Skittzo0413
Member
On the one hand, it sounds plausible, and it's the most sensible thing for Nintendo to do with regards to performance and power consumption. On the other, Nintendo making a console with such bleeding-edge hardware just seems inherently implausible!
People tend to forget that Nintendo was dead set on using PowerPC architecture that began with the Gamecube primarily for backwards compatibility which very much held back their potential hardware (at least at reasonable prices). Now that they are ditching PowerPC (and BC) by using a brand new architecture, one would expect this to be similar to a Gamecube scenario, where they did use pretty modern hardware.
Not that we should expect crazy specs, but lets all keep the NX in context as it compares to the Wii line.
Here is the problem. Given everything of Nintendo's history, what is more likely:
1. Nintendo uses a 2 year old, released CPU/GPU system that has already got an Android port and sufficient yields to pump out millions of units in a few months (Tegra X1, Maxwell based). The X1 is also basically unused by anyone in the industry (only NVidia Shield) and will probably be super cheap to aquire.
2. Nintendo is going to use an unreleased, un taped out, never used by anyone else, new system (Tegra X2) that no one has any experience with, for a system that is supposed to release in 6-8 months. X2 is based on Pascal but has not even started final manufacturing processes.
Its really, really, really hard to believe any rumors that suggest #2 is true. Yeah, sure, maybe NVIdia has had a secret project to make an X2 based on Pascal specifically for Nintendo and its been a super tight secret. In an industry where every GPU tweak and leak occurs months in advance.
As repeated many times in the DF thread, Nintendo has never used off the shelf parts, so regardless of Pascal or Maxwell they will be using a customized chip, not the X1 or unreleased X2. Rather many have speculated that this chip will be very similar to the X1 but on the Pascal architecture, as that does nothing but increase the power efficiency, which is paramount for handhelds.
It's not just wishful thinking here, there is quite a bit of logic and apparently evidence to back this up.