo made a full console version of the NX, of course it would have a fan.

Sega something similar once...