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Forums - Nintendo - Nintendo Switch 2GB or 4GB?

4GB What ever source has said.



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I imagine it's 3GB ...

Odd number I know but that's how it was for every device that housed the Tegra X1 ...



fleischr said:
How would the Switch be more powerful than WiiU with only 2GB of RAM? Even with better architecture?

RAM doesn't equal power, atleast not the same way as CPU and GPU.

Look at PS4 Pro, its a lot more powerful with same RAM. If it had more RAM we would probably see better textures though.

PS360 did amazing things with a measly 512MB.



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bonzobanana said:

Do we know yet what the Switch will have. Rumours suggested 4GB in both the development kit and retail but a less popular rumour was 2GB in retail units. Has it been confirmed anywhere yet? Normally development kits have more memory than retail so should we expect 2GB?

Its 4GB. Every rumor maker who has been right on every other account is stating its 4GB.



4GB...... cause that is what everyone is saying!



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its almost cetain its 4gb, but no sure its ddr4 or ddr3



Wyrdness said:
bonzobanana said:

Well it is actually fairly close in power to wii u/ps3/360 in portable mode but gets a boost to graphics only in docked mode to allow higher resolutions. It isn't significantly more powerful than wii u anyway but can run code off cartridge and the OS in the background may be significantly simplified compared to wi u. wii u actually used 1GB of its memory for the OS which is huge and not the norm. 

Again all will be revealed with the tear-down that is sure to happen. Memory chips are labelled and as soon as a Switch is opened up the information will be there unlike other facets of the specification which take time to work out.

Where exactly are you getting all of this from because every speculation so far puts it at at least twice as powerful than the Wii U when in portable mode even the lower end speculation. Even the improvements done to BOTW and the presentation of SMO signal that it's higher than what you're claiming here.

Well this has already been debated elsewhere but certainly 2x as powerful overall I've not seen anywhere for portable mode do you have a source?

The switch cpu performance is about 2x wii u, switch gpu is about 150 gflops in portable mode compared to 176 gflops for wii u plus possible 24 gflops if the wii gpu can assist. Memory bandwidth is likely to be 25.6GB/s shared for Switch compared to 12.8GB/s for wii u but the wii u also has a 32MB pool of high speed memory at about 70GB/s I think. Looking at game performance for Zelda between wii u and Switch in portable mode we are seeing same resolution and possibly a more consistent frame rate on Switch but we will have to see final software as it was an early build of the wii u game. I estimated about a 30% advantage to Switch overall in portable mode. It's not a huge performance difference really between wii u console and Switch portable mode even allowing for the later architecture of the nvidia gpu. I think you have to factor in what we have seen as well on Switch from a technical level in its games. If anything the Switch seems to be performing below the expected performance level based on the leaked spec. It is struggling to increase the resolution of 720p portable games to 1080p docked as expected with many falling below at 900p native resolution. This may indicate a memory bandwidth issue when docked or some other currently unknown issue.



superchunk said:
bonzobanana said:

Do we know yet what the Switch will have. Rumours suggested 4GB in both the development kit and retail but a less popular rumour was 2GB in retail units. Has it been confirmed anywhere yet? Normally development kits have more memory than retail so should we expect 2GB?

Its 4GB. Every rumor maker who has been right on every other account is stating its 4GB.

There is no confirmation of that surprisingly at this stage. Nintendo announced the 2GB memory of the wii u quite freely but with Switch they aren't being as clear. It's also higher than the more powerful competition using the same chipset and rumours also suggested it was originally going to be 2GB but the retail version would match the development kit with 4GB. I'm not totally convinced and won't believe it until Nintendo states 4GB or we see it in the tear-down. It just seems too much for a console of this performance level. With the Nvidia shield box only having 3GB yet meant to be a gaming centric box supporting 4k and hdr  and yet the lower spec Switch has more memory all of which needs to be powered by battery in portable mode and lowering runtime it just makes no sense at all. The Switch has its 4 main cpu's running at half the speed of the Shield and doesn't feature the other 4 little arm chips at all yet needs even more memory?  It's a strange design choice if nothing else. It made total sense the dev kit had 4GB as headroom for developing and a final retail version would be down to 2GB to extend battery life and reduce costs. In a few weeks we will know anyway. 



bonzobanana said:
Wyrdness said:

Where exactly are you getting all of this from because every speculation so far puts it at at least twice as powerful than the Wii U when in portable mode even the lower end speculation. Even the improvements done to BOTW and the presentation of SMO signal that it's higher than what you're claiming here.

Well this has already been debated elsewhere but certainly 2x as powerful overall I've not seen anywhere for portable mode do you have a source?

The switch cpu performance is about 2x wii u, switch gpu is about 150 gflops in portable mode compared to 176 gflops for wii u plus possible 24 gflops if the wii gpu can assist. Memory bandwidth is likely to be 25.6GB/s shared for Switch compared to 12.8GB/s for wii u but the wii u also has a 32MB pool of high speed memory at about 70GB/s I think. Looking at game performance for Zelda between wii u and Switch in portable mode we are seeing same resolution and possibly a more consistent frame rate on Switch but we will have to see final software as it was an early build of the wii u game. I estimated about a 30% advantage to Switch overall in portable mode. It's not a huge performance difference really between wii u console and Switch portable mode even allowing for the later architecture of the nvidia gpu. I think you have to factor in what we have seen as well on Switch from a technical level in its games. If anything the Switch seems to be performing below the expected performance level based on the leaked spec. It is struggling to increase the resolution of 720p portable games to 1080p docked as expected with many falling below at 900p native resolution. This may indicate a memory bandwidth issue when docked or some other currently unknown issue.

Again where are you getting those numbers? You're asking for sources but not giving any, the threads on this very site with people like Permite or what ever his name debated this and came up with the twice the power speculation. If you're basing this on EG's speculation they're already out of date Foxconn is now the most legit leak as they gave details that can't be guessed about the Switch and they had the Switch at better performance than what EG speculated, EG even admitted they sat on their own info for months.

Switch for a start isn't a device you can estimate from flops and such this was debated in the other threads, for one Nvidia flops are do more work per number than AMDs, secondly the Switch may have access to Nvida's architecture, shaders and all which Wii U doesn't further widening the gap. Thirdly you're using a game that is a port, Aonuma confirmed BOTW didn't land on the Switch until last April making it a quick port of something built for a different architecture and all.



Wyrdness said:
bonzobanana said:

Well this has already been debated elsewhere but certainly 2x as powerful overall I've not seen anywhere for portable mode do you have a source?

The switch cpu performance is about 2x wii u, switch gpu is about 150 gflops in portable mode compared to 176 gflops for wii u plus possible 24 gflops if the wii gpu can assist. Memory bandwidth is likely to be 25.6GB/s shared for Switch compared to 12.8GB/s for wii u but the wii u also has a 32MB pool of high speed memory at about 70GB/s I think. Looking at game performance for Zelda between wii u and Switch in portable mode we are seeing same resolution and possibly a more consistent frame rate on Switch but we will have to see final software as it was an early build of the wii u game. I estimated about a 30% advantage to Switch overall in portable mode. It's not a huge performance difference really between wii u console and Switch portable mode even allowing for the later architecture of the nvidia gpu. I think you have to factor in what we have seen as well on Switch from a technical level in its games. If anything the Switch seems to be performing below the expected performance level based on the leaked spec. It is struggling to increase the resolution of 720p portable games to 1080p docked as expected with many falling below at 900p native resolution. This may indicate a memory bandwidth issue when docked or some other currently unknown issue.

Again where are you getting those numbers? You're asking for sources but not giving any, the threads on this very site with people like Permite or what ever his name debated this and came up with the twice the power speculation. If you're basing this on EG's speculation they're already out of date Foxconn is now the most legit leak as they gave details that can't be guessed about the Switch and they had the Switch at better performance than what EG speculated, EG even admitted they sat on their own info for months.

Switch for a start isn't a device you can estimate from flops and such this was debated in the other threads, for one Nvidia flops are do more work per number than AMDs, secondly the Switch may have access to Nvida's architecture, shaders and all which Wii U doesn't further widening the gap. Thirdly you're using a game that is a port, Aonuma confirmed BOTW didn't land on the Switch until last April making it a quick port of something built for a different architecture and all.

Well the original eurogamer article on final spec is here.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2016-nintendo-switch-spec-analysis

and the analysis of the other leak is here;

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1334549

It seems to me the original eurogamer spec is more accurate. 

While I agree the Nvidia gpu is more capable than its gflops figure indicates compared to wii u its important you don't just run away with ridiculous performance claims. The same comparison was made with the wii u over ps3 and 360 and the end result was not that the wii u easily beat them despite the lower gflops figure it actually struggled despite the generational difference. Remember the gflops figure is an indication of its performance level allowing for its later architecture. What was fantastic performance of 250 gflops in 2005 is pretty much base level now. 

Lets not forget if the wii u has 176 gflops for its main gpu and up to 24 gflops asisst from its wii gpu plus 70GB/s of high speed memory for its frame buffer that is pretty good compared to 150 gflops and 25.6GB/s shared memory. When I say a overall 30% increase I'm not exactly being unfair I'm giving the nvidia alot of allowance for its later architecture possibly too much.