Next-Generation Nintendo Switch SoC to be Powered by NVIDIA's Ada Lovelace GPU Architecture

[AleksandarK]

Nintendo's Switch console is one of the most successful consoles ever made by the Japanese company. It has sold in millions of units and has received great feedback from the gaming community. However, as the hardware inside the console becomes outdated, the company is thinking about launching a new revision of the console, with the latest hardware and technologies. Today, we got ahold of information about the graphics side of things in Nintendo's upcoming console. Powered by NVIDIA Tegra SoC, it will incorporate unknown Arm-based CPU cores. The latest rumors suggest that the CPU will be accommodated with NVIDIA's Ada Lovelace GPU architecture. According to @kopite7kimi, a known hardware leaker, who simply replied to VideoCardz's tweet with "Ada", we are going to see the appearance of Ada Lovelace GPU architecture in the new SoC. Additionally, the new Switch SoC will have hardware accelerated NVIDIA Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS) and 4K output.


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[DeathtoGnomes]

wonder who played the part of Linda in this deal.

 

[watzupken]

Not sure if this will be a next generation Switch, and not a refresh. While Nintendo have refute rumors of a new generation of Switch a few times, I feel there will be a huge gap in performance between this and the current gen Switch. Besides the big jump in GPU, I feel the current gen Switch is starting to see CPU bottlenecks due to the A57 ARM cores that are looking ancient given the annual refresh of ARM high performance core. I imagine it will be quite tough for game developers to optimize games for the current gen Switch in the future with a much faster next gen Switch out there.

 

[bug]

it will incorporate unknown Arm-based CPU cores

If the sale goes through, it could incorporate Nvidia-based CPU cores. (Not really, not enough time for a core designed under Nvidia.)

 

[TheLostSwede]

Not sure if this will be a next generation Switch, and not a refresh. While Nintendo have refute rumors of a new generation of Switch a few times, I feel there will be a huge gap in performance between this and the current gen Switch. Besides the big jump in GPU, I feel the current gen Switch is starting to see CPU bottlenecks due to the A57 ARM cores that are looking ancient given the annual refresh of ARM high performance core. I imagine it will be quite tough for game developers to optimize games for the current gen Switch in the future with a much faster next gen Switch out there.

So how does it work on Android phones that have different CPUs and GPUs? Or PCs for that matter? I don't really see the difference. Besides, the rumours suggest a higher resolution display, which means that would use up a fair chunk of the performance improvements.

 

[1d10t]

Hope they will also come with better hardware, not just faster SoC. Screen and joy-con would be nice starting point.

 

[ViperXTR]

Hope they will also come with better hardware, not just faster SoC. Screen and joy-con would be nice starting point.

screen is rumoured to be a 7" amoled, but at 720p
And yes fix joycon drift

 

[Searing]

So how does it work on Android phones that have different CPUs and GPUs? Or PCs for that matter? I don't really see the difference. Besides, the rumours suggest a higher resolution display, which means that would use up a fair chunk of the performance improvements.

When was the last time you played a game on your 2021 phone that worked on your 2014 phone? Does anyone have a working 2014 phone? Because the CPU in the Switch is a slower clocked version of the CPU in the 2014 Samsung Galaxy Note 4.

 

[TheLostSwede]

When was the last time you played a game on your 2021 phone that worked on your 2014 phone? Does anyone have a working 2014 phone? Because the CPU in the Switch is a slower clocked version of the CPU in the 2014 Samsung Galaxy Note 4.

But the GPU is a lot more powerful...

 

[ViperXTR]

When was the last time you played a game on your 2021 phone that worked on your 2014 phone? Does anyone have a working 2014 phone? Because the CPU in the Switch is a slower clocked version of the CPU in the 2014 Samsung Galaxy Note 4.

GPU wise, Tegra X1 (switch soc and shield tv) was only surpassed by snapdragon 845 around 2018

 

[Dux]

Please, in the future, if the information in the article hasn't been confirmed, add ? to the article title. I know you got this information from garbage site WCCFtech. But 90% of their content is pure clickbait rumor garbage. And they have hands down the lowest IQ comment section on the internet.

 

[Chomiq]

So far the only changes that were seen in Switch firmware code is that there's support for new display driver and that's it.

 

[Searing]

GPU wise, Tegra X1 (switch soc and shield tv) was only surpassed by snapdragon 845 around 2018

View attachment 193784

Let me quote an excellent Reddit poster, that said the same things I said back then.

The Switch CPU is pretty far behind smartphones, particularly those from Apple. It's based on the 2014 A57 architecture which was ARM's first stock 64 bit design (...) So if you have a 2016 phone or beyond, you can expect about 2-3x the CPU performance [he was talking about late 2017]. There just isn't any competition here, the Switch gets smoked in the CPU department.

The GPU side of things is a little more forgiving. The Maxwell based GPU inside Tegra X1 was and still is rather unique in the mobile space, as it's the same exact architecture Nvidia uses in their PC gaming cards. [The Switch GPU is half of a GTX 750, also from 2014]. The GPU was way ahead of anything else that was available in mobile chips at the time it released in 2015. By 2016 the gap narrowed significantly, and by 2017 most flagship mobile GPUs (Apple A11, Snapdragon 835) had surpassed the Tegra X1 in benchmarks. Nintendo has their Tegra X1 downclocked below the stock speeds NVidia originally shipped it at however, so there's a good chance high end phones in 2015 would've been on par.

---------

Don't overly rely on one benchmark, and the Shield TV's clock speed is double the Switch anyways... not a correct comparison. I think it is a 2016 GPU with a 2014 CPU.

But the GPU is a lot more powerful...

Not by a lot, the GPU in the Switch is heavily downclocked, it is about half the shield in performance. Circa 2016's GPUs.

 

[windwhirl]

Does anyone have a working 2014 phone?

Out of context, but I have a working Lumia 640 XL

2015 but, eh, close enough

 

[elghinnarisa]

Not sure if this will be a next generation Switch, and not a refresh. While Nintendo have refute rumors of a new generation of Switch a few times, I feel there will be a huge gap in performance between this and the current gen Switch. Besides the big jump in GPU, I feel the current gen Switch is starting to see CPU bottlenecks due to the A57 ARM cores that are looking ancient given the annual refresh of ARM high performance core. I imagine it will be quite tough for game developers to optimize games for the current gen Switch in the future with a much faster next gen Switch out there.

It's also worth noting that in many games on the switch, it absolutely hammers a single core and the rest just kinda hang around. Which does lead to quite a bit of stuttering.

 

[Kaotik]

Just to point out something that apparently most techmedia overlooked, including TPU 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)

 

[Searing]

Out of context, but I have a working Lumia 640 XL

2015 but, eh, close enough

nice yeah i have a nexus 5 from 2013 that works as a baby monitor for a few years

It's also worth noting that in many games on the switch, it absolutely hammers a single core and the rest just kinda hang around. Which does lead to quite a bit of stuttering.

Yeah, would prefer the latest Arm cores, even if only 4 of them, to having 8 slow cores.

 

[timta2]

wonder who played the part of Linda in this deal.

Your comment comes across as a lot more misogynistic than it does humorous. Read up: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ada_Lovelace

 

[voltage]

ill buy if true.

 

[Mussels]

DLSS is a perfect match for consoles and ultra portables - 720p rendering that outputs at 4k is gunna be perfect for the switch

 

[elghinnarisa]

DLSS is a perfect match for consoles and ultra portables - 720p rendering that outputs at 4k is gunna be perfect for the switch

I actually kinda hope they do not add DLSS, because I got this feeling that it would end up not being an optional feature. And my experience with DLSS has been less than positive. In fact, it can be summed up in this little clip of a very nervous plant.

http://imgur.com/eWysjgx

And I get very tired of watching things flicker so I had to turn DLSS off.

 

[Mussels]

I actually kinda hope they do not add DLSS, because I got this feeling that it would end up not being an optional feature. And my experience with DLSS has been less than positive. In fact, it can be summed up in this little clip of a very nervous plant.

http://imgur.com/eWysjgx

And I get very tired of watching things flicker so I had to turn DLSS off.

yeah but when the games are coded and tested for it specifically, they can iron those bugs out

 

[elghinnarisa]

yeah but when the games are coded and tested for it specifically, they can iron those bugs out

Its the "can" part I don't trust. I don't doubt that they can, I doubt that they will based on current results. Same reason they can make better use of the CPU in the current switch, but they don't.
It will either way always result in a slightly softer image and I just don't really enjoy that in games, makes it feel like I got grease on my monitor or something.

 

[watzupken]

So how does it work on Android phones that have different CPUs and GPUs? Or PCs for that matter? I don't really see the difference. Besides, the rumours suggest a higher resolution display, which means that would use up a fair chunk of the performance improvements.

Do you think that a game performs equally on different Android phones, especially when you are comparing a high end vs low end Android phone? It can be done, but that is unless you don't mind a slide show on an entry level phone. In fact, you can look at the game performance between an Android flagship now and 5 years ago, and you will see a big difference in performance, to the point that some new games may not run smoothly on the 5 years old flagship. For a console that is different. The game needs to work, and ideally not be a slide show. Think Cyberpunk on last gen consoles and you get what I mean.

And from what I can tell, the screen resolution on the existing Switch and what is rumored is the same, i.e. 720p. While it may gain more CPU and GPU power, going into portable mode also means that they need to balance performance vs power consumption. They may be able to achieve 720p@ 30FPS more stably than the current Switch which tend to drop to resolution to maintain 30 FPS.

 

[DeathtoGnomes]

Your comment comes across as a lot more misogynistic than it does humorous. Read up: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ada_Lovelace

I'm no snowflake, and I dont practice being PC. In other words, too bad. Deal with it.

This deal makes me wonder if Nvidia went to Nintendo over this because AMD has the other consoles. It seems odd Nvidia is doing this considering whats on their plate that they might be spread too thin.