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Digital Foundry: Nintendo Switch CPU and GPU clock speeds revealed

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It is as a home console. I called it, they fucked up the minute they called it a home console. If it was a clear handheld that can connect to your TV, it would be seen as a powerful handheld.

They've always pushed it as a home console, yeah. I dunno why I'm seeing Nintendo fans change the narrative to "it's a 3DS successor" recently. Nintendo never said it was and have always pushed it as a home console with a hybrid gimmick.
 
It would be nice if the user could toggle the speed themselves when its not docked, if I want more power but half the battery then let me choose.

It all sounds really low but as a dedicated gaming machine it should be enough, it's a more modern chipset so the clocks do not need to be as high to get the same performance as an older chip (there is a LOT of things good and bad about this, just saying.)
 

Donnie

Member
Another day another thread for people to post negative thibgs about Nintendo, wonderful :). This is only part of the story, we still need to know what the chips are to get any final details about the specs.

The article itself is basically written as if Switch uses X1 from shield TV, it doesn't obviously. At least we have a more firm range now, around 400 to 600Gflops (or just under) depending on how many SM units they've used.
 

MacTag

Banned
And the sales are still not great anymore.
~65 million in 5 years for 3DS isn't totally terrible, although it is back to 90s era figures as that's only a little better than the original Game Boy did. The whole market is looking pretty 90s-esque really, Vita sold comparably to Game Gear and home consoles are looking like they'll end up similar to 5th Gen totals (PS4 -> PS1, XBO -> N64, Wii U -> Saturn). The PS2/GBA/DS/Wii boom days are definitely over.
 

LordKano

Member
This reminds me the goold old roller-coaster threads that the pre-NX reveal were. So much nostalgy right now, even though I had no account by the time and I was only lurking.
 
This always seemed like a dockable portable. I don't know why people expected something more.

In the end the games will be what matters

Because Nintendo themselves said it will be "a home gaming system ‘first and foremost’"?

They've always pushed it as a home console, yeah. I dunno why I'm seeing Nintendo fans change the narrative to "it's a 3DS successor" recently. Nintendo never said it was and have always pushed it as a home console with a hybrid gimmick.

because Nintendo fans feel obligated to like whatever shit Nintendo puts out, by rationalizing it being a portable device they go into "This is fine" mode.
 

Matbtz

Member
Maybe they should have uh..... Marketed the switch as a handheld first that you could plug into your TV. Cause those specs are... Whew.

The thing is : the wii u is dead and buried and they still have 3DS systems and games to sell.
And the library of the wii u is wonderful while less powerful than the switch/One/PS4 then why the specs are all that important, the games will make the difference. We knew already that we will not have AAA 3rd party games so that don't change anything. If the Switch sell like hotcakes then 3rd party support will be there anyway.
 

LeleSocho

Banned
Different architectures so they can't really be compared.
(...)
750 Ti which is somewhat comparable in power to the Xbox One's GPU.

MPmiR2Q.png


You do realize that both the 750Ti and the Switch have Maxwell architecture right?
If you can compare a 750 Ti to consoles then you can do the same for the Switch.

Given the ~150GFLOP/s reference number as good when in portable mode that makes the normal ps4, the non-pro version, more than 10 times better in computational power than Nintendo's next generation with the Xbox One being roughly 9 times faster.
 
~65 million in 5 years for 3DS isn't totally terrible, although it is back to 90s era figures as that's only a little better than the original Game Boy did. The whole market is looking pretty 90s-esque really, Vita sold comparably to Game Gear and home consoles are looking like they'll end similat to 5th Gen totals (PS4 -> PS1, XBO -> N64, Wii U -> Saturn). The PS2/GBA/DS/Wii boom days are definitely over.

Nintendo is the king of the dedicated handheld market, which is shrinking at a pretty fast pace worldwide.
Doing the same as always doesn't appear to me like the greatest strategy.
 

tebunker

Banned
People being OK with these specs, rationalizing it as being a portable device instead of a home console.

Even by Nintendo standards of underpowered consoles this is even weaker than what they have previously aimed for.

I don't even think this thing could properly emulate Gamecube

Pretty sure we're gonna find out since one of the big rumors is GC virtual Console.
 
Wow, disappointing!

Can we be sure this is legit?
I mean... how on earth can it even run Skyrim Remastered?

We don't know what state it is running Skyrim. The only footage we have is in the Switch reveal trailer and most of that footage was composited in. When Docked, it could be running Skyrim at 720p and potentially Low Settings. We will have to wait and see next month.
 

MacTag

Banned
They've always pushed it as a home console, yeah. I dunno why I'm seeing Nintendo fans change the narrative to "it's a 3DS successor" recently. Nintendo never said it was and have always pushed it as a home console with a hybrid gimmick.
It's the obvious successor to both, and that's not a new narrative. It's also pretty obvious why they're doing console first marketing; Wii U's dead but 3DS isn't.
 
Wtf is wrong with y'all. 199 is where this needs to be! This is great news. I think it needs to even be lower, honestly. A portable Wii U isn't so bad and this is probably more modern than that.
honestly, this is my reasoning. Mid cycle, I'm deep into PS4's library with probably over 50 games already, no way I'm switching out anytime soon. This being a cheaper secondary console for me is the only interest I have in it.

A cheap way to play Nintendo's amazing exclusives is always something I'm interested in.
 

MuchoMalo

Banned
It would be nice if the user could toggle the speed themselves when its not docked, if I want more power but half the battery then let me choose.

It all sounds really low but as a dedicated gaming machine it should be enough, it's a more modern chipset so the clocks do not need to be as high to get the same performance as an older chip (there is a LOT of things good and bad about this, just saying.)

Waste of time, since all of that power would go towards running at 1080p. Downsampling from 1080p to 720p on a tiny screen won't help much.
 
I am worried about the 3rd party games, would be hard sell to shell out full prices for 3rd party games when they run at the lowest settings.

damn it now i have to decide among the 3 scorpio, pro or shield.....
 

18-Volt

Member
The thing is : the wii u is dead and buried and they still have 3DS systems and games to sell.
And the library of the wii u is wonderful while less powerful than the switch/One/PS4 then why the specs are all that important, the games will make the difference. We knew already that we will not have AAA 3rd party games so that don't change anything. If the Switch sell like hotcakes then 3rd party support will be there anyway.

They need more than Mario and Zelda to sell Switch to masses. Ports won't do any good either. They need to money hat the shit out of studios. Beyond Good & Evil, Timesplitters, Star Wars Jedi Knight, Chrono Trigger, Soul Calibur, Megaman Legends, anything they could find. Moneyhat, moneyhat, moneyhat. That's how you sell consoles.
 

Shahadan

Member
Because Nintendo themselves said it will be "a home gaming system ‘first and foremost’"?

And we believe marketing speak since when? Of all the criticisms in this thread this one seems the least valid and the weirdest to me. They just tell you want you want to hear and they'll advertise it as such because handhelds are a dying breed.

So they give you a "home console with a handheld mode" but that truly the other way around because that's the only thing actually doable. People with realistic expectations knew this (but not how bad it was, true :p)
And they're not even lying, it can function as a home console. Home console doesn't imply uber specs.
 

MacTag

Banned
Nintendo is the king of the dedicated handheld market, which is shrinking at a pretty fast pace worldwide.
Doing the same as always doesn't appear to me like the greatest strategy.
The dedicated market period is shrinking fast. That's why we just got Mario and Pokémon on our iPhones.
 

ookami

Member
I guess I'll wait for the Switch U with those Pascal processors.

Joke aside I have no doubt about the quality of first party games which will be optimized but I must admit that I find no value nor interest in cross platform games from third party studios on this console.
Admitting that those third party games will be created for home consoles there is no point in having them for a portable one or in an inferior version on the dock. :(
 

MuchoMalo

Banned
Switch is LESS powerful than an nVidia Shield. Which was released BEFORE the Xbox One and PS4 (July 31st, 2013)?

BWAHAHAHA!

It's not less powerful that the Shield Portable... Aw who am I kidding? THis is just a stupid hit-and-run shitpost. My ignore list is growing so much today.
 
As so eone with a shield TV, I can tell you that it gets pretty darn warm when playing games....
"Pretty darn warm" is quite a subjective measurement.
This is the best thing I could find on Google. Trying to find overheating reports only makes Shield Tablet recall stories pop up.

As far as I can tell the Shield TV was fine in terms of thermals. I don't understand why the Switch GPU (when docked) is underclocked compared to it. Especially when the CPU clock speed is halved, which would lower temperatures.
 

jroc74

Phone reception is more important to me than human rights
It's the obvious successor to both, and that's not a new narrative. It's also pretty obvious why they're doing console first marketing; Wii U's dead but 3DS isn't.

Yup.

Once the hybrid rumor was confirmed to be true with the reveal this should have been obvious.

Unless Nintendo still has something up their sleeves.
 

Plinko

Wildcard berths that can't beat teams without a winning record should have homefield advantage
Is it possible the differentiation in rumors and this news is because Nintendo lowered specs shortly before release, much like they did with Wii U?
 

bomblord1

Banned
Would you assume that the default configuration of the chip makes no sense? Is it chosen poorly wrt cost / power / performance?

Because it doesn't take 500 man years to downclock a chip. Even the article states definitively they will be pulling in some Pascal optimizations and speculates on others. As well as talks about different possibilities as we don't know the CUDA core count to actually estimate GFLOPS.
 

jelly

Member
Switch it up.

Are Nintendo going to release a better Switch in 3 years time, wait for that one.

So, Dock for better performance is going to be a thing then?
 

EVH

Member
Lmao. If this is true how are they able to run Skyrim or the rumored Dark Souls III port? At 5fps?

Still, this sounds SO Nintendo that I believe it.
 

Aldric

Member
If they can demonstrate a game that looked as good as Bayonetta 2 and performed just as well, all will be forgiven.

Bayonetta 2 was a great game but it looked obsolete when it was released two years ago. This is supposed to be a next gen system and that's the standard used to judge its games? This is so depressing haha.
 

Blobbers

Member
If this means I get to potentially pay less for hardware that will exclusively host Shin Megami Tensei V, then I'm okay with it.
 
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