Digital Foundry: Nintendo Switch CPU and GPU clock speeds revealed

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You think 150 gflops would be enough to run the most demanding third party game at 540p? That doesn't sound to bad.

With lots of nice things taken out like good AA, good shadows, changed LoD etc, but yes, I'm hopeful it can be pulled out if there is the business will to do it.
 
So can y'all stop saying, "I'm in for the Switch version!" now?
Still looking forward to this thing. The fact that I'll have all of Nintendo's offerings in one console is fantastic.
 
To be fair, I think there's a good chance that was before these official clock speeds got sent to developers.


It doesn't change anything. The people doing the port would still have had to deal with these clock speeds, as they knew what their targets were and or had dev kits.

The rumor is that they got the game running at an acceptable level, whatever that means, and that From was considering going forward.

This news has no bearing on that rumor.
 
Sales aside.

When you buy a console that has a great library of games, why does it matter to you as an individual, how well it sells?

I mean, as a PC, PS4 and WiiU owner, the WiiU EASILY has the better games for it. Maybe I prefer the games that Nintendo output, than other titles like your CoD's and Fifa's, but I still don't get how people list the WiiU as a failure when it has the games that it does.

Here we go. Of course ps4 has no games as usual. Only cod and fifa.
While the wiiu revolutionized gaming.
 
Games is all that matters

And January 12 is almost here. You care about specs, make your own pc. Even the ps4 pro is outdated by now.

The switch has something as beautiful and big as breath of the wild running on it, we even got Mario kart 8 on wii u, and that also looked great, and we know the switch is more powerful than the wii u.

Being able to take it on the go and playing games on the big screen is very appealing.

We should not be jumping the gun.

Everything about the switch seems great so far, not sure why people had unrealistic expectations for the power.
 
It doesn't change anything. The people doing the port would still have had to deal with these clock speeds, as they knew what their targets were and or had dev kits.

The rumor is that they got the game running at an acceptable level, whatever that means, and that From was considering going forward.

This news has no bearing on that rumor.
Dev kits were an overclocked X1. This appears to be less powerful than that if I understand things correctly.
 
So can y'all stop saying, "I'm in for the Switch version!" now?
Still looking forward to this thing. The fact that I'll have all of Nintendo's offerings in one console is fantastic.

Lol why?

"Even a 307.2MHz GPU based on Maxwell technology should be capable of out-performing Wii U - and certainly the Zelda: Breath of the Wild demo seen recently on the Jimmy Fallon show revealed a level of performance significantly smoother than that seen in last year's E3 code running on Wii U hardware. We should also remember that Nvidia has produced a bespoke software layer that should allow developers to get much, much more from the processor compared to what we've seen Tegra achieve in the Android-powered Shield console."
 
To be fair, I think there's a good chance that was before these official clock speeds got sent to developers.

They still had it running, so what does that change?

Running to a level considered acceptable by From Soft so who knows what that means.
 
Welp. I was wrong. It really is just a portable Wii U and bumped-up one when docked. Can we officially call NateDrake a fake now? This really is just where the successor to the Vita would land. Skyrim will chug on this. It's weaker than the PS3 by a huge margin when portable. This is not a current-generation machine.

I'm sorry to all of the naysayers I argued with. You were right. I'll never be optimistic about Nintendo again.

I'd step off the ledge a bit here, sheesh

But on the power-side... are we takling Vita levels here?

Sales aside.

When you buy a console that has a great library of games, why does it matter to you as an individual, how well it sells?

I mean, as a PC, PS4 and WiiU owner, the WiiU EASILY has the better games for it. Maybe I prefer the games that Nintendo output, than other titles like your CoD's and Fifa's, but I still don't get how people list the WiiU as a failure when it has the games that it does.

I don't disagree - but let's not dive headfirst into hyperbole here - PS4 has a ton of amazing exclusives and is worth way beyond "CoD and FIFA"
 
Games is all that matters

And January 12 is almost here. You care about specs, make your own pc. Even the ps4 pro is outdated by now.

The switch has something as beautiful and big as breath of the wild running on it, we even got Mario kart 8 on wii u, and that also looked great, and we know the switch is more powerful than the wii u.

Being able to take it on the go and playing games on the big screen is very appealing.

We should not be jumping the gun.

Everything about the switch seems great so far, not sure why people had unrealistic expectations for the power.
I think this is my thought as well. I just hope that the premise of a portable dark souls isn't dead. I'd love to play that game curled up in bed.
 
Dev kits were an overclocked X1. This appears to be less powerful than that if I understand things correctly.

But we don't have the full figure yet. Actually, the only info that could give us a firm indication is wether or not the devkits are representative of the final power.

That would be something nice to have from our insiders...
 
Peoples expectations that it was going to be something different maybe? People having an expectation of this is going to be a powerhouse that is a tablet never made sense anyhow.
But still, they have room for improvement, they would choose Pascal and go 16nm process for instances, that way they would increase the clock rate without heat concerns.
 
Lol why?

"Even a 307.2MHz GPU based on Maxwell technology should be capable of out-performing Wii U - and certainly the Zelda: Breath of the Wild demo seen recently on the Jimmy Fallon show revealed a level of performance significantly smoother than that seen in last year's E3 code running on Wii U hardware. We should also remember that Nvidia has produced a bespoke software layer that should allow developers to get much, much more from the processor compared to what we've seen Tegra achieve in the Android-powered Shield console."
Compared to PS4/One versions of games, not the Wii U.
 
But still, they have room for improvement, they would choose Pascal and go 16nm process for instances, that way they would increase the clock rate without heat concerns.

I don't think they could've had the price it needed. This thing has to be $250 or less to get out the door.
Edit: And Nintendo does not sell video game consoles at losses.
 
Dev kits were an overclocked X1. This appears to be less powerful than that if I understand things correctly.

The idea that they were overclocked was inferred by people here on GAF because early dev kits had a "noisy internal fan" according to the Eurogamer sources earlier this year. That's what fueled early speculation by people here and Data Foundry themselves that the Tegra X1 may be a placeholder for another chip.

We never got confirmation of it, but the fact that the unit is actively cooled and runs clocked this low is pretty peculiar. Hopefully someone is able to explain it adequately at some point.
 
Dev kits were an overclocked X1. This appears to be less powerful than that if I understand things correctly.

Well to be honest we have no idea. We also only have a small part of the picture from this one report. It is possible the dev kits were right in line with final product. I wouldn't jump to any conclusions or assumptions.

We'll know more soon enough. Nintendo really has goofed up the messaging with the core consumer haven't they?
 
Well to be honest we have no idea. We also only have a small part of the picture from this one report. It is possible the dev kits were right in line with final product. I wouldn't jump to any conclusions or assumptions.

We'll know more soon enough. Nintendo really has goofed up the messaging with the core consumer haven't they?
Lol

Nintendo's messaging for the switch has been great
 
Well to be honest we have no idea. We also only have a small part of the picture from this one report. It is possible the dev kits were right in line with final product. I wouldn't jump to any conclusions or assumptions.

We'll know more soon enough. Nintendo really has goofed up the messaging with the core consumer haven't they?

Nintendo's goof has been letting leaks direct the conversation online. Hopefully all that ends in January.
 
The fact that I'll have all of Nintendo's offerings in one console is fantastic.

This. This is the absolute killer app of the system. Sure, you'll have some Nintendo teams helping out with mobile games and whatnot, but with the Switch you're basically getting Nintendo's entire arsenal of handheld and console teams working on one system. Whether third-parties are on board or not, I'm confident Nintendo alone will be able to get the system through any potential software droughts.

This is the most excited I've ever been for a Nintendo system. I love good specs and I love the idea of being able to buy third-party games on a Nintendo system, but ever since the Switch was revealed to be a hybrid I felt that would push a lot of them away regardless. At the end of the day, we're getting a classic Nintendo system that will play Nintendo games, and I'm cool with that. I didn't buy a Wii U because of the constant SW droughts, and I stopped playing my Wii in 2010, but the 3DS is a great example of a system that thrives with strong output from first-party software and I expect the Switch to expand upon that greatly.
 
Nothing but graphics obsessed kids up in here

I hate this viewpoint. 150 GFlops is simply embarrassing in a year where a 6000 GFlop home console is also being released. The Switch isn't capable of running 2017 to 2020 third party games at a remotely acceptable level. And what will happen when 12000 GFlop consoles come out in 2020/2021?
 
Well to be honest we have no idea. We also only have a small part of the picture from this one report. It is possible the dev kits were right in line with final product. I wouldn't jump to any conclusions or assumptions.

We'll know more soon enough. Nintendo really has goofed up the messaging with the core consumer haven't they?

The core consumer just wants to plug in the game and have it work. I don't think they give a damn about gigaflops or teraflops.
 
I'm excited by the portability of the console, but I'm going to hold off on pre-ordering. Nintendo needs to show me that the Switch will have a healthy amount of third party titles. If it ain't running games like Madden, Call of Duty, Titanfall 2, Battlefield 1, etc. this is a no buy for me. I have a Wii U so I can still play Zelda Breath of the Wild on that. I'm not buying another Nintendo console again just to play Nintendo games.
 
We never got confirmation of it, but the fact that the unit is actively cooled and runs clocked this low is pretty peculiar. Hopefully someone is able to explain it adequately at some point.
In the technical thread speculation is the fan is there because Nintendo choose a 28nm nodule, it's there more likely to make up for the gap with newer process (16nm) more than giving the console a boost in clock rates.
 
I think Switch just needs to be viewed as the next portable Nintendo system that happens to connect to your TV and not as a console in any aspect. If you view it that way it becomes a lot easier to accept these specs. My only hope (which is probably wishful thinking) is a more capable and 'traditional' home console is coming from Nintendo at some point in the future.
 
I hate this viewpoint. 150 GFlops is simply embarrassing in a year where a 6000 GFlop home console is also being released. The Switch isn't capable of running 2017 to 2020 third party games at a remotely acceptable level. And what will happen when 12000 GFlop consoles come out in 2020/2021?

The same thing people of been doing for the past 15 to 20 years. Played on one of the more powerful consuls for multi platform games. I think everyone can get past the idea that Nintendo is not going to have an all-in-one solution. That dream is done gamecube was the last hope of that.
 
In the technical thread speculation is the fan is there because Nintendo choose a 28nm nodule, it's there more likely to make up for the gap with newer process (16nm) more than giving the console a boost.

That would be garbage. Less power and less battery life... Is there any upside at all?
 
This. This is the absolute killer app of the system. Sure, you'll have some Nintendo teams helping out with mobile games and whatnot, but with the Switch you're basically getting Nintendo's entire arsenal of handheld and console teams working on one system. Whether third-parties are on board or not, I'm confident Nintendo alone will be able to get the system through any potential software droughts.

This is the most excited I've ever been for a Nintendo system. I love good specs and I love the idea of being able to buy third-party games on a Nintendo system, however ever since it was revealed to be a hybrid I felt that would push a lot of them away. At the end of the day we're getting a classic Nintendo system that will play Nintendo games, and I'm cool with that. I didn't buy a Wii U because of the constant SW droughts, and I stopped playing my Wii in 2010, but the 3DS is a great example of a system that thrives with strong output from first-party software and I expect the Switch to expand upon that greatly.
The Switch is far more attractive proposition than both the 3DS and Wii U. I still except them to disappoint me somehow down the line.
 
I'm excited by the portability of the console, but I'm going to hold off on pre-ordering. Nintendo needs to show me that the Switch will have a healthy amount of third party titles. If it ain't running games like Madden, Call of Duty, Titanfall 2, Battlefield 1, etc. this is a no buy for me. I have a Wii U so I can still play Zelda Breath of the Wild on that. I'm not buying another Nintendo console again just to play Nintendo games.

No fucking way it's running bf1. Maybe bf1 with like 20 people servers max. I can't see this tablet running 64 man servers.
 
I don't know. Do COD and NBA2k render at 1080p on Xbone?

CoD IW

The base PS4 and Xbox One versions use a horizontal upscaler ranging from 960x1080 to full HD, with additional super-sampling provided via a temporal component.

which should be similar to the technique used by Ubisoft for R6.


Not sure about NBA, although maybe that's 900p on the Xbox One?


I hate this viewpoint. 150 GFlops is simply embarrassing in a year where a 6000 GFlop home console is also being released. The Switch isn't capable of running 2017 to 2020 third party games at a remotely acceptable level. And what will happen when 12000 GFlop consoles come out in 2020/2021?

The docked console is 393gflops. 157gflops on a modern architecture with modern APIs, fp16, a "decent" CPU and much more RAM should still be able to outperform last gen consoles, which isn't that bad for a portable. But comparing it to the at least 400$ Xbox Scorpio, a premium console that will target 4K, doesn't even begin to make sense. No matter how bad its hardware is, you can't compare apples to oranges.
 
I hate this viewpoint. 150 GFlops is simply embarrassing in a year where a 6000 GFlop home console is also being released. The Switch isn't capable of running 2017 to 2020 third party games at a remotely acceptable level. And what will happen when 12000 GFlop consoles come out in 2020/2021?

It's equally embarrassing to dogmatically require that all games consoles play the same games and target the same audience. There is only so much room there.
 
The idea that they were overclocked was inferred by people here on GAF because early dev kits had a "noisy internal fan" according to the Eurogamer sources earlier this year. That's what fueled early speculation by people here and Data Foundry themselves that the Tegra X1 may be a placeholder for another chip.

We never got confirmation of it, but the fact that the unit is actively cooled and runs clocked this low is pretty peculiar. Hopefully someone is able to explain it adequately at some point.
If the final version of the Switch doesn't need a fan, while in mobile mode, and the older Devkit had one, this could mean the finall chip is the Pascal or a close version to it. We're all sure, if Nintendo would use the Pascal, they would always choose the 25% in power-saving and not for performance boost. So the Pascal (or something similar) made the fan maybe unnecessary, but still didn't add anything to overall performance.

The Switch still has some questionmarks.
 
The Switch should have been two systems - a portable tablet successor to the 3DS, and a home console it can pair with.

It trying to be both things at the same time means you get a shitty version of each. On reveal day people were already saying "They'll make a Switch Lite" and "They need a TV-only version.", because that's what consumers would actually buy.

Exactly.
 
I hate this viewpoint. 150 GFlops is simply embarrassing in a year where a 6000 GFlop home console is also being released. The Switch isn't capable of running 2017 to 2020 third party games at a remotely acceptable level. And what will happen when 12000 GFlop consoles come out in 2020/2021?

There's 6000GFlop portable coming out?
 
They still had it running, so what does that change?

Running to a level considered acceptable by From Soft so who knows what that means.

If the devkits had even a standard TX1 it was quite a bit more powerful than these specs.
 
I think Switch just needs to be viewed as the next portable Nintendo system that happens to connect to your TV and not as a console in any aspect. If you view it that way it becomes a lot easier to accept these specs. My only hope (which is probably wishful thinking) is a more capable and 'traditional' home console is coming from Nintendo at some point in the future.

Not only did the Nintendo market this as a "portable console" or "home console with portability", but the initial line up of games are all primarily console iterations. It's not like they've mentioned or even shown Rhythm Tengoku, WarioWare, Pokemon, Brain Age, Puzzle League or these franchises that you associate with portable gaming yet.

Honestly, I think if anything this is a Wii U 2. It really is. Not saying it's a bad thing, but just that this is the realized concept.
 
Yep. They could.
Or they could have learn nothing from the WiiU and went with a dirt cheap setup.
When WiiU was released, iwata and reggie were saying that WiiU could receive easy third party ports.

Switch supports UE4 and Unity natively without weird architectural bottlenecks. Ports technically would be easy as long as they're optimized for Switch's limitations.
 
I really liked what Ben Thompson wrote about Switch on his site, Stratechery, and this part is definitely true to me:

Ben Thompson said:
Secondly, will Nintendo fully embrace a niche strategy? As I noted above, in a niche it is most important to convince consumers that they want your device; only then will they decide if they can afford it. If Nintendo skimps on the quality of its components, the performance of the device, or battery life just to save a few bucks, they may well please the people who were going to buy the device anyways, but plenty of others will stick with their good-enough smartphones or clearly superior consoles. Obviously the Switch should not be absurdly expensive, but it can definitely be too cheap.

I would happily pay the difference between a Switch with year-old-best-in-class internals and a Switch with right-now-best-in-class internals.
 
Even if the Dev Kits aren't overclocked this still seems to be severely under clocked especially in portable mode compared to stock X1.
 
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