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Switch 2 battery to last 4 hours and why AMD lost out

Klosshufvud

Member
Most of his Switch 2 rumors match what everyone else is currently saying when he said it nearly a year ago. Cut him some slack on this at least. Of course taking this with a grain of salt as one should.


Compared to less than an hour you get with the PC handhelds at 15w. Even Steam deck gets you two at best and they have much bigger batteries. The more powerful these handhelds get, the more battery they consume. Miss the Gameboy days of 10+ hours on 2 AA batteries.


If true, on every level Nvidia's chipset is better. Equal power at lower wattage is saying a lot as the Hz rate difference would be huge going from 5w to 15w. Of course like with the Switch most likely a dev could increase that if they wanted to. Super Mario Odyssey runs at a higher wattage than most games on the Switch.
Do you really want me to post those Rog Ally X battery life benchmarks?
 

Cyberpunkd

Member
5 Watts is pathetic for everyone that saw the graphic settings vs. power draw on Steamdeck or ROG Ally. Another reason this will be thrash to play Nintendo IPs only.

FFS, nowadays there is a power outlet everywhere - trains, planes, etc.
 
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Zacfoldor

Member
People think DLSS will save them on a mobile CPU with a 5W TDP lol

Just wave that magic wand around Nintendo!!
With what they did on Switch 1 hardware, I can't wait to see them cook with this thing. With how like Portal Collection and Metroid Prime looked on Switch 1, what are we even talking about. We WILL see some magic on this thing and it won't just come form Nintendo. Handheld will always be a place where efficiency shines.

You would have a point if this wasn't a direct upgrade from Switch 1, which is ancient by any standard and still could drop goty bangers.
 

Klosshufvud

Member
5 Watts is pathetic for everyone that saw the graphic settings vs. power draw on Steamdeck or ROG Ally. Another reason this will be thrash to play Nintendo IPs only.

FFS, nowadays there is a power outlet everywhere - trains, planes, etc.
With higher wattage comes not only demand for a bigger battery, which costs more, but also bigger fans, which also cost more. And with bigger fans and bigger battery comes a larger device, which also costs more. And may also exclude Nintendo's main demographic - 7-14 year olds.
 

Cyberpunkd

Member
Compared to less than an hour you get with the PC handhelds at 15w. Even Steam deck gets you two at best and they have much bigger batteries.
Shocked Steve Harvey GIF by ABC Network


Do you own a Steamdeck or ROG Ally? If not check YouTube videos - power draw of 25W will give you 90-120 minutes of game time on a Steamdeck, more on Ally X. So stop the BS. If Nintendo really wanted 5W operation it’s pathetic, no other way to put it.
 

Filben

Member
Doubt.

4 hours game time is no system seller, especially if we consider 5W. 8 hours might be. Or 4hours at 15W.

But then again... 5 Watt? What kind of games would you run on this? Slightly better versions of the existing ones, which then is also no system seller.
 

Zacfoldor

Member
Shocked Steve Harvey GIF by ABC Network


Do you own a Steamdeck or ROG Ally? If not check YouTube videos - power draw of 25W will give you 90-120 minutes of game time on a Steamdeck, more on Ally X. So stop the BS. If Nintendo really wanted 5W operation it’s pathetic, no other way to put it.
Incorrect. Nintendo cares about keeping costs low and decent battery life.

Nintendo Switch is out now. So is steam deck and ROG Ally. Switch still outsells the other shit you are talking about by 1000 to 1 because of the above and also because of Nintendo software and branding. This will continue and so will Switch 2.

While you may care about only power and are okay with 90 minutes of battery life to squeeze extra resolution on your unoptimized PC games, Nintendo knows exactly what they are doing whether you agree with them or not. If they listened to you they would go broke my brother. You know this.
 

Klosshufvud

Member
demographics-2022-656x369.jpg


Just say you have no idea what you're talking about.
I'd like to see how this info was collected. Because I'm sure I saw one before that used Nintendo's own online system as a source. Which is obviously not representative at all to the average user. Regardless, Nintendo will ALWAYS be a kid friendly company. You're delusional if you think they even look at Steam Deck or Rog Ally when creating Switch 2. Their priorities will be to keep it light, to keep it cool, to keep it small and to keep it cheap.
 

Sooner

Member
Their last two consoles both were more powerful than PS3 and less than PS4.

I have a feeling it will become three, which seems completely pointless.
 

Cyberpunkd

Member
Incorrect. Nintendo cares about keeping costs low and decent battery life.

Nintendo Switch is out now. So is steam deck and ROG Ally. Switch still outsells the other shit you are talking about by 1000 to 1 because of the above and also because of Nintendo software and branding. This will continue and so will Switch 2.

While you may care about only power and are okay with 90 minutes of battery life to squeeze extra resolution on your unoptimized PC games, Nintendo knows exactly what they are doing whether you agree with them or not. If they listened to you they would go broke my brother. You know this.
Switch is 2017 hardware situation, aka ancient times. Do not apply the same measure to what is happening now.

Nintendo cares about keeping costs low to protect their profit margins, nothing to do with consumer. Yes, you are getting an underpowered hardware where you cannot even change the wattage and settings because according to Nintendo you are to fucking stupid to do it.
 

PaintTinJr

Member
Mmmmmh…. Not sure about that, Nintendo wanted the cheapest possible chip and to pack the smallest and cheapest battery they could.

4 hours battery life is nothing to shout about… but eh we will see.
That....and I suspect much like Sony and Google, etc being in no rush to push their phone charging beyond 30watts, towards far more potentially dangerous levels of 150watt that phone reviewers only see as a positive on random brands, I would think Nintendo's attitude on too much power use, and too much battery capacity in a device being 50% targeted at young kids will also factor into things.
 

Minsc

Gold Member
4 hour battery life sounds pretty small compared to OLED Deck's 12 hour battery life.

They should have gone OLED for better battery life.
 

FireFly

Member
So many reports that don't line up with each other, its getting hilarious.

5w? The original ran upwards of 9w in handheld, and if memory serves, around 16w when docked.

The end of this saga is going to be very interesting.
I think they're talking about the power consumption of the APU. The 9W figure is the total system power consumption at max screen brightness.
 
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Celcius

°Temp. member
5 WATTS?!?!

oof-disappointed.gif


I used my Switch 1 exclusively in handheld mode and for the Switch 2 I'm going docked only.
 

HogIsland

Member
Good to see people are coming back to earth on Switch 2 performance. Not only is it Nintendo's MO to put out under-powered hardware, it's actually preferable for their purposes. It'll keep the price down, the design slim/manageable and superior battery life. These things have to be sturdy enough to give to 5 year olds. Steam Deck, Ally, etc are for older players.
 

Haint

Member
I'm the first to shit on AMD and champion Nvidia as vastly superior, but there ain't no way a 5 year old T239 design on a larger node is "performing the same" as a Z1 derivative outside of some ultra low power 5W mode the AMD chips aren't designed to run at. AMD's Radeon arm is incompetent, but they're not that incompetent.
 

kevboard

Member
I'm the first to shit on AMD and champion Nvidia as vastly superior, but there ain't no way a 5 year old T239 design on a larger node is "performing the same" as a Z1 derivative outside of some ultra low power 5W mode the AMD chips aren't designed to run at. AMD's Radeon arm is incompetent, but they're not that incompetent.

the T239 when using its full clock speeds has about the same GPU power as AMD Strix Point.

CPU is hard to compare due to ARM vs X64.

so yes. AMD is that incompetent. Nvidia's APUs are only held back by the fact that they don't have an X86 license
 
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Nintendo probably could of gotten away with the high price they could of used ryzen extreme Z2. Be the first console/handheld based to have a 12 core processor with 16 compute units despite the low cu with having rdna 3.5 possibly fsr 4 ai upscaler this would probably beat series s and give ps5 a run for it's money
 
low power for handheld was to be expected, but hopefully it means docked it can pull much more, like 20-30w, otherwise this is just going to be a "switch pro" instead of a switch 2.
 
Sounds like switch 2 is not going to be that much more powerful then the switch like to switches slapped together.
"The way you manufacture a Switch 2 is you take two Switches and duct tape."

no oled is a bummer, the screen on the switch oled is pristine
It really is. My main TV is a Sony A95K, but I often prefer to play handheld simply because the screen is the perfect size and image quality is immaculate. It will be a step down to regular LCD unless Nintendo has some magic trick.
 

KINGMOKU

Member
I think they're talking about the power consumption of the APU. The 9W figure is the total system power consumption at max screen brightness.
What is the original switches APU power draw? That would be an excellent basis to even discuss this, right? Just spitballing, but if the OG switch was the same 5w, on a larger process which was 20nm(if I recall correctly) wouldn't the same 5w be better put to use on an 8, or even 5nm process? Or, way more efficient in performance?
 
What is the original switches APU power draw? That would be an excellent basis to even discuss this, right? Just spitballing, but if the OG switch was the same 5w, on a larger process which was 20nm(if I recall correctly) wouldn't the same 5w be better put to use on an 8, or even 5nm process? Or, way more efficient in performance?
For OG Switch that's about 8-9w in handheld mode. 11-12w docked.
 
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KINGMOKU

Member
For OG Switch that's about 8-9w in handheld mode. 11-12w docked.
See, that's what I thought(although for more intensive games like TOTK it was reported that the switch in docked mode would peak at around 16w).

So the question becomes;

Why would Nintendo limit the switch 2 at 5w in handheld mode, when it was much higher on the OG switch?

Unless of course this report is either BS, or half the story.
 

Comandr

Member
Small battery; 5 watt consumption. Sounds a lot like the post I made a month ago. YOU DIDN'T LISTEN THEN. WHO'S CRAZY NOW!
 

LordOcidax

Member
See, that's what I thought(although for more intensive games like TOTK it was reported that the switch in docked mode would peak at around 16w).

So the question becomes;

Why would Nintendo limit the switch 2 at 5w in handheld mode, when it was much higher on the OG switch?

Unless of course this report is either BS, or half the story.
This news is BS, AMD never was in the equation for the Switch 2, and we know that for years by official sources.
 
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