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Digital Foundry: Nintendo Switch CPU and GPU clock speeds revealed

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G.ZZZ

Member
This confirm 2 things: it's a 720p->1080p console (exactly 2.25x jump in gpu clock and higher memory clocks), and it's weaker than a stock X1, which make little sense to me. Why use fans then? Pixel C at 820 Mhz never needed a fan to cool. This has a fan in the handheld AND the dock? Seriously? Lol.
 

Peltz

Member
This fucking hyperbole is disgusting as fuck.
When we saw the first video of the Switch everybody was happy and at least everybody thought we would get a portable Wii U and that would be a pretty big leap over the 3DS.
The fans were happy with what they saw im the reveal trailer but suddenly everything is shit because of some specs, outside of NeoGAF nobody cares for. Thats the problem with some of you. You guys think the peoplr in the real world would care for such stuff...but they only care for games. If they lool good, then they will accept the device. And Nintendo is in the position to sell a weak home console as a fucking strong handheld. Well one side would always be dissapointed but that some of you are not capable of thinking like an adult is very strange to say the least.

Yes, we are a disappointed informed consumer base. You make it seem like our awareness of what is possible, and trying to hold manufacturers to a higher standard is a bad thing. Many people who are disappointed (like me) will still be there for the Nintendo games. But There's no reason why they needed to down clock the GPU so aggressively, unless it was to just include a far shittier battery.

We have every right to be upset with these cheap penny saving measures by Nintendo which limit the potential of their own GPU.
 

Xiao Hu

Member
They should have marketed it as a handheld, not a hybrid. It doesn't even come close to what a hybrid theoretically should be.
 
EG was mostly right on the money and Rich would never post an article like this without incredibly solid sources. It is, unfortunately, accurate.

There is still no confirmation on CUDA core count right? Why would a fan be necessary at the clock speeds in the article if it's still 2 SMs? Even at those docked speeds it should be fine to cool passively like the Pixel C.

Unless they decided to get rid of the fan now?

better be €199.99 then

Clock speeds have very little impact on price.
 
Clockspeeds alone doesn't mean a ton without knowing the core count and exact CPU configuration.

Better be cheap and have a good battery if they're down-clocking it this much and it's not as powerful as the Nvidia Shield when docked.

This is a console. Lol at making battery life a priority and having it weaken even when docked.
 

18-Volt

Member
DS was N64ish
3DS was GCNish
Switch is WiiUish with built in Super GameBoy functionality

I honestly don't know why people were expecting something as powerful as the XBone at about 1/20 of the size.

Third parties were very clear to Nintendo: Make powerful console or become a third party company just like us.
 

beril

Member
Adding the Vita, with a 5" screen (960 × 544 resolution / 220 ppi), GPU around 50 GFlops @ 400 MHz.

So the Switch has 1.77 more pixels to feed, with just 3 times more GPU power than the FIVE YEAR OLD Vita. (And 2.5-3-ish times the CPU power?).

you think the Vita GPU runs at 400MHz? Lol
 

Prithee Be Careful

Industry Professional
I remember at the initial reveal a lot of positive sentiment about finally having a Nintendo console with 'no gimmicks and no compromises' and thinking: it's a home/handhold hybrid, it's more integral than the the usual gimmicks, but there's no way it can be acheived without compromises.

And here we have it...
 
D

Deleted member 752119

Unconfirmed Member
Disappointing. I figure it would at least take full advantage of the tetra X11 and match or exceed Shield performance. Also sounds like portable mode will be rough in many games, though that's moot for me as I'll rarely play in portable mode anyway.

I can probably live with it if it's $200 or less for a non-gimped storage amount model.
 

gai_shain

Member
Im perfectly fine with that honestly.
I never really cared for specs in a nintendo console before so im not going to start doing that now.
The games I want to play on it are going to look awesome anyway
 

Marmelade

Member
That's ridiculous. The overreactions here are awful. I'll stand out of this mess and come when people may regain their common senses, and maybe by then our insiders will speak.

Curious, why would you trust those "insiders" more than Eurogamer/DF exactly?
 

BitStyle

Unconfirmed Member
Welp, I fully expect a low price point and good battery life to compensate these low benches. This is quite surprising. I never thought they would've kept the power that low.
 
Nintendo are the masters of taking shit and turning into gold, so I'm not worried about game performance from them. I AM concerned, as typical with a Nintendo console, with third-parties. I fear that once again they are going to be left with an under-powered system that is difficult to develop for due to its well-defined differences (portable mode, cartridges, and low power) and little-to-no assistance from Nintendo on how to make the most of it.
 

Kssio_Aug

Member
I may be overreacting but I'm done with playing soulless 2D platformers, more Mario sports and Parties, quick cashgrab jobs like Paper Mario Wii U. I want to go handheld only and I want to play console quality stuff on them.

So Switch is a good bet. Cause a handheld with decent battery life and a coherent price would hardly happen with PS4 specs in it. I'd say that a portable Wii U is pretty damn decent for portable gaming.
 

MuchoMalo

Banned
EG was mostly right on the money and Rich would never post an article like this without incredibly solid sources. It is, unfortunately, accurate.

What would you say the chances of it having 3 SMs (384 CUDA cores) are? Based on my calculations, that's way more in-line with the rumors we've heard about performance up until now (especially since those portable specs can easily run passively if it's only 2 SMs). I'm expecting to be disappointed, though.
 
Even while docked, Switch doesn't run at Tegra X1's full potential. Clock-speeds are locked here at 768MHz, considerably lower than the 1GHz found in Shield Android TV, but the big surprise from our perspective was the extent to which Nintendo has down-clocked the GPU to hit its thermal and battery life targets.

Wow, this is horrible. I'm glad being docked is going to offer more performance than when it's in portable mode - which satisfies the "hybrid" part of the system for me - but these clock speeds are super low. Twenty-five percent slower than the Shield TV, a box released in May 2015?

Come on...

That's not a typo: it really is 307.2MHz - meaning that in portable mode, Switch runs at exactly 40 per cent of the clock-speed of the fully docked device. And yes, the table below does indeed confirm that developers can choose to hobble Switch performance when plugged in to match the handheld profile should they so choose.

The portable speed I can understand because of battery life, but that also means that's the baseline spec for developers. I can't imagine this being the system to get for third-party games if people are expecting console-class games on the system, like Skyrim.

This doesn't sound good to me at all.
 

Pie and Beans

Look for me on the local news, I'll be the guy arrested for trying to burn down a Nintendo exec's house.
All those people targeting generic UE4 standards better start downgrading. "Hope to run at this fidelity on Switch", nope.

At this point I wonder if someone will make the Switch OS run on a stock Nvidia Shield TV which shockingly is much powerful.

If Nintendo released its games on Steam, consumers could pick better devices that suit their needs to play them on.

That's the problem really. What is the point in Nintendo hardware at all? 2.85 million downloaders just sent such a message this week.
 
Really wish more people would stop for a moment and let this post sink in.

I reiterate I didn't get carried away with the rumors and GAF hopes and dreams, what I am getting is a device that out performs Nintendo's previous console/handheld platforms at a similar price. If you want amazing graphics and guaranteed 3rd party support then get yourself a PS4 Pro, this was never going to be that as we all know Nintendo don't care for specs they care about good gaming experiences.
 

thuway

Member
This thing really feels like Nintendo's Vita. A really powerful handheld that can approximate current gen consoles in a very compromised way - but compensates by offering a portable gaming experience. I feel like the same complaints leveraged against Vita - "No one wants to play AAA experiences on the go!" will come hammering down.

In other words, the Switch feels like a really AWESOME handheld or a really lackluster console.
 

Vic

Please help me with my bad english
Sorry, but if they nerfed down the console near to release and are aiming to position it as a home console (what we have seen so far) with these specs, I'd say that only a VERY cheap SRP would make me see this project as a coherent one, alongside the new iterations of the classic Nintendo handheld IPs (not only first party, but also MH, IE, Ace attorney and so on), not the few, poor and late "Skyrim" ports and a 250€ price tag.
It's probably not really nerfed down, so to speak. The specs probably fits what they could have pushed in a mobile profile with a specific battery autonomy as a target.
 

KingSnake

The Birthday Skeleton
I'll say that people who unrealistaclly expected PS4/XB1 hardware, portable and good price, brought the disappointment to themselves.

To you and all the other people who write this fake fact:

Almost nobody expected PS4/XB1 power levels in Switch.

There is a wide range of possibilities between Wii U and Xbone. Most people expected Switch to match the Nvidia Shield TV while docked. Which it doesn't. By a lot. That's why the disappointment.

So cut out the reductionist posts.
 

viHuGi

Banned
Someone can translate this comparing with Xbox One and Ps4 please? I don't really understand much about those mhz and such =/
 

Plinko

Wildcard berths that can't beat teams without a winning record should have homefield advantage
Third parties were very clear to Nintendo: Make powerful console or become a third party company just like us.

Nintendo could make the most powerful console and third parties still wouldn't support it. That ship has sailed.
 

Mithos

Member
Will not be paying €250-300+ for this, unless Nintendo have the Switch with a high amount of internal storage (128gb+).
 
The machine is a handheld first and foremost, a standalone console pushed way, way into second place.

Exactly this, and what little third party support will remain will presumably be primarily the continuation of the 3DS scene.

The Switch is Nintendo's new handheld, one with a special a video out mode. That's it.

Not only were expectations too for the hardware but people are expecting the software provided for this thing to be home console oriented - aside from a few big first party titles designed to showcase the "home gaming on the go" marketing spiel, it'll be handheld oriented.

How many times do people need to be disappointed before they learn? Nintendo is not a mysterious or unpredictable company, it's just that it's biggest fans refuse to read the writing on the wall.

I'm sure the Switch will have plenty of good games but ultimately this is Nintend leaving the home console business, a business in which we were given everything from the original Super Mario Bros to Ocarina of Time to Smash to Metroid.. so no I'm not happy to see it go, not when in a parallel universe I'm playing the latest Retro first person adventure in high res glory on my PS4 Pro and in this one I'm stuck playing Wii U ports on a piece of plastic with detatchable controls the size of my thumbs that I'll never use.
 

takriel

Member
Nintendo are the masters of taking shit and turning into gold, so I'm not worried about game performance from them. I AM concerned, as typical with a Nintendo console, with third-parties. I fear that once again they are going to be left with an under-powered system that is difficult to develop for due to its well-defined differences (portable mode, cartridges, and low power) and little-to-no assistance from Nintendo on how to make the most of it.

Entirely their fault, and they know it by now. They don't care about third parties. And maybe they don't have to now, with handheld and console divisons working on the same hardware.
 

Baleoce

Member
Im perfectly fine with that honestly.
I never really cared for specs in a nintendo console before so im not going to start doing that now.
The games I want to play on it are going to look awesome anyway

Exactly. It's not like their own personal quality control is going to suddenly take a nosedive. Some people are saying that it may not be the same story for third parties, but the system is presumably a lot easier to port to now than previous hardware. It just depends how willing they are to optimise for those two configurations.
 
Why so low? We have mobile parts shooting past this performance target for a while now, at this point I wonder if it will perform better than even the last atom chips
I'm not really expecting it, just overreacting XD
 

Manoko

Member
I remember at the initial reveal a lot of positive sentiment about finally having a Nintendo console with 'no gimmicks and no compromises' and thinking: it's a home/handhold hybrid, it's more integral than the the usual gimmicks, but there's no way it can be acheived without compromises.

And here we have it...

I remember people were flaming me on the reveal thread for being overly negative, trolling and too pessimistic.

I hope these people eat their damn words now, with their fantasy-like expectations on the side.
 

Persona7

Banned
To you and all the other people who write this shit:

Almost nobody expected PS4/XB1 power levels in Switch.

There is a wide range of possibilities between Wii U and Xbone. Most people expected Switch to match the Nvidia Shield TV while docked. Which it doesn't. By a lot. That's why the disappointment.

So cut out the reductionist shit.

I think a lot of people are confusing X1 with Xbox One for some reason along with confusion caused by the report from emily rogers that mentions the xbox one.
 
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