rnlval
Member
For SteamDeck
Y2022 = 1.62 million
Y2023 = 1.85 million
This does not include SteamDeck PC clones.
Switch 2 battery to last 4 hours and why AMD lost out
- Thread starter Dorfdad
- Start date
Y2022 = 1.62 million
Y2023 = 1.85 million
This does not include SteamDeck PC clones.
1.) Nvidia was getting densities of ~43.5Mtr / mm² on 8nm compared with densities of ~119Mtr / mm² on 5 nm, as you can see if you check various Ampere and Ada cards on TPU. So that is already almost 3X the density. And 3X may even be achievable considering logic scales better than cache and the newer Ada chips have a lot more cache.
2.) Even if all TSMC processes are too expensive, it doesn't rule out a newer Samsung process, such as their 5LPE node.
3.) Why did Nintendo decide not to build a smaller chip if their current one is wasting performance in handheld mode, and like you implied they only care about cost?
4.) Why is Nintendo apparently perfectly happy to design on a node that will likely be discontinued in a few years, forcing them to use a newer process anyway?
And regarding Ampere's performance, my point is that its real world performance is pretty close to GCN's, which was also considered to have "inflated" TF figures. So even a 2.4 TF Switch 2 should be enough to exceed the performance of the base PS4.
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existensmaximum
Member
You're right, that's A LOT closer to 143 million... The Switch 2 is definitely going to be outnumbered by handheld PCs.
Woopah
Member
I face that situation when I fly. But I just bring a powerbank.
They are competition, but not major competition.
Sid91
Neo Member
In handheld mode?
SmoothBrain
Member
Everyone who thought they were better off without Steam came crawling back. Valve and other handheld providers are in for the long run. And with Steam they have the biggest gaming platform on their side.
Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if Nintendo is a bit salty about AMD providing chips for their competitors in the handheld market and the bold part is probably one of the key factors:
They didn't care about performance; they wanted a cheap offer, probably similar to what Sony pulled with AMD and Intel.
mckmas8808
Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
These look like PS5 Pro yearly sales numbers to me.
Haint
Member
They have to hit a reasonable performance minimum that will entice enough people to upgrade and enough developers interested in doing ports and new projects, they can't literally build the smallest weakest parts possible. 8nm's not going anywhere, but they are no doubt already planning on a node shrink for the inevitable OLED refresh, Lite, and "better battery" revision in a few years. That is ironically perhaps the strongest supporting evidence for 8nm, in that the work is already done, the T234 is already produced on it. I also suspect Samsung's probably desperate for a big guaranteed 8nm customer and are offering them firesale wafer prices, much in the same was they got Tegra X1's on firesale from a desperate Nvidia.
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The T239 is a custom chip with different CPU cores to the T234 and additions such as decompression blocks and apparently clock gating technology taken from Ada. So I don't see how the T234 existing means the work is already done for Nintendo, since they're effectively designing a new APU from scratch using existing technology, not taking an off the shelf chip like they did with Tegra.
And my point is precisely that they could have hit a reasonable performance minimum with a smaller APU. The T239 has 12 SMs. An 8 SM chip would have been be no slower in handheld mode, as it would have been able to get closer to the peak efficiency clocks. In docked mode, at Switch 1 clocks, it would hit ~1.6 TF, which should have been enough to deliver Xbox One level performance. That's still a generational performance improvement. Indeed I remember the consensus being that Nintendo would deliver something like an 8 SM 1024 ALU GPU for the Switch 2. That's what's in the Jetson Orin NX that everyone was predicting Nintendo would use.
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Killer8
Member
While a lot of people poo poo this rumor, it makes sense to balance the power output with battery life. We saw with Steam Deck what letting the TDP run wild can do - yeah you can run some high-end PC games maxxxxed out™, but you end up with about 2 hours of battery life in the process. The Deck is also massive to accommodate even that. A device that can last about 4 hours and isn't comically over-sized is important for practicality reasons, even if it means visual sacrifices.
Trilobit
Absolutely Cozy
Yeah, if battery time sucks on a portable then you might as well skip the portability altogether.
tkscz
Member
Why not? Splatoon 3 and No Man's Sky uses FSR in handheld mode on the current Switch (at least I assume they do, I know they use them, but no one says if it's only while docked or in handheld mode as well), plus the Switch 2 (I do not like calling it that) will have tensor cores built in for it, why not use it. I mean, yeah battery life, but it might be a per game thing.
Shadowstar39
Member
to play what? Their (MS/Sony) games are too big. Sorry but you have 250gb cod games, that would fill up most general users sd cards. The cost of 1tb cards are still over $60 and most don't get them (i do but i have tons of games) . Handhelds aren't supposed to be 1:1 console, and if people think that they are in for a rude awakening.
All switch 2 needs is to be fully backward compaitble with existing switch (both digital and cart) and ps4 level graphics, it will be fine.
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rnlval
Member
X86-64 ACPI is a clone standard.