StarTopic Future Nintendo Hardware & Technology Speculation & Discussion |ST| (New Staff Post, Please read)

[Hirogami]

greetings to all,

I have a small reference for you concerning the switch 2, some of you have known sony with the playstation1 sold to more than 100million followed by a playstation2 which made more and which guaranteed a retrocompatibility not to lose the 100million player even if the dvd player made a lot.

If Nintendo comes out with a switch 2 is guaranteed a total backward compatibility with even the recovery of the backup and download games on our NSO account, I say it clearly Nintendo will make us a playstation 2 with this switch 2.

Among other things the support of a backward compatibility is also the support of third parties with the games excluded ps5 / xbox series on the switch 2 and have the winning combos

 

[JoshuaJSlone]

Ultimately, business reasons alone will have Nintendo not do Drake exclusive releases for at least 1.5 years if not longer. They're not going to miss out on base Switchs 100+ million userbase for their big releases.

I think there will be plenty of games still made for base Switch for a long time, I think it's a stretch to say they'll do 0 in the first year. Not all of their games are available physically, not all of their games have multiplayer, not all of their games work well in handheld, not all of their games will be playable on every model.

I have a small reference for you concerning the switch 2, some of you have known sony with the playstation1 sold to more than 100million followed by a playstation2 which made more and which guaranteed a retrocompatibility not to lose the 100million player even if the dvd player made a lot.

If Nintendo comes out with a switch 2 is guaranteed a total backward compatibility with even the recovery of the backup and download games on our NSO account, I say it clearly Nintendo will make us a playstation 2 with this switch 2.

Sure, but Wii U had that too.

 

[Dakhil]

If Nintendo comes out with a switch 2 is guaranteed a total backward compatibility with even the recovery of the backup and download games on our NSO account, I say it clearly Nintendo will make us a playstation 2 with this switch 2.

I don't think 100% backwards compatibility is a given, considering how different Ampere is compared to Maxwell, architecturally speaking.

But saying that, I think 99.9% backwards compatibility is definitely possible, especially with Nintendo continuing to work with Nvidia, which I think is more than good enough for Nintendo, and is more than good enough for Microsoft and Sony.

 

[Thraktor]

I think there will be plenty of games still made for base Switch for a long time, I think it's a stretch to say they'll do 0 in the first year. Not all of their games are available physically, not all of their games have multiplayer, not all of their games work well in handheld, not all of their games will be playable on every model.

I suspect that there's going to be some kind of new functionality in the new model (beyond being more powerful) and that they'll have some exclusive games which will leverage such functionality, even if they're smaller download-only titles. My guess is still a camera or two for AR, with AR Nintendogs as the flagship exclusive for the new hardware. Granted I've been very wrong when predicting Nintendo hardware before, but they should at least have some kind of new hardware functionality we're not aware of.

 

[Deleted member 1324]

I’m only gonna say it once, as I’ve been ignoring most of discussion because it doesn’t make sense to me why people are discussing it, but the level of performance that this new hardware can execute is well above the switch that you can tell when a game is built for that piece of hardware versus for the switch just like how people can tell a PS4 game from a PS3 game.

Nintendo’s own engines have to be updated to make use of said hardware where it’s a noticeable difference from the base switch in terms of Fidelity, and scope of a title, now you may be saying “well, they would just use the engines are tailor-made for the switch“, and that’s right, they will and if they do so, it would look like a switch game because it is built around the parameters and limitations of a switch. And finally, Nintendo will not show a game for hardware that was not announced, and you would not be able to tell a switch game from a switch 2 game this early on.


You’ll be able to tell a switch 2 game from a regular switch game in a couple of years, but right now? You will not really be able to tell besides a higher resolution, and a higher frame rate, a.k.a. it’ll be a cleaner overall image, but that’s only in motion.

This idea that Pikmin 4 is somehow tied to something related to Drake when Pikmin 4 hasn’t shown anything that a switch can’t do is preposterous.

We’ve seen games like Luigi’s Mansion 3 on the switch. We’ve seen games like breath of the wild on the switch and that’s a damn Wii U game and still regarded as one of the most impressive titles released by Nintendo to date. We will see tears of the kingdom on the switch and make use of the hardware and not be built for the Wii U limitations in mind.

We have seen astral chain on the switch. This is just a few examples, but the type of game Pikmin is does not lend itself to being this massive open world game, it’s a real time strategy game. It’ll be a closed environment to work with.



This extra tidbit is just something that I feel like should be put out there to be made clear: the jump from the Nintendo switch to the Nintendo switch 2 will be a bigger, more noticeable jump than the jump from PlayStation3 to PlayStation4 or to jump from Xbox 360 to Xbox One, or the jump from PlayStation 4 to PlayStation 5 or Xbox one to the Xbox series. That is to say, there’s going to be a noticeable degree of difference between these two pieces of hardware that straight up can’t be ignored. Regardless of the clock speed that Nintendo chooses, it is going to be a massive difference that cannot be ignored regardless of how you slice us.


The PS4 to 5 and XB1 to XBS is more of a product of diminishing returns, which makes it less pronounced to the average Joe/Joanna/J.



Switch 2 vs 1:
1) The way it processes geometry is far more efficient
2) the way it handles memory bandwidth is far greater and more efficient
3) the way it can reach its target resolution will be far easier
4) the CPU will far stronger and faster at performing its job with the GPU
5) this will have a lot more available memory


Like I could go on

1 - It has to also run on Switch so will be 'limited' much like people complain about cross gen PS4-5 games.
2 - It's Pikmin which always has a small team and tiny budget developed over many, many years.

It's not going to be a showcase of what Drake can do visually.

 

[Raccoon]

This idea that Pikmin 4 is somehow tied to something related to Drake when Pikmin 4 hasn’t shown anything that a switch can’t do is preposterous.

yeah but it also hasn't shown much of anything at all

 

[Pokemaniac]

What's even more interesting is that the Switch's Nvidia/ARM/LP combo is engineered differently to PS/XB, so, when you add a further evolved neural unit and DLSS to the mix, it could still be putting out (near) equivalent end results at a fraction of the power consumption. The extra CPU grunt and bandwidth are needed on PS/XB because their respective GPUs are already being taxed a lot heavier than they would with the Switch's approach. Also, whenever the 3rd Generation of Switches arrive, who's to say that 256bit MIs or SMT ARM CPUs wouldn't be realised by then? The potential prospects are quite incredible.

ARM cores with SMT exist, it's just typically not seen as worth it with the cores being fairly small.

 

[Dakhil]

ARM cores with SMT exist, it's just typically not seen as worth it with the cores being fairly small.

Yes, the Cortex-A65AE, which I believe is the only Arm CPU that supports SMT currently.

 

[Pokemaniac]

Yes, the Cortex-A65AE, which I believe is the only Arm CPU that supports SMT currently.

I believe one or two of the Neoverse designs also supports it.

 

[Deleted member 341]

yeah but it also hasn't shown much of anything at all

enough for me to get hyped

because I am desperate as fuck when it comes to Pikmin even tho it was basically just a glorified logo reveal.

 

[MP!]

Yup that’s why I agreed it could be “in engine” footage running on Switch. An actual game that looks exactly like that isn’t possible on the current model though imo.

I may have quoted the wrong person... I don't even remember what my point was ... it was late and I was on my phone...
SHRUG

 

[chocolate_supra]

basically just a glorified logo reveal.

Allow me to introduce you to:

Spoiler

 

[Heruderu]

Incredible how almost every new game revealed for the last year has people saying it’s not possible on Switch, so it should be Drake footage

I honestly don’t see what is so out of this world for Switch in what they showed. Pikmin 3 on Wii U blew me away way more than this (edit: I’m not saying Pikmin 3 looks better, just in case someone understands it that way).

 

[Deleted member 341]

Allow me to introduce you to:

Pikmin has the prettier 4 and the better reveal. Don't @ me

 

[Thraktor]

I believe one or two of the Neoverse designs also supports it.

The Neoverse E1 does. I think it's generally accepted that SMT isn't a great choice when designing around power efficiency, as ARM cores generally are. Both the A65AE and E1 are designed for specific use cases (automotive and networking respectively) where there are other design considerations, but I'd be very surprised if ARM (or Apple/Qualcomm/whoever) design an ARM core intended for smartphones with SMT.

 

[Dakhil]

The Neoverse E1 does. I think it's generally accepted that SMT isn't a great choice when designing around power efficiency, as ARM cores generally are. Both the A65AE and E1 are designed for specific use cases (automotive and networking respectively) where there are other design considerations, but I'd be very surprised if ARM (or Apple/Qualcomm/whoever) design an ARM core intended for smartphones with SMT.

And interestingly, the Neoverse E1 is derived from the Cortex-A65AE.

 

[chocolate_supra]

Pikmin has the pretter 4 and the better reveal. Don't @ me

Absolutely agree, but if we're talking about desperation caused by a glorified logo reveal..

 

[Deleted member 887]

if Nintendo keeps going with this Switch or adjacent concepts (ARM+NV+LP) devices, they are in for gaining a lot I think in terms of memory speeds. Really great gen-on-gen leaps while also being lower power consumption and not even factoring more efficient architectures wrt Memory Bandwidth utilization


With LPDDR5 on a 128-bit memory interface it should be at most 102.4GB/s.

With 5X on a 128-bit memory interface it should be 136.5GB/s at most.

With LPDDR6 and it’s projected 17000MT/s, so it should be double the 5X projection and offer ~273GB/s on a 128-bit interface, this is really fast for a portable!


And here’s only in theoretical, but let’s assume that LPDDR6X is a 20-30% improvement, then that would be 327.6-354.9GB/s!



Which would be right in line with when Nintendo’s next console should come out I think… or maybe they’ll go with LPDDR7 by then? Who knows!


And this assumes all goes well of course…


But here’s where I posit the question, with LPDDR seemingly gaining a lot in bandwidth, would we see the next consoles from the other platforms move to LPDDR memory as a way of reaching higher memory capacity?

Currently, they utilize several GDDR6 memory modules to meet their bandwidths of 560+336, 448GB/s and 224GB/s respectively. However, this was the smaller increase in available memory gen on gen compared to previous generations.


The PS6 and Series X^2 for instance would need to offer a memory capacity upgrade, will they go a smaller increase to 24GB for the system or 32GB? Here’s where I think that LPDDR memory can actually help since they can tend to come in higher capacity…





But not the best in terms of bandwidth vs GDDR, though they do have a lower latency and are only worse to DDR memory.



Like for example, the Series X has a 320bit interface and has high speed of 560GB/s, with LPDDR6 it would be equivalent of 682GB/s but it’s several years late by then. Not a major increase but not a negligible one either. PS6 by comparison would only be 546GB/s.


However, it can probably be a 32GB console for devs to work with over a 24GB console. This is only speculative of course.


This is all still pretty expensive of course but… again only speculative.



Consoles could use HBM but that has an obscene level of latency and it is the worst of the bunch compared to DDR, LPDDR and GDDR.



Perhaps…. Mixing of tweets concepts could be the way for consoles as they move forward, using LPDDR can help reach higher capacity for less modules, but also adding more cache to the SoC, even a separate tile, to help reduce memory bandwidth constraints in those consoles in the long term.

It’s interesting the way the various memory standards influence each other, too. I’m sort of surprised that there isn’t a standard for devices that share a single pool, like consoles and phones, though is suppose LPDDR is close

 

[ShadowFox08]

I don't follow what's baseless believing that Nintendo won't offer enhanced patches for free?

Probably requiring NSO.

Although not related to Nintendo's new hardware equipped with Drake, Samsung projects LPDDR6 to be released at around late 2025 to early 2026 according to Samsung's DRAM roadmap shown during Samsung Memory Tech Day 2022.

Would be amazing if we got LPDDR5X on Drake, for the extra bandwidth, but feels a bit of a pipe dream, although not impossible. If Drake could be in a 5nm node, then it's more possible we could get LPDDR5X and maybe UFS 3.1 SSD.. But at a price for both of course.

And here’s only in theoretical, but let’s assume that LPDDR6X is a 20-30% improvement, then that would be 327.6-354.9GB/s!

So 2028-2029 release at the earliest.. That's if it comes in time for Switch 3. Maybe that would enough to run ps5 quality games in docked. VS PS5 with 448 GB/s bandwidth. LPDDR7 would take even longer. Seems like the pattern is every 6 years for a new generation of Low powered RAM, and about 2-3 years at least for the X variant. This is all assuming RAM tech doesn't slow down..

 

[Mr Swine]

Would be amazing if we got LPDDR5X on Drake, for the extra bandwidth, but feels a bit of a pipe dream, although not impossible. If Drake could be in a 5nm node, then it's more possible we could get LPDDR5X and maybe UFS 3.1 SSD.. But at a price for both of course.

I think that 102GB/s is fine for NVIDIA Uarch like Ampere even if it would be better with 120+ GB/s. It would still be able to get out more bandwidth than RDNA2

 

[Dakhil]

Would be amazing if we got LPDDR5X on Drake, for the extra bandwidth, but feels a bit of a pipe dream, although not impossible. If Drake could be in a 5nm node, then it's more possible we could get LPDDR5X and maybe UFS 3.1 SSD.. But at a price for both of course.

I don't think the process node being used to fabricate Drake has anything to do with which type of RAM and internal flash storage Drake supports. Rather, the memory controllers for the RAM and internal flash storage determines which type of RAM and internal flash storage Drake supports.

Orin's known to have memory controllers that support LPDDR5 and support up to UFS 3.0 for the RAM and the internal flash storage respectively (pp. 3-4). The memory controller for LPDDR5 probably isn't forward compatible with LPDDR5X if LPDDR4X is any indication. And likely the same deal with respect to UFS 3.1.

Nobody knows if Nintendo asked Nvidia to update the memory controllers for Drake to support LPDDR5X and UFS 3.1.

 

[Look over there]

I’d suspect that, as time progresses and SSDs get faster, they’ll try to use those as a a way to better leverage how things are loaded in.

That said, this is probably an area Nintendo should better look into, as a faster SSD than what is in the switch would help it tremendously, and not even 5.5GB/s, or 2.4GB/s. Just 1GB/s seems like the bare minimum devs wanted from Sony as per Mark Cerny.


Hell, if Nintendo took a later faster storage and clocked it to operate at lower speeds I think there would be a nice amount of energy savings.

Oh yea, eUFS would be lovely for that.

As for what the consoles could try later...
Hmm, so the interesting thing is, once we moved from the spinny disk era to solid state, we had that gigantic jump in random access, right? But as the solid state era matured, sure, there's been progression, but we haven't really advanced random access by tangible leaps and bounds again. So as far as the future goes, there needs to be either a breakthrough in storage tech to revolutionize random access again, or I guess alteration to... data access strategy, I guess? To maximize reading sequentially?
Is DirectStorage supposed to address that?

 

[Gyemknight]

Imagine Nintendo revealed that the Switch Ultra/2 was going to release in April and then on April 1st, they showed a trailer of it then at the end it said April Fools

 

[Deleted member 887]

Ultimately, business reasons alone will have Nintendo not do Drake exclusive releases for at least 1.5 years if not longer. They're not going to miss out on base Switchs 100+ million userbase for their big releases.

Eh, I don't think "exclusives" have to be "big releases." I have no idea what Nintendo's strategy is for this thing, and there is no exact parallel in their history - but DSi and New3DS both launched with first party exclusives. And of course, the Wii U launched with New Super Mario Bros U, 6 years (almost to the day) after the Wii launched, despite the Wii having 100+ million in units sold, and the NSMBU having no use for the gamepad in the main mode.

I'm not saying there will be exclusives either. I genuinely have no idea. Nintendo's software strategy for this thing is intimately tied to their marketing plan, and their plans for the console after Drake, none of which are clear.

 

[ShadowFox08]

I don't think the process node being used to fabricate Drake has anything to do with which type of RAM and internal flash storage Drake supports. Rather, the memory controllers for the RAM and internal flash storage determines which type of RAM and internal flash storage Drake supports.

Orin's known to have memory controllers that support LPDDR5 and support up to UFS 3.0 for the RAM and the internal flash storage respectively (pp. 3-4). The memory controller for LPDDR5 probably isn't forward compatible with LPDDR5X if LPDDR4X is any indication. And likely the same deal with respect to UFS 3.1.

Nobody knows if Nintendo asked Nvidia to update the memory controllers for Drake to support LPDDR5X and UFS 3.1.

It doesn't. But I think using newer tech means it's more likely Nintendo could use other newer tech for their system as well. Though not guaranteed. Nintendo will likely prioritize affordability and/or power draw over performance though. I'm not expecting LPDDR5x.

Good to know that LPDDR5 goes up to UFS 3.0. UFS 3.0 is really mature so I would be disappointed if we don't get that at least for storage.

I think that 102GB/s is fine for NVIDIA Uarch like Ampere even if it would be better with 120+ GB/s. It would still be able to get out more bandwidth than RDNA2

Yeah I fully expect 102 GB/s. We'll see how it handles 1080p PS4 ports natively with the ampere architecture and increased cache. I think the Switch did surprisingly well with just 25 GB/s for some games vs xbone and PS4.

Of course more bandwidth is better to make it more future proof.

 

[Deleted member 887]

Oh yea, eUFS would be lovely for that.

As for what the consoles could try later...
Hmm, so the interesting thing is, once we moved from the spinny disk era to solid state, we had that gigantic jump in random access, right? But as the solid state era matured, sure, there's been progression, but we haven't really advanced random access by tangible leaps and bounds again. So as far as the future goes, there needs to be either a breakthrough in storage tech to revolutionize random access again, or I guess alteration to... data access strategy, I guess? To maximize reading sequentially?

Games often keep assets near each other on disk, when they can, to take advantage of sequential read performance, usually by packing assets together. Modern engines could provide better support for optimizing final build layout, but For Reasons, that's a really tricky optimization to make portable when you don't control the underlying media directly.

Is DirectStorage supposed to address that?

Sorta, yes. DirectStorage is like three technologies working together, and it does, in fact, attempt to get as close to sequential read perf as possible, but it only narrowly solves the problem for data that goes straight to the GPU

 

[niconiconick64]

I think @Polygon said something about switch drake supposedly utilizing emmc 5.1 which tops out at about ~250MB/s read according to google.
I tried looking up what exactly the tegra x1 switch supports but all I found was a reddit post saying it's utilizing emmc 5.1 as well but in that thread they mistakenly? implied the switch's module is spec'd at 400MB/s.

If what polygon said is true then I think there would be less of a difference in terms of games installed on the SD card vs internal storage coming from UHS 1 on the tegra x1 switch (~100MB/s) if they decided to adopt the UHS-2 standard (~300MB/s) to "make it even".

 

[Dakhil]

I think @Polygon said something about switch drake supposedly utilizing emmc 5.1 which tops out at about ~250MB/s read according to google.

Supposedly devkits were using eMMC 5.1, which is not necessarily indicative of the type of internal flash storage used in retail units.

 

[ILikeFeet]

if LPDDR5 goes up to 102GB/s, why did the Steam Deck limit itself to 88GB/s? cost? availability? valve thinking "good enough"?

 

[Look over there]

Timing/availability crossed with 'good enough'? Valve probably could've placed their orders early enough such the 5500 MT/s modules were still the only ones available, and it works out such that it's enough anyway.

 

[ReddDreadtheLead]

RTX 3050 8.018TFLOPS-224GB/s (27.93GB/s per TFLOP)
RTX 3060 12.74TFLOPS-360GB/s (28.25GB/s per TFLOP)
RTX 3060TI 16.2TFLOPS-448GB/s (27.65GB/s per TFLOP)
RTX 3070 20.31TFLOPS-448GB/s (20.05GB/s per TFLOP)
RTX 3070TI 21.75TFLOPS-608.3GB/s (27.96GB/s per TFLOP)
RTX 3080 29.77TFLOPS-760.3GB/s (25.53GB/s per TFLOP)
RTX 3080TI 34.1TFLOPS-912.4GB/s (26.75GB/s per TFLOP)
RTX 3090 35.58TFLOPS-936.2GB/s (26.31GB/s per TFLOP)
RTX 3090TI 40TFLOPS-1008GB/s (25.2GB/s per TFLOP)


Average is 26.18GB/s per TFLOP

I was simply curious on how the memory bandwidth scales with Ampere based GPUs, I don’t really think this is any useful metric but it’s interesting to see at least how it scales.


Series X is 46GB/s per TFLOP
PS5 is 43.9GB/s per TFLOP
Series S is 55.9GB/s per TFLOP
Steam Deck is 55-88GB/s per TFLOP (1-1.6VARIABLE)


Drake (theoretically):

If 384-768MHz with 68-88GB/s portable and 102.4GB/s docked, then in portable mode it has 57.67-74.6GB/s per TFLOP.

Docked it has 43.42GB/s per TFLOP.



If 460-920MHz with the same portable and docked above, then in portable mode it has 48.12-62.27GB/s per TFLOP.

Docked would be 36.23GB/s per TFLOP.




If 562-1124MHz with same portable and docked, then portable mode has 39.39-51.16GB/s per TFLOP.

Docked would be 29.76GB/s per TFLOP


And finally, the number I saw thrown around multiple times like ~4TFLOPs (no one really expects this… I think) but it would be this:


For that it has to be 1302MHz in docked and in portable I’ll assume it’s… half of that. So, 651MHz.


34.1-44.22GB/s per TFLOP portable

25.66GB/s per TFLOP docked.





This last one is rather anemic… but falls a little lower than the rest of the Ampere lineup…


CPU and GPU share the memory bandwidth and memory pool because it’s a Unified Memory Architecture.

 

[ShadowFox08]

if LPDDR5 goes up to 102GB/s, why did the Steam Deck limit itself to 88GB/s? cost? availability? valve thinking "good enough"?

I think it has an earlier model with a clockspeed that only reaches to 88 GB/s. The earliest ones only went up to that much. I think it works out in the end for them anyway, since they are mostly targeting 720p screen.. Not sure how it works out when it's docked. Obviously clockspeeds don't change, but I wonder if it goes to a 1080p screen upscaled or native (while lowering other stuff).. Being able to compare performance and resolitioj on a 1080p resolution TV for a PS4 port game on an HD TV vs an PS4 game would be really interesting

v

 

[Mr Doggo]

sup mah dogs anything interestring has been announced

 

[Dakhil]

sup mah dogs anything interestring has been announced

No.

 

[Terrell]

It doesn't. But I think using newer tech means it's more likely Nintendo could use other newer tech for their system as well. Though not guaranteed. Nintendo will likely prioritize affordability and/or power draw over performance though. I'm not expecting LPDDR5x.

Good to know that LPDDR5 goes up to UFS 3.0. UFS 3.0 is really mature so I would be disappointed if we don't get that at least for storage.

Yeah I fully expect 102 GB/s. We'll see how it handles 1080p PS4 ports natively with the ampere architecture and increased cache. I think the Switch did surprisingly well with just 25 GB/s for some games vs xbone and PS4.

Of course more bandwidth is better to make it more future proof.

eUFS 3.0 may not be required to meet the sort of read speed expectations Nintendo has for this new hardware. eUFS 2.x could meet their needs if they design the I/O with 2 lanes for UFS. Current Orin configs, to my knowledge, support a single lane for UFS. eUFS 2.2 with 2 lanes reaches 1200MB/s maximum bandwidth, which is equal to the single-lane performance of a UFS Card 3.0.

Since Nintendo seemingly likes all their media to have roughly the same or highly similar read speeds, that means a few possibilities (assuming they can ensure Game Cards have read speeds to match):

1) they end support for reading games off external memory card storage and stick with microSD cards, use eUFS 2.x internal storage on 2 lanes
2) they use UFS Card 3.0 for external memory cards on a single lane and eUFS 2.x internal storage on 2 lanes
3) they use UFS Card 3.0 for external memory cards on a single lane and eUFS 3.x internal storage on 1 lane, allowing a single lane I/O interface

It all comes down to whether using eUFS 3.x is less expensive and/or easier to source than engineering a 2-lane I/O interface for UFS. My guess is no, but I don't know for sure.

I think @Polygon said something about switch drake supposedly utilizing emmc 5.1 which tops out at about ~250MB/s read according to google.
I tried looking up what exactly the tegra x1 switch supports but all I found was a reddit post saying it's utilizing emmc 5.1 as well but in that thread they mistakenly? implied the switch's module is spec'd at 400MB/s.

They aren't wrong, the top-end spec for the chip is 400MB/s, but it can only transmit data as fast as the rest of the hardware calls for it and how the I/O is configured, and that may be where the ~250MB/s number comes in.

 

[Kise Ryota]

Sorry if this has already been discussed here, but how an A78 core compares to a ryzen 2 core (of the current console gen) with the same clock? (maybe cache would be a deciding factor for perfomrance (and we don't know what drake will use), but anything is valid just so I can have some idea of what to expect)

 

[ReddDreadtheLead]

Looking at the other Last Gen consoles….

XBox One 1.31TFLOPs and 68.22GB/s (52.07GB/s per TFLOP)

XBox One S 1.4TFLOPs is 48.58GB/s per TFLOP


PS4 is 1.843TFLOPS and 176GB/s* giving 95.49GB/s per TFLOP at peak

*there was a slide presented by Sony for the PS4 where it had information about how when CPU usage increased the GPU bandwidth decreased, as low as 120GB/s it seemed


PS4 Pro is 4.198TFLOPs and 217.6GB/s giving 51.83GB/s per TFLOP (at peak?)

XBox One X is 6TFLOPS and 326GB/s giving 54.4GB/s per TFLOP

Just for curiosity sake…

 

[ReddDreadtheLead]

Sorry if this has already been discussed here, but how an A78 core compares to a ryzen 2 core (of the current console gen) with the same clock? (maybe cache would be a deciding factor for perfomrance (and we don't know what drake will use), but anything is valid just so I can have some idea of what to expect)

A78 Single threaded at the same clock is between a Zen 2 and a 3 CPU if I’m not mistaken.

But Zen 2 has a higher clock speed ceiling to it.

At lower clocks like say, 3GHz A78 is roughly equivalent to a Zen 2 core at around 4.1GHz if I’m not mistaken.

 

[Kise Ryota]

A78 Single threaded at the same clock is between a Zen 2 and a 3 CPU if I’m not mistaken.

But Zen 2 has a higher clock speed ceiling to it.

At lower clocks like say, 3GHz A78 is roughly equivalent to a Zen 2 core at around 4.1GHz if I’m not mistaken.

Do you know the same comparison between 1 core of the A57 vs 1 core jaguar (ps4/xone)?

My intention is to have an idea of how drake could be compared to the current-gen consoles in terms of CPU (considering the clocks that are reasonable to expect from drake) in comparison to how the switch was VS ps4/xone. I have read some people saying (not here) the A57 had better IPC than the Jaguar. Jaguar had a lower clock (than the current-gen) but it also had more cores for games than the switch. Now we'll probably have 7 cores for games for every console, but the clock difference will be bigger this time around.

If drake end up having a 1.7GHz, would it be in a better position (to receive ports) than the switch was?

 

[ShadowFox08]

RTX 3050 8.018TFLOPS-224GB/s (27.93GB/s per TFLOP)
RTX 3060 12.74TFLOPS-360GB/s (28.25GB/s per TFLOP)
RTX 3060TI 16.2TFLOPS-448GB/s (27.65GB/s per TFLOP)
RTX 3070 20.31TFLOPS-448GB/s (20.05GB/s per TFLOP)
RTX 3070TI 21.75TFLOPS-608.3GB/s (27.96GB/s per TFLOP)
RTX 3080 29.77TFLOPS-760.3GB/s (25.53GB/s per TFLOP)
RTX 3080TI 34.1TFLOPS-912.4GB/s (26.75GB/s per TFLOP)
RTX 3090 35.58TFLOPS-936.2GB/s (26.31GB/s per TFLOP)
RTX 3090TI 40TFLOPS-1008GB/s (25.2GB/s per TFLOP)


Average is 26.18GB/s per TFLOP

I was simply curious on how the memory bandwidth scales with Ampere based GPUs, I don’t really think this is any useful metric but it’s interesting to see at least how it scales.


Series X is 46GB/s per TFLOP
PS5 is 43.9GB/s per TFLOP
Series S is 55.9GB/s per TFLOP
Steam Deck is 55-88GB/s per TFLOP (1-1.6VARIABLE)


Drake (theoretically):

If 384-768MHz with 68-88GB/s portable and 102.4GB/s docked, then in portable mode it has 57.67-74.6GB/s per TFLOP.

Docked it has 43.42GB/s per TFLOP.



If 460-920MHz with the same portable and docked above, then in portable mode it has 48.12-62.27GB/s per TFLOP.

Docked would be 36.23GB/s per TFLOP.




If 562-1124MHz with same portable and docked, then portable mode has 39.39-51.16GB/s per TFLOP.

Docked would be 29.76GB/s per TFLOP


And finally, the number I saw thrown around multiple times like ~4TFLOPs (no one really expects this… I think) but it would be this:


For that it has to be 1302MHz in docked and in portable I’ll assume it’s… half of that. So, 651MHz.


34.1-44.22GB/s per TFLOP portable

25.66GB/s per TFLOP docked.





This last one is rather anemic… but falls a little lower than the rest of the Ampere lineup…


CPU and GPU share the memory bandwidth and memory pool because it’s a Unified Memory Architecture.

You know.. Something that kinda confuses me and complicates things is that PC GPU cards have their own VRAM... But there's also the on system RAM that could also help with the performance of games.. Now compare that to consoles (or at least least gen) that don't have VRAM.. Can't say it's easy..

I remember hearing entry level Nvidia GPU cards that are around 1 TFLOPs with 50 GB/s VRAM performing on par with xbone games with the same resolutions.. and I hear that GTX 750 and 750 ti cards can run on par with ps4 games--and they have VRAM of a little over 80-86 GB/s, and 1.1-1.4 TFLOPs

Sorry if this has already been discussed here, but how an A78 core compares to a ryzen 2 core (of the current console gen) with the same clock? (maybe cache would be a deciding factor for perfomrance (and we don't know what drake will use), but anything is valid just so I can have some idea of what to expect)

I believe per GHz, they are similar in single core performance.. But Ryzen cores can be clocked much higher and support simultaneous multi threading (SMT).

Say if Drake gets eight A78 CPUs (one reserved for OS) and each of the seven gaming CPU cores are clocked at 1.5 Ghz. That would actually in theory put it on par with SD's 3 CPU gaming clocks that are are clocked at 3.5Ghz for singe *threaded scenarios.. 1.5 x 7 = 10.5 vs 3.5 x 3 = 10.5

 

[Tentacle-tropes]

Eh, I don't think "exclusives" have to be "big releases." I have no idea what Nintendo's strategy is for this thing, and there is no exact parallel in their history - but DSi and New3DS both launched with first party exclusives. And of course, the Wii U launched with New Super Mario Bros U, 6 years (almost to the day) after the Wii launched, despite the Wii having 100+ million in units sold, and the NSMBU having no use for the gamepad in the main mode.

I'm not saying there will be exclusives either. I genuinely have no idea. Nintendo's software strategy for this thing is intimately tied to their marketing plan, and their plans for the console after Drake, none of which are clear.

I don’t really think the Wii example is the greatest since by the time the WiiU released the Wii was functionally a dead console both hardware & software wise. I suspect Nintendo will be doing what we MS/SIE is doing with their consoles. A protracted crossgen then having games be exclusive on new hardware. I think a lot of the Drake exclusive will come from 3rd parties.

 

[ShadowFox08]

Do you know the same comparison between 1 core of the A57 vs 1 core jaguar (ps4/xone)?

My intention is to have an idea of how drake could be compared to the current-gen consoles in terms of CPU (considering the clocks that are reasonable to expect from drake) in comparison to how the switch was VS ps4/xone. I have read some people saying (not here) the A57 had better IPC than the Jaguar. Jaguar had a lower clock (than the current-gen) but it also had more cores for games than the switch. Now we'll probably have 7 cores for games for every console, but the clock difference will be bigger this time around.

If drake end up having a 1.7GHz, would it be in a better position (to receive ports) than the switch was?

The comparison between A57 and Jaguars are similar to A78 and Zen, although A57 is actually more performant per Hz/GHz, like you said. The PS4's jaguars were only clocked at 1.6Ghz per CPU. it there's 8 total (7 for gaming) is compare that to Switch's 1 GHz.. 1.6 x 7 = 11.2 vs 1 x 3 = 3. Something like a 3.5-3.7x difference in speed in single thread processing. Jaguars are better for multi thread though (like Ryzen) than AMD CPUs

1.7 would definitely put it in a more favorable position for sure. Nintendo would have to clock seven A78 cores at 1 GHz each to be on par gap eide with last gen vs switch.. 1.5 GHz with seven cores would mean 2.33x gap and 1.7 Ghx would be a 2.03x speed gap vs zen 2. The absolute best case we can see the A78s clock would be 2.0-2.2 GHz. That would narrow the gap to 1.6-1.75. But I don't expect that even at 5nm TSMC SoC for Drake.

So that does mean that we could get more ports than Switch.. And ps5/x series CPU might not not even be taken advantage of until after last gen loses multiplat support.. Which I give 1-2 years at least.

 

[ReddDreadtheLead]

Do you know the same comparison between 1 core of the A57 vs 1 core jaguar (ps4/xone)?

The A57 were certainly better than the Jaguar on a per core basis, I'm not sure by how much but if the A57 to A78 is a 2.9x to 3.1x IPC increase, its over 3.1x vs the jaguar.

My intention is to have an idea of how drake could be compared to the current-gen consoles in terms of CPU (considering the clocks that are reasonable to expect from drake) in comparison to how the switch was VS ps4/xone. I have read some people saying (not here) the A57 had better IPC than the Jaguar. Jaguar had a lower clock (than the current-gen) but it also had more cores for games than the switch. Now we'll probably have 7 cores for games for every console, but the clock difference will be bigger this time around.

If drake end up having a 1.7GHz, would it be in a better position (to receive ports) than the switch was?

Yes, since it has more cores to also work with it'll be easier, just not easy. A limitation is also probably a developer's way of doing a port. But this would be a more... specialized way of doing it... Will they offload a bit to the GPU to alleviate some of the CPU limits like in the Witcher 3? will they simply cut some features related to physics like in Bright Memory Infinite? will they just cut the framerate and give something like Nier Automata on switch? Will distance objects have a lower framerate like in Pokemon Arceus or Kirby forgotten lands? There's so many variations that a developer can choose to tackle the problem and attempt a solution. Reminder that the issue with the switch isn't getting game to run, its good at that. The issue is getting it to run good enough due to limitations of the hardware, aka the optimization is the biggest hurdle.

(7 for gaming)

only 6 and a Half for games, and that depends on the game. Some games saw less than a half and others at most saw 50% of the 7th core. Same for the Xbox One.

Nintendo would have to clock seven A78 cores at 1 GHz each to be on par with last gen vs switch..

Nintendo would need to clock it to sub 500 to match the last gen consoles, what are you talking about

you do realize it is the Cortex A78 right?

 

[Kise Ryota]

Nintendo would need to clock it to sub 500 to match the last gen consoles, what are you talking about

you do realize it is the Cortex A78 right?

I believe what he meant was that if the A78 is clocked at 1GHz, than the gap between drake and PS5/Series will be the same as it was from Switch to PS4/Xone (because it was part of my question)

 

[ReddDreadtheLead]

I believe what he meant that if the A78 is clocked at 1GHz, than the gap to PS5/Series will be the same as it was from Switch to PS4/Xone (because it was part of my question)

Hm, I see. Disregard then.

 

[Hermii]

Supposedly devkits were using eMMC 5.1, which is not necessarily indicative of the type of internal flash storage used in retail units.

Shaky source, at best.

 

[ShadowFox08]

The A57 were certainly better than the Jaguar on a per core basis, I'm not sure by how much but if the A57 to A78 is a 2.9x to 3.1x IPC increase, its over 3.1x vs the jaguar.


Yes, since it has more cores to also work with it'll be easier, just not easy. A limitation is also probably a developer's way of doing a port. But this would be a more... specialized way of doing it... Will they offload a bit to the GPU to alleviate some of the CPU limits like in the Witcher 3? will they simply cut some features related to physics like in Bright Memory Infinite? will they just cut the framerate and give something like Nier Automata on switch? Will distance objects have a lower framerate like in Pokemon Arceus or Kirby forgotten lands? There's so many variations that a developer can choose to tackle the problem and attempt a solution. Reminder that the issue with the switch isn't getting game to run, its good at that. The issue is getting it to run good enough due to limitations of the hardware, aka the optimization is the biggest hurdle.





only 6 and a Half for games, and that depends on the game. Some games saw less than a half and others at most saw 50% of the 7th core. Same for the Xbox One.

Nintendo would need to clock it to sub 500 to match the last gen consoles, what are you talking about

you do realize it is the Cortex A78 right?

Ah 6.5 cores. That's 3.5x then.

No, I meant 1 GHz A78 CPU cores vs PS5/ X series S's 3.5 GHz CPU cores. I'm saying the power gap would be the same as switch vs xbone/PS4, if Drake's was clocked to 1 GHz per core.

Unlikely to happen unless Drake is somehow 8nm..

 

[Atheerios]

The thing I'm not looking forward about Drake potentially being an iterative succesor to Switch are all the dumb conversations we're gonna have in the first few years.

We know how Nintendo is. They will say at the beginning that that will support both consoles for the foreseeable future. They will say it's a third pillar or something like that. They won't officially recognize it as a succesor nor as a revision and will be very vague intentionally, there will be endless arguing as wether it should be classified as a succesor or revision on wikis.

Then Nintendo will just slowly stop making cross generation games. More arguing will follow. "So Nintendo is really leave us all who don't have Switch Drake behind huh?", "This is a travesty, they should keep supporting the original Switch it's perfectly capable", "Does Nintendo really expect me to pay $400 to play the new Mario game?" and so on.

 

[Pokemaniac]

15.0.0 - Nintendo Switch Brew

switchbrew.org

The bool is always passed on true on NX board, preventing this feature from being actually used.

 

[Atheerios]

15.0.0 - Nintendo Switch Brew

switchbrew.org

That's interesting. The new feature that won't be available for NX is "devices can access memory mapped as IO".

What's the benefit to that?