NEVER!
I want to probe people’s minds and see what they were honestly expecting in some numerical sense.
Or if they can’t give specs, a reasonable idea of what they would expect from the console as if the specs didn’t exist as we know it.
This is an interesting question. With what we know from the leak though, how the chip is specified with its core counts specifically there is only one scenario I can forsee where this could be misunderstood, and that's Thraktors assessment in having GPU cores disabled in handheld mode, I do have issues with this also which I will explain. I'm focusing on GPU here as its the only real known quantity.
So let's say we do have an 8nm chip, using original switch handheld clocks but having only 6sm active in handheld mode. That gives us 768*307*2 = 471 gflops handheld. Then in docked we have the full 12 sm at 768mhz which gives us 768 * 1536 * 2 = 2.359 tflops. A difference of around 5 between handheld and docked. I think the difference between processing in 720p and 4k is around 9 times the power, so throw in DLSS and this may be enough to give us an enhanced 4k switch experience. Would be a huge upgrade still and still the same product we have been following ultimately. So IMO this doesn't change much for me.
The problem I have around this is purely a technical one. The Orin chipset that have different operating profiles that disable cores, DLA etc require a hardware reboot to change profiles as far as I know. Much like using a MUX switch on a laptop to disable the on board GPU. With how software will be coded to use as many cores as available on the GPU I don't think there's an easy solution for the whole moving from docked to handheld seamlessly. Logic could be running on 12sm and then suddenly there's only 6sm available? That is the only bit I can't square, nvidia has some of the best engineers in the world so I am sure they could solve it, but there comes a point where the cost of doing so becomes prohibitive compared to other solutions.
Speaking of which, the proposal of an advanced node for Drake, enabling a 12sm chip to run all cores in handheld also poses another problem but its not the chip shortage, or because Nintendo, its that delta between handheld and docked.
This however is a much easier problem to solve. Let's use base handheld clocks again as a starting point, even though its likely the floor for clock speed where th chip is most efficient will raise. We will use all 12 sm so it's 307 * 2 * 1536 = 943 gflops in handheld. So how do we get that difference of 5 to push 720p fidelity at almost 1tflop up to 4k? We throw more power and cooling at it.
My laptop has a 8nm RTX 3070 at 140w which boosts up to 1720mhz and runs around 1300mhz normally. Now the laptop has more room for cooling and the cooling is very well engineered so I'm not saying you can get a 1720mhz 8nm GPU in the switch form factor. Could we get a 12sm 1500mhz GPU into the switch form factor if it's built on TSMC 5nm? I think with a very well engineered cooling solution and obviously more power for the unit in docked, its possible.
So 1536 * 2 * 1500 = 4.6 TFLOPS docked.
Do I think this specific setup is likely? No. Possible? Yes.
There are chip bin rates etc to consider as well, but overall I think the easier problem to solve is the second problem, rather than throwing however many man years of engineer time at solving the engineering problem of disabling GPU SM during gameplay.
So yeah, I think what the leak says is what we get. I'm about 35/65 on cores being disabled / bigger delta between handheld and docked. Ultimately in power I think we get something in between the two, maybe something made on TSMC 6NM with more reserved docked clocks putting us at 3 TFLOPS docked or there abouts. Maybe it is 8nm and they just run it at 1-1.2ghz in docked.
Either way, we get the same product in my eyes, a switch that runs at 4k in docked mode. The fidelity may change but the product concept is the same.
semiconductor.samsung.com
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