Nintendo Switch Pro Based on 5nm NVIDIA Ada Lovelace SoC

#5899298

DannyD

2021-03-25 15:39

Can't wait!

#5899305

schmidtbag

2021-03-25 15:55

A little strange they'd stick to a 720p display on the device itself. 7" is small enough where 1440p or 4K would be unnecessary and drain the battery, but I think 1080p would be a nice improvement that would yield noticeable results.

#5899311

Silva

2021-03-25 16:27

schmidtbag:

A little strange they'd stick to a 720p display on the device itself. 7" is small enough where 1440p or 4K would be unnecessary and drain the battery, but I think 1080p would be a nice improvement that would yield noticeable results.

For performance and back compatibility sake, I guess they'll wait a couple more years before upgrading that. Consumers want battery life and FHD would kill it. That or having a massive bulky battery inside, not comfortable to hold for long.

#5899317

icedman

2021-03-25 16:38

I Think a 1080p or even 900p screen should have at least been used doesn't 720p scale perfectly into a 1080p screen?

#5899320

fantaskarsef

2021-03-25 16:51

5nm? I'm surprised, isn't it that only TSMC can fab 5nm?

#5899321

Kaarme

2021-03-25 16:53

I bet the iGPU will have more power than my PC's video card, which I can't upgrade thanks to the crypto maniacs.

#5899322

Denial

2021-03-25 16:54

fantaskarsef:

5nm? I'm surprised, isn't it that only TSMC can fab 5nm?

Samsung has 5nm as well but TSMC's has some significant advantages.

#5899323

fantaskarsef

2021-03-25 16:57

Denial:

Samsung has 5nm as well but TSMC's has some significant advantages.

Ah wasn't aware of it, thanks.

#5899329

Astyanax

2021-03-25 17:06

new rumor has it that it'll be based on Ada

#5899334

schmidtbag

2021-03-25 17:21

Silva:

For performance and back compatibility sake, I guess they'll wait a couple more years before upgrading that. Consumers want battery life and FHD would kill it. That or having a massive bulky battery inside, not comfortable to hold for long.

Understood, which is why I said 1440p and 4K would be a bad idea. But I imagine the architectural efficiency improvements would make up for the extra battery drain at 1080p. Perhaps I'm wrong, though honestly I don't see the problem with having a low-power mode, where maybe it would render in 720p and upscale to 1080p. The screen is small enough where the detail imperfections of DLSS wouldn't be all that noticeable, but the smoothness of a higher pixel density would make an improvement.

#5899340

CPC_RedDawn

2021-03-25 17:31

schmidtbag:

Understood, which is why I said 1440p and 4K would be a bad idea. But I imagine the architectural efficiency improvements would make up for the extra battery drain at 1080p. Perhaps I'm wrong, though honestly I don't see the problem with having a low-power mode, where maybe it would render in 720p and upscale to 1080p. The screen is small enough where the detail imperfections of DLSS wouldn't be all that noticeable, but the smoothness of a higher pixel density would make an improvement.

DLSS isn't free in terms of power draw though. It still requires processing of the image to upscale it and "fill in the blanks". I doubt that any form of upscaling will be used when you are playing in handheld mode. The increases in performance of the compute units, IPC gains, increased memory bandwidth would be enough to drive 720p no problem all whilst at the same or lower power draw than the current Switch SoC. DLSS will kick in, I assume, only when the console is docked to a TV and there it can draw more power and use that for higher CPU and GPU clocks, and to feed those tensor cores for DLSS to upscale to 1080p, 1440p, or 4K depending on the screen its connected too. Nintendo always want to have long battery life, every handheld they have released has had much better battery life than any of its competitors. Apart from the current Switch and Switch Lite. It's sort of a sticking point for the console, the same goes for the image quality when hooked up to a modern TV. With this method, going for a 720p OLED screen, and a smaller fab SoC (5nm) using DLSS only in docked mode will or SHOULD get rid of both of those sticking points of the console.

#5899386

scoter man1

2021-03-25 20:57

Can we get the hash rate estimate for these (just to be able to determine how unobtainable they'll be)? 🙁

#5899389

Kaotik

2021-03-25 21:16

Just to point out something that apparently most techmedia overlooked, including Guru3D here: Kopite7Kimi didn't say Switch successor would use Ada/Lovelace, but that Orin could possibly be equipped with Ada/Lovelace GPC. However, Orin is targeted at automotive markets and is far too beefy for any Switch successor and NVIDIA has already confirmed 3rd gen tensor cores for Orin, which pretty much confirms Ampere (of course there could be updated version with Ada/Lovelace GPC instead of Ampere, but it's still too beefy SoC for handheld as it is with it's estimated 60W+ consumption)

#5899402

asturur

2021-03-25 22:47

schmidtbag:

A little strange they'd stick to a 720p display on the device itself. 7" is small enough where 1440p or 4K would be unnecessary and drain the battery, but I think 1080p would be a nice improvement that would yield noticeable results.

Considering how strong was going the n3ds with that low res, i do not think mobile resolution was ever an issue. Battery and portability are. The switch has a different appeal to different customers that do not care much about resolution on handheld mode.

#5899403

Neo Cyrus

2021-03-25 22:50

schmidtbag:

A little strange they'd stick to a 720p display on the device itself. 7" is small enough where 1440p or 4K would be unnecessary and drain the battery, but I think 1080p would be a nice improvement that would yield noticeable results.

That'd be the logical thought, but Nintendo have never given the slightest flying fuck about quality. It's about how cheap they can make something while selling it at a drastic markup; they're the only console company that makes fat profits on the hardware itself. Those thinking this will improve battery life... yeah it will, but not enough to make a real difference. It's about cutting costs, not extending battery life. Which you'll find out quickly as soon as they announce what garbage joke capacity they'll put it in, like they did with the original Switch.

#5899489