StarTopic Future Nintendo Hardware & Technology Speculation & Discussion |ST| (Read the staff posts before commenting!)

[TomNookYankees]

As I see more and more handheld PCs come out with 16GB of LPDDR5 RAM, I'm hoping that brings down the price enough for 16GB to be what Nintendo goes with, but I'm still more pessimistic than others and think they will only go with 12GB, which isn't horrendous but not quite ideal.

The internal storage is the bigger worry. Either nintendo needs to go with the full 512GB or at the very least there needs to be a way to add more storage to it without breaking any warranties (meaning without modding), especially with how much modern games rely on SSD storage as a sort of virtual/slower RAM.

 

[monstaar]

The whole VR thing completely goes against Nintendo's "play together" and bringing families and people together. VR has so many variables because every person is different (glasses,smaller children,motion sickness,physical limitations.) Isn't the switch 2 supposed to be a larger, heavier screen too?? Something about VR gamers is that they cant accept that it is a side and niche market. Like they wont be happy until everyone is wearing them. lol

 

[Shoulder]

https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-com...ower-dram-with-performance-that-eclipses-ddr5

Thought this was interesting. Unfortunately, the article only compares it with regular DDR5 memory rather than LPDDR5. So I'd be curious on the power usage of LPDDR5 vs. this new LLW DRAM, and if the latter could potentially have a future in mobile devices.

It mentions the LLW I/O has a power usage of 1.6pJ/bit, but I don't know how that compares with say regular DDR5, let alone LPDDR5. Wiki wasn't much of a help, but did find this comment from an article saying HBM3 memory typically uses 7pJ/bit, and DDRx (i'm assuming most normal DDR memory) uses 25 pJ/bit. Not sure how accurate those figures are though.

Article

I'm having trouble finding info on power consumption of LPDDR5 other than voltages, but maybe someone else can give some comparisons.

 

[ILikeFeet]

Ram, storage, and screen refresh rate is easy to understand. FDE, the architecture, DLSS, etc aren't as easy to understand. I am not saying they are reputable. Chances are they are not. But let's not be surprise if they don't understand.

but did the article post stuff about the FDE, DLSS, etc?

 

[Giancarlo]

"Same types of games with bettererer graphics" hasn't always worked that great for Nintendo. Even with the Super NES, the system initially had slower than expected sales in the US because "it's your NES but bettererr graphics!" wasn't a great sales tool.

We know Nintendo. There is going to be a "new" gameplay gimmick whether some people will stomp their feet about it or not.

Beyond that I think Nintendo has an itch to show things in VR from a creative perspective, imagine 3D gaming never got Mario 64 or Zelda: OoT as a template which popularized things like Z-targeting and a proper camera system to many other devs. Nintendo is needed in the VR space, they can probably show the development community a thing or two just because they approach game design in a different way from almost any other developer. It's a new frontier in gaming and still very raw and under developed.

you can impress people with graphics for a time, but not forever, we are close of reaching graphics that is near real life

 

[omniryu]

As I see more and more handheld PCs come out with 16GB of LPDDR5 RAM, I'm hoping that brings down the price enough for 16GB to be what Nintendo goes with, but I'm still more pessimistic than others and think they will only go with 12GB, which isn't horrendous but not quite ideal.

The internal storage is the bigger worry. Either nintendo needs to go with the full 512GB or at the very least there needs to be a way to add more storage to it without breaking any warranties (meaning without modding), especially with much modern games rely on SSD storage as a sort of virtual/slower RAM.

But 12 is still enough. If just take 1 gig for system, 11 can be enough for games. Hoe much did the ps4 gave? 6? Did they?

 

[omniryu]

but did the article post stuff about the FDE, DLSS, etc?

No, but I was just saying in general most of that stuff isn't as easy to understand.

 

[Serif]

12 GB RAM is more RAM available for games than the Series S provides.

I wouldn't consider this bad at all, though 16 GB would be deliciously more future proofed.

 

[carbvan]

12 GB RAM is more RAM available for games than the Series S provides.

I wouldn't consider this bad at all, though 16 GB would be deliciously more future proofed.

In a way, the Series S future proofs the Switch 2 because it's the most popular Xbox Series platform and MS can't just drop support lol

 

[JoshuaJSlone]

Is there reason to believe they are leaning towards doing a cross gen transitional period this time around?

Pure speculation. I think the only thing we can say for near certain is that assuming even simple backwards compatibility is there, the old games shouldn't seem as automatically out-of-date as has happened with every previous Nintendo example. No changed screen ratios, no lacking stereo 3D, no wildly different standard controls. I think that will keep them appealing longer.

If it does launch at $400 I wonder if it would see a price drop if sales numbers are not up to expectations

It seems to me a very unlikely situation that people rushed to make the OLED the most popular model with a 17% price increase, but would then balk at an entirely new generation being another 14% increase.

They're not going from the leanest console os to the most memory hungry one.

Well, they did from Wii to Wii U. Though I think most everyone agrees that was pretty dumb.

I wonder how much the Nintendo Select games will be? 19.99, 39.99?

Today $20 is ridiculously cheap, and they don't even sell things like Pikmin 1 HD digital for that low. $40 their premium games already go on sale to occasionally, so I think would make sense for a discount line that doesn't undercut newer things THAT much.

What if we get updates box art with Switch 2 compatibility

If it were that, I'd still think it was kind of weird for a game like Origami King to get it before mega successful evergreens. Unless they just trust stock of those will rotate out quickly enough it doesn't matter.

Query: How many folks here own a Steam Deck? I finally bought myself one when the OLED model came out, and it has changed my thinking on Switch 2 a bit. Curious what others experiences are.

I got one in 2022, and largely it made me appreciate the Switch more.

• Smaller/lighter
• Significantly quieter
• Don't have to research what parts of my library actually work, or fiddle with settings to find a performance sweet spot
• Sleep mode
• Simpler docking

Those top two seem like the only ones Nintendo could really choose to screw up on the successor if they wanted.

DLSS 2 isn't the secret sauce. I'm not saying DLSS 2 is bad - it's amazing. But I'm surprised at how well other upscalers hold up at 2x scaling, on a smaller screen or at a long distance. And they are fast. All upscaling can have interesting interactions with post-processing effects. I've always been kinda dubious of thinking of DLSS as some kinda "FLOP multiplier" but this nipped it in the bud. It's an amazing tool that the other consoles don't have, but what is the "best" upscaling solution is a game-by-game decision.

I don't know. The closest thing to a large scale comparison of DLSS2/FSR2 I saw, DLSS won or tied every comparison, with the difference more apparent at lower resolutions, both input and output.

 

[Meelow]

you guys are worrying too much to be honest, 64gb of storage & 8gb ram are servicable enough
third parties will find a way to make their games work there, otherwise they'll go with the cloud route instead which isn't really a bad thing honestly

I'm going to say this once...fuck cloud gaming, It's shit, and I hate it.

Also, the 'Because Nintendo" can be twisted easily; the Switch 2 could have 32GB of RAM for all we know (It won't; it will be either 12 or 16, but I'm just saying).

 

[ShadowFox08]

This will sound dumb, but I bought Outer Wilds for my Steam Deck, and realized how much port begging that I, personally, saw evaporate when I had another handheld to play games on. I also realized that even though the OLED SD fixed every major issue I had with the Steam Deck, there were still games I would prefer to play on Switch.

The conventional wisdom is that Nintendo doesn't need to seriously consider the Portable PC in its calculus, because those machines are still sub 5 million in sales. I now disagree, in a way that surprises me. Valve has made as close to a "console like" experience on a PC as possible, and it's great, but it still took me an hour to get Control where I wanted it. I don't think it's possible to smooth that experience down without eliminating everything special that the Steam Deck brings to the table.

That leaves a number of places where Nintendo can lean into what makes their device special, above and beyond "gaming handheld." Nintendo doesn't need to offer best-in-class performance to make me prefer playing on their device. Ergonomics, portability, battery life, ease of docking, zero config required, and yes gimmicks are the things that will draw me in.

When it comes to the specific technology, being able to play with some next-gen games on a handheld device, with PC like control over them I've got the following conclusions.

RT is the secret sauce. It's really amazing to see what RT can do to the visual look of a game that has been art-designed around it. Folk worry about how a system that can't match the Series S in TFLOPS is going to age. I am now, more than ever, worried about how well the Series S can age without better RT performance.

DLSS 2 isn't the secret sauce. I'm not saying DLSS 2 is bad - it's amazing. But I'm surprised at how well other upscalers hold up at 2x scaling, on a smaller screen or at a long distance. And they are fast. All upscaling can have interesting interactions with post-processing effects. I've always been kinda dubious of thinking of DLSS as some kinda "FLOP multiplier" but this nipped it in the bud. It's an amazing tool that the other consoles don't have, but what is the "best" upscaling solution is a game-by-game decision.

Fast Storage Matters. A little. The NVMe in the Steam Deck is great, lots of very fast loading times. But in terms of gameplay I've never seen it under serious strain. It's hard to tell how games will evolve over the next 7 years, but I suspect that games which depend on ultra-fast storage for gameplay will be bottlenecked by GPU/CPU performance on a theoretical Switch 2.

FDE matters a lot. Even loading doesn't stress the SSD as much as I'd expect, but that little 4 core CPU cluster gets slammed. That integration of fast read speeds with specialized decompression hardware is what is going to give the bang for buck more than just pushing the SSD speeds through the roof

Gimme 16 GB of RAM plz. I've been on the "12GB is fine" train for sometime, but the SD convinced me that 16GB would be a real win. Being able to push texture setting to max every where is such a relief, and we're starting to see RT heavy titles really need lots of system RAM as well as GPU RAM.

40hz is better than you think and probably not worth it? 40fps is incredible. It's such a massive leap in how games feel over 30fps. I never use it, because there are few games that can get to 40fps without excessive visual sacrifices over 30fps. And that's me tweaking every setting. Consider the many TVs don't have 40hz support - I expect very few games to support a 40fps mode even if the built in screen supports it, so it's my favorite thing that I think Nintendo shouldn't spend a penny on.

Ergonomics matter. Which is not to say that the Switch or the Steam Deck get it perfect. I miss the SD sticks every time I go back to the Switch. And I hate how close all the buttons are on my Switch, there are games where I wind up controlling the stick with my palm because everything is so cramped. But every time I go back to the Switch my wrists breath a sigh of relief. I love the lack of hot air blowing in my face. The SD OLED improves fan noise a lot but my Switch is silent. I love that I can get custom grips by replacing my Joy-Con. The Switch is more portable, and I can stick it random places without worry about it getting knocked over by nieces.

Make it easier to pick up Nintendo. Do you know how much my Switch screen gets smudged? Not only is there no real place to grip an attached Joy-Con that doesn't make it feel like I'm going to pop off one of the tiny sticks, but the Joy-Con rails are fragile. I've owned multiple Switches and even more Joy-Con and I always wind up in a situation where one of the Joy-Con starts disconnecting during play, because the rail stops connecting snuggly. I'm afraid to apply more stress to the connection, so I pick up the Switch by the tablet. Which means it is smudged all to fuck and back.

NGL, that's one hell of a hot take if I read one from you

After almost 7 years dealing with 30s at 720p@30fps and low bitrate, give me 10 min 1080p@60fps and I'll be happy.

If they let me stream using twitch, then it's heaven for me.

Yeah, my bar is that low already.

I feel like the goal posts will always be moving. Or at least with third party publishers.

in every generation be developers are gonna want to push the system to their limits to look as good or big as possible (or some crazy physics), and a sacrifice for that would mean lower resolution and/or framerate. We're already getting sub 1080p 30fps games on current gen X series X and PS5.

For third party current gen ports, we should expect a lot of 600-720p native games on Switch 2, but with the help of DLSS, we could get it to 1080p in docked.

I mean what is enough? And what lesson has been learned? Does Nintendo expect 4K60? Will they have the same network cap problem due to low cpu and ram?

12GB total is enough. I reckon no more than 3GB will be for the OS.

I don't think Nintendo expects 4k 60fps outside of switch ports and indies.

Anyhow I'm still in the camp of having more bandwidth memory over 16 GB memory. Switch 2 will bottleneck on bandwidth, while 12GB shouldn't ever be a bottleneck.

anyways i guess we're not in agreement because "meh nintendo would never do that!" despite the fact that they always pick the cheap options and they know how to handle these kinds of limitations
i don't really care anymore with what people say anyways, i'm on team 64gb storage, 8gb ram & 120hz screen and i'd gladly accept it

Out of all the things, cheapening out on RAM and storage, just so they can afford a 120hz screen... Just seems very improbable. The latter is less likely than the former two. And Nintendo actually has a history of not cheaping out on RAM amount. They have been going beyond the RAM amount of previous generation competitor consoles. Wii and Wii U have more RAM than Xbox and Xbox 360. The Switch is actually a nice medium between 360 and PS4/Xbone, and has proportionally more RAM for games than xbone/PS4 when comparing GPU power.

I've said this earlier... 64GB isn't impossible, and I can see how people would expect that as a worst case scenario, considering we got 2x jump in storage between Wii u and Switch. But Switch 2 will be an actual generation jump and will require a lot more storage (yes the decompression hardware and faster storage speed will help) per game vs switch. And as Thraktor mentioned (as well as I did) If Nintendo's following mobile trends, 128-256GB is more likely to happen. But to play devil's advocate, I don't know how many mobile phones out now support micro SD cards nowadays .

In the end, you're just purely going off what an analyst says and not really thinking it through.

A comment about dlss reducing power consumption:

I assume much of the reason for this is that the gpu is idling while waiting for the tensor cores to upscale the frame.

So going by this logic, if DLSS concurrency will be utilized, it should actually increase power consumption since the whole gpu would be working simultaneously.

You wanna answer my question about RAM..? I think you missed it.. Would you rather have 16GB LPDDR5 RAM at 102 GB/s or 12GB LPDDR5x at 136GB/s bandwidth?

 

[Darknut85]

you can impress people with graphics for a time, but not forever, we are close of reaching graphics that is near real life

There are already games with graphic near real life. I think we are close to graphics practically indistinguishable from real life.

 

[Individualised]

Makes you wonder had the Wii U been a massive success would the next Home Console offering have been more PowerPC to maintain the Wii ecosystem?

Probably the opposite; an ARM-based home console, with an advanced AMD GPU, as a home version of INDY with a roughly PS4 power level. That was the plan originally during the early stages of the INDY and the console/portable division. If the Wii U was successful enough to cause Nintendo to want to continue the Wii ecosystem, they might have included BC by just including the Wii U hardware on a separate "mini Wii U" SoC, as this is how they were going to do 3DS BC on INDY.

EDIT: I didn't realise this post was from a few pages ago, sorry.

 

[Shoulder]

12 GB RAM is more RAM available for games than the Series S provides.

I wouldn't consider this bad at all, though 16 GB would be deliciously more future proofed.

I'm going to throw something out there.

I think more consideration should be made that Xbox Series S, unlike previously Xbox systems, is meant to be a budget friendly system. You may argue a similar point towards Xbox One S compared to Xbox One X, but those did not launch at the same time. Xbox One was the flagship system until One X came out in 2017, the same year as Switch, and that had 50% more Ram than One S (12GB GDDR5).

So while Series S only has 10GB of Ram, that was 10gigs in 2020 (and hardware was finalized in 2019). We're now 4 years later, and while Switch itself is meant to be more power efficient, 12GB might be fine now, and perhaps in the short-term, but long-term viability would suggest 16GBs would be the norm.

The caveat though is if we think of Switch as a PS4 Lite in terms of raw horsepower, which had 8GB of ram, the Switch only has 4. So following a similar form, PS5 having 16GBs of Ram would almost indicate 8GB for NG Switch. The issue is Switch has been on the market for much longer than anticipated, so the notion of including more ram, especially when prices were falling like a rock, suddenly makes a more compelling argument.

That all being said, 12GB would certainly be fine. But something does tell me (despite all I've said on the matter) Nintendo might bite themselves in the ass if they don't opt for 16GBs. Why? Ray-Tracing. Tegra T239 has Ray Tracing cores (on top of Tensor cores), and those love memory. And since Switch doesn't use typical GDDR memory, and opts instead for LPDDR, they may require more ram just to keep up with demands.

I thinking now that prior to introduction of Ray-Tracing (something that I was so ready to reject early on), 12GB would've been perfect. But with higher demands in graphics tech, and again, Ray-Tracing/DLSS, that additional Ram I think would be necessary for the long-term stability and viability of the successor.

That is just me though, and I'd like to hear some counter arguments such as if Ray-Tracing will even be regularly utilized on NG Switch, let alone if Ram concerns would be a thing.

 

[Thraktor]

https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-com...ower-dram-with-performance-that-eclipses-ddr5

Thought this was interesting. Unfortunately, the article only compares it with regular DDR5 memory rather than LPDDR5. So I'd be curious on the power usage of LPDDR5 vs. this new LLW DRAM, and if the latter could potentially have a future in mobile devices.

It mentions the LLW I/O has a power usage of 1.6pJ/bit, but I don't know how that compares with say regular DDR5, let alone LPDDR5. Wiki wasn't much of a help, but did find this comment from an article saying HBM3 memory typically uses 7pJ/bit, and DDRx (i'm assuming most normal DDR memory) uses 25 pJ/bit. Not sure how accurate those figures are though.

Article

I'm having trouble finding info on power consumption of LPDDR5 other than voltages, but maybe someone else can give some comparisons.

This is pretty interesting. Here's the Samsung page the article's based on, and here's the direct quote:

LLW DRAM:

Low Latency Wide I/O (LLW) DRAM is a solution optimized for not only low latency, but also ultra-high performance of 128GB/s. It operates on a remarkably low power draw of 1.2pJ/b, and since on-device AI requires AI models to respond instantly, it is an ideal solution suitable for operating AI models on the device level.

Note that's 1.2pJ/b, not 1.6.

As for power consumption of RAM, I wouldn't necessarily trust that random comment. It's not something commonly advertised by manufacturers, but there are some direct sources from it. This 2017 Nvidia paper lists 14.0 pJ/b for GDDR5 and 3.9 pJ/b for HBM2. This Micron document (also from 2017) lists 6.4 pJ/b for GDDR5 and 5.5 pJ/b for GDDR6. So even from knowledgeable sources there's quite a range, which we would expect based on different manufacturers, different measuring techniques, and different clock speeds used during measurement. This recent Micron document lists power consumption of a LPDDR5X CAMM module at 4 pJ/b.

So 1.2pJ/b is very low, and appears to be lower than any current LPDDR memory.

My guess here is that this is effectively a low-power HBM. The fact that Wide I/O is in the name is a pretty big hint, and the bandwidth and power consumption are pretty much what you'd expect from a lower-clocked memory based on HBM3.

It's also pretty much the perfect memory for a device like the Switch, which makes me a little sad that it's too late and likely too expensive to be used in Switch 2. Best in class power efficiency is definitely what you're looking for in a device like this, and 128GB/s of bandwidth from a single module is a nice amount for T239's hardware. Nintendo also has a long history of obscure low-latency RAM with 1T-SRAM and FCRAM. From the image on Samsung's page, it seems to be aimed at "on-device AI", with a diagram showing a phone, a laptop and a VR headset, so hopefully they're pricing it competitively for this market and we can see it evolve to the point where it's an option for whatever comes after Switch 2.

 

[RedSpring]

Don't know all the technicality but RAM needs have ballooned and I think it would be wise to go with 16gb for RAM. A lot of common lighting and gameplay changes and optimizations that form the backbone of modern games heavily rely on RAM. Physically Based Rendering is one, requiring multiple textures per object, and is probably the main reason for the big jump in memory going to the PS4/XboxOne generation. Games today are now containing more objects and bigger texture size than ever.

Nothing to base this on but I think there is still optimization to be done with more RAM on the other consoles so the next Switch will run into the same limit going for parity at 12gb. Plus it is the only aspect of the console that Nintendo can be ahead in without much cost or changing the hybrid concept entirely. Consumers might not care that it matches 16gb with the PS5 but developers will definitely notice the higher memory due to the leaner OS and just how overspec it would look in comparison and should make some very excited at the possibilities. And getting developers interested in working on your hardware is something I feel Nintendo have been struggling with.

 

[Individualised]

"Same types of games with bettererer graphics" hasn't always worked that great for Nintendo. Even with the Super NES, the system initially had slower than expected sales in the US because "it's your NES but bettererr graphics!" wasn't a great sales tool.

We know Nintendo. There is going to be a "new" gameplay gimmick whether some people will stomp their feet about it or not.

Beyond that I think Nintendo has an itch to show things in VR from a creative perspective, imagine 3D gaming never got Mario 64 or Zelda: OoT as a template which popularized things like Z-targeting and a proper camera system to many other devs. Nintendo is needed in the VR space, they can probably show the development community a thing or two just because they approach game design in a different way from almost any other developer. It's a new frontier in gaming and still very raw and under developed.

North America was a very weird market for video games at that time (which was Nintendo's own doing, even if it meant the greater good for video games in that region), so I think it's better to look at the bigger picture. It wasn't being bought because it was parents buying it for kids, and they didn't understand why the new games couldn't be on the old console, and thought it was a scam.

 

[AceBandage]

128GB of RAM but only 6 GB of Storage

 

[chocolate_supra]

that's fair and all but that still doesn't mean games (not all games, let alone 50% of cross/current gen games) can't run with downgrading in mind, something Switch literally had for its lifetime

True! Yes, some downgrades. But being the 4GB system in an 8GB generation is one thing, being an 8GB system in a 16GB generation is another. And again, developers are already having headaches getting modern games to run on the 10GB Series S.

Can Nintendo make phenomenal games with only 8GB? I have no doubt. BotW was designed to run with only 2GB, after all. But less RAM will make it tougher for 3rd parties to port, and if they're already having a hard time with an Xbox, imagine how hard it'd be for them to develop for a Switch with even less RAM than that Xbox. I think Nintendo's gonna want to make things easier on devs, because they've had serious 3rd party droughts before and I imagine they do not wanna repeat those days.

 

[darthdiablo]

 

[TomNookYankees]

you guys are worrying too much to be honest, 64gb of storage & 8gb ram are servicable enough
third parties will find a way to make their games work there, otherwise they'll go with the cloud route instead which isn't really a bad thing honestly

Only 64GB of storage and 8GB of RAM for a $400 handheld released in 2024 would be horrendous.

For comparison, the $400 Steam Deck SKU currently has 256GB of internal storage and 16GB of LPDDR5 RAM.

 

[FeiFongWong]

Only 64GB of storage and 8GB of RAM for a $400 handheld released in 2024 would be horrendous.

Nintendo moment™

 

[bmfrosty]

Only 64GB of storage and 8GB of RAM for a $400 handheld released in 2024 would be horrendous.

If that came to pass, then we could say "Because Nintendo". That would be acceptable.

 

[ILikeFeet]

to put this weird-ass discussion into the dirt where it belongs, here's a quote of the file seize of CoD on PS4

On my base PS4 with everything completely installed, it shows 113.3 GB. That's everything, all packs, CODMW2, Warzone2.0...everything.

so unless the game looks worse than an outgoing system, I don't think 64GB will cut it for Drake

 

[bmfrosty]

to put this weird-ass discussion into the dirt where it belongs, here's a quote of the file seize of CoD on PS4




so unless the game looks worse than an outgoing system, I don't think 64GB will cut it for Drake

I think my Borderlands 3 installation is nearing 130. I'll have to check when I'm able.

 

[Eclissi]

Nothing to add

 

[Kevin]

Fantastic lol.

 

[omniryu]

If that came to pass, then we could say "Because Nintendo". That would be acceptable.

I think we need to make that a merch.

 

[darthdiablo]

I think my Borderlands 3 installation is nearing 130. I'll have to check when I'm able.

Don't know if they reduced fidelity of assets but total file size on Switch 1, including DLC, is 25.8 GB.

Curious what it would have been on Switch 2, using FDE (File Decompression Engine)

 

[carbvan]

I think my Borderlands 3 installation is nearing 130. I'll have to check when I'm able.

Borderlands 3 on Switch is 10ish gigs, no DLC installed. Borderlands 3 on my PC is about 95ish gigs without DLC. Dunno about what it sits at on other consoles, but the Switch version is 9 times smaller than my PC install. I really don't think that storage has to be as big as other consoles to get AAA games like CoD. The compression is going to do a lot of work here, as it already does on Switch and the Switch 2 is gonna be a lot better at compression and decompression.

 

[ILikeFeet]

Don't know if they reduced fidelity of assets but total file size on Switch 1, including DLC, is 25.8 GB.

Curious what it would have been on Switch 2, using FDE (File Decompression Engine)

they definitely reduced asset fidelity. for a system that is, at least, as powerful as a PS4, I'm not expecting any asset quality reductions. there hasn't been any testing of the FDE, so until the system releases, it's hard to tell how much of an effect that will have

 

[Thraktor]

This is pretty interesting. Here's the Samsung page the article's based on, and here's the direct quote:


Note that's 1.2pJ/b, not 1.6.

As for power consumption of RAM, I wouldn't necessarily trust that random comment. It's not something commonly advertised by manufacturers, but there are some direct sources from it. This 2017 Nvidia paper lists 14.0 pJ/b for GDDR5 and 3.9 pJ/b for HBM2. This Micron document (also from 2017) lists 6.4 pJ/b for GDDR5 and 5.5 pJ/b for GDDR6. So even from knowledgeable sources there's quite a range, which we would expect based on different manufacturers, different measuring techniques, and different clock speeds used during measurement. This recent Micron document lists power consumption of a LPDDR5X CAMM module at 4 pJ/b.

So 1.2pJ/b is very low, and appears to be lower than any current LPDDR memory.

My guess here is that this is effectively a low-power HBM. The fact that Wide I/O is in the name is a pretty big hint, and the bandwidth and power consumption are pretty much what you'd expect from a lower-clocked memory based on HBM3.

It's also pretty much the perfect memory for a device like the Switch, which makes me a little sad that it's too late and likely too expensive to be used in Switch 2. Best in class power efficiency is definitely what you're looking for in a device like this, and 128GB/s of bandwidth from a single module is a nice amount for T239's hardware. Nintendo also has a long history of obscure low-latency RAM with 1T-SRAM and FCRAM. From the image on Samsung's page, it seems to be aimed at "on-device AI", with a diagram showing a phone, a laptop and a VR headset, so hopefully they're pricing it competitively for this market and we can see it evolve to the point where it's an option for whatever comes after Switch 2.

So, doing a bit of a search around on LLW RAM, there are a few tidbits (in the midst of baseless speculation that it'll be used in the Galaxy S24). Here's a video posted by Samsung on Twitter, showing a few things:



This first thing to note is that it's on-package alongside the SoC, which would appear to confirm my suspicion that it's based on HBM. You can also see it inside a variety of vague CG renders of a phone, laptop and a gaming controller (yes, a controller). A couple of the examples show it alongside regular DRAM, which is a little surprising, but I suppose it could be used kind of like the bizarre Intel/AMD hybrid Kaby Lake G, which included an AMD GPU with HBM on-package, but still had regular DDR for the CPU.

The other thing I noticed, which is getting pretty technical and is probably just spurious speculation, but at 11 seconds you'll see a diagram of the memory, with multiple different banks transferring data seemingly independently. The curious part of this is that this doesn't actually represent how HBM memory works. Data accesses instead get routed to a central stripe, which then routes it down through the TSVs to the I/O (see figure 2 in the Nvidia paper I linked). Why is this interesting? Well, that Nvidia paper proposes a new type of RAM based on HBM called Fine-Grained DRAM, or FGDRAM. The point of FGDRAM is precisely to change this paradigm of data access to save power and (in some cases) improve performance.

Not only does the diagram of LLW RAM look a lot more like FGDRAM than HBM (see figure 5 in the paper), but LLW seems to have a very similar design goal in reducing power consumption. It does make me wonder if LLW RAM is, if not actually FGDRAM, inspired by it. There are some differences, as FGDRAM has higher hardware latencies than HBM (although the paper claims that the architecture reduces queuing delay to the point where effective latency is lower), whereas LLW is claimed to be a low-latency RAM.

Speaking of which, there is a specific claim on latency here, where they state tRCW < 32ns. The tRCW metric isn't one I've come across before, but from this paper, it appears to be Write Row Cycle Time, where tRCW = tRP + tRASW, or the row recharge time plus the write row active time. I can find tRP figures for standard memory types like DDR5, but tRASW doesn't really seem to be something that I can find hard numbers for, so I can't really say how good a tRCW figure of < 32ns is.

 

[TagmeNow]

One other reason I find the "because Nintendo" explanation amusing is that this is straight up not the same company anymore. Since the Switch launched, all of their major branches had significant leadership changes. NCL, NOA and NOE are run by different people now, while all their systems since at least the Wii were largely shaped by Satoru Iwata, who is obviously not around for whatever comes next.

We will soon see what this new generation of Nintendo has to offer, and how they will handle a successor to such a lucrative piece of hardware.

 

[Meelow]

 

[bmfrosty]

Borderlands 3 on Switch is 10ish gigs, no DLC installed. Borderlands 3 on my PC is about 95ish gigs without DLC. Dunno about what it sits at on other consoles, but the Switch version is 9 times smaller than my PC install. I really don't think that storage has to be as big as other consoles to get AAA games like CoD. The compression is going to do a lot of work here, as it already does on Switch and the Switch 2 is gonna be a lot better at compression and decompression.

138 gigs on my PC. No doubt that the textures meant for 4k feed into that quite a bit, but I'd think that if you're dropping those, you're still glose to 100 gigs.

This is with all DLC.

 

[Shoulder]

One other reason I find the "because Nintendo" explanation amusing is that this is straight up not the same company anymore. Since the Switch launched, all of their major branches had significant leadership changes. NCL, NOA and NOE are run by different people now, while all their systems since at least the Wii were largely shaped by Satoru Iwata, who is obviously not around for whatever comes next.

We will soon see what this new generation of Nintendo has to offer, and how they will handle a successor to such a lucrative piece of hardware.

While the different branches of Nintendo are run by different people, they are all under the same umbrella, which is Nintendo HQ in Kyoto. Last I remember, nothing gets passed them without their approval, even regional stuff that has no bearing on the Japanese Market. It's possible this has become more lenient in recent years, but that was how Nintendo ran things for decades, and probably still operates.

So while it may not be the "same" company, I believe it's still operated as the "same" company in terms of the hierarchy.

 

[Hermii]

What the hell have we been doing for the last 2265 pages? Jon had all the answers all along.

 

[epicmartin7]

It's only going to be 128GB at the max because Nintendium shortages.

 

[Discostew]

Borderlands 3 on Switch is 10ish gigs, no DLC installed. Borderlands 3 on my PC is about 95ish gigs without DLC. Dunno about what it sits at on other consoles, but the Switch version is 9 times smaller than my PC install. I really don't think that storage has to be as big as other consoles to get AAA games like CoD. The compression is going to do a lot of work here, as it already does on Switch and the Switch 2 is gonna be a lot better at compression and decompression.

It's a PC vs console situation. It isn't simply about compression, as both use them. It's about how many levels of quality to take into account. PC can range in power from very high to very low. Consoles stick with one particular level, so games on them get tailored to only use what they need.

to put this weird-ass discussion into the dirt where it belongs, here's a quote of the file seize of CoD on PS4




so unless the game looks worse than an outgoing system, I don't think 64GB will cut it for Drake

Data duplication is what caused PS4/XB1 to have massive games because without it, loading times would be much more horrendous with the HDD moving the read head countless times over the platters to align to each unique piece of data. Each random access jump takes time with moving parts. Switch had no issue because of no moving parts from its medium, hence another reason why a game like Borderlands 3 is so small vs PC.

 

[Individualised]

to put this weird-ass discussion into the dirt where it belongs, here's a quote of the file seize of CoD on PS4




so unless the game looks worse than an outgoing system, I don't think 64GB will cut it for Drake

Remember that Switch doesn't have to install everything to the system unlike disc-based consoles. I doubt CoD will come on a 128GB cart though and 64GB internal storage is not happening anyway.

 

[CalmMind]

The world has truly gone to shit if anyone is taking anything TEF says at face value. Might as well add VGchartz as a reputable source while we're at it.

 

[DEsteves]

Remember that Switch doesn't have to install everything to the system unlike disc-based consoles. I doubt CoD will come on a 128GB cart though and 64GB internal storage is not happening anyway.

What do you mean? The digital copy of a game will always need to install everything to the system

 

[OctoSplattack]

TIL that the original comic that birthed this meme was about the Wii U, which somehow makes this funnier.

 

[Ojoloco]

 

[Individualised]

What do you mean? The digital copy of a game will always need to install everything to the system

Obviously. But I don't think there's a requirement for games fitting into the stock internal storage size anyway. At least I don't think it has been challenged.

 

[darthdiablo]

TIL that the original comic that birthed this meme was about the Wii U, which somehow makes this funnier.

Holy shit, I had no idea lol.

 

[crazybenjamin]

Do you guys think $400 is a good price for the console assuming the specs rumors are true? I feel like the switch price (300) vs the Xbox or PS5 (500) was more justifiable since the switch is very old hardware. But if these rumors are true....the new console would still be like 10 years old in comparison to the PS5 and XSX .....and only 100 dollars less?

I'm personally not happy with it, though I'm not getting my hopes up on the topic of affordability.
But yeah, as others have already mentioned, the description of "10 years old" doesn't really work here.

 

[Teal'c]

Micro SD is still the most used expansion in mobile devices, I honestly have a feeling we'll see it again on Switch 2.

 

[darthdiablo]

machine translation of tweet:

Article about the potential configurations of Nintendo's new hardware published

Here I cover information from leaks, insiders and some reliable rumors (+ a "secret" source)

(Remember nothing is absolute truth until the announcement)

For the article itself if you click through, use your browser's translate to English feature if your browser has it.