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Details about "New" Switch revision via OS datamine (LPDDR4x RAM, modest GPU performance boost, no "Pro" model in sight)
- Thread starter Atheerios
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You can tell from the battery life of the lite that the efficiency of the gpu has increased by 35-50%
Guys, I think I found the bandwidth for lppdr4x and how much that could be for the switch revision.
As it stands, LPDDR4 gives 3.2 Gbps per pin, which for a 64 bit bus comes to 25.6GB/s of bandwidth speed (25.6/8=3.2) on 4GB of Ram. This is Switch's current bandwidth. But for the DDR4X, you are getting 4.266 Gbps per pin which should get you 34.128 GB/s bandwidth, which would be a 1.33x boost over DDR4X! So theoretically, if we get 6GB of Ram in the switch revision, we could get 1.95x the bandwidth (50GB/s), if Nintendo sticks to 64bit bus.
Someone correct me if I'm wrong please^^
Fun fact too, LPDDR5 gives double the bandwidth speeds of LPDDR4, at 6.4 Gbit/s pin.
Edit: actually I don't know if having more RAM equates to more bandwidth total. Logically I would think it would, because +2GB ram =50% more. But Something I find really weird on the wiki page of Tegra chip, is that lists a stock TX2 having 8GB ram using a 128 bit bus, but only has 58GB/s bandwidth. Doubling the bus but width should give arouhd 2x as much more bandwidth speed. But 58GB/s is only 2.26x bandwidth as the one on TX1's 64 bit bus bandwidth, yet there's also 2x more RAM to boot.
As it stands, LPDDR4 gives 3.2 Gbps per pin, which for a 64 bit bus comes to 25.6GB/s of bandwidth speed (25.6/8=3.2) on 4GB of Ram. This is Switch's current bandwidth. But for the DDR4X, you are getting 4.266 Gbps per pin which should get you 34.128 GB/s bandwidth, which would be a 1.33x boost over DDR4X! So theoretically, if we get 6GB of Ram in the switch revision, we could get 1.95x the bandwidth (50GB/s), if Nintendo sticks to 64bit bus.
Someone correct me if I'm wrong please^^
Fun fact too, LPDDR5 gives double the bandwidth speeds of LPDDR4, at 6.4 Gbit/s pin.
Edit: actually I don't know if having more RAM equates to more bandwidth total. Logically I would think it would, because +2GB ram =50% more. But Something I find really weird on the wiki page of Tegra chip, is that lists a stock TX2 having 8GB ram using a 128 bit bus, but only has 58GB/s bandwidth. Doubling the bus but width should give arouhd 2x as much more bandwidth speed. But 58GB/s is only 2.26x bandwidth as the one on TX1's 64 bit bus bandwidth, yet there's also 2x more RAM to boot.
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Can it do that while also saving 50% on energy compared to the lpddr4 ram?
Or does doing that cancel out the energy savings?
Everyday I learn something new. Thanks for this!
No.
So we're looking at the possibility of going to 6GB of RAM, twice the memory bandwidth, and 35% increase in GPU power.
There already is a CPU profile at 1.75GHz available, so it's possible that this speed can be used in more profiles with the new Switch. Otherwise we haven't heard about any CPU improvements.
The tweet about the GPU being clocked higher is a bit ambiguous currently. It sounds like he's saying that it's clocked higher across the board, which would give every game a boost. But it's also possible that he means there are higher GPU profiles available for use.
It's all unclear at the moment.
I don't disagree we need to ground speculation in realism. But speculation also provides a range of possibilities
I find a lot of posts that argue for realism tend to equate it as the only solution. Hence my comment it is pointless to "lock in" on such a prediction.
The vehemence of your post is pointess as it seems to imply anything outside of 4GB is unrealistic, not the realism part.
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This isn't necessarily true though, is it? Hacked consoles can force games to run at higher clock speeds, there's no reason to assume Nintendo cannot update the firmware to basically upgrade each performance profile that currently exists. Say, they upgrade the 384MHz profile to run at 460MHz, so that all games that use the 384MHz profile on the OG Switch use the 460MHz profile on the new Switch.
I think we would know if it was using 6GB of RAM instead of 4. The dataminer noted there was documentation support for 4GB and 8GB in relation to Mariko. Not 6GB support.
Rumor has it the Switch revision is coming in September with the Lite. If you don't hear anything by then get an OG Switch.
The Xbox One S fixed a lot of the aesthetic and fit-and-finish complaints from the launch Xbox. We don't know for sure, but these leaks indicate the "Pro" won't do much in that area.
What advantage would it be to have 6GB of RAM instead of 4GB? I mean, even the PS4 Pro and the Xbox One X doesnt have extra RAM*, so how likely is it that a developers will make games around 4GB and 6GB for Switch Pro?
* = PS4 Pro has 1GB extra RAM, but its only used for OS purposes, as far as i know.
EDIT: Seems like the Xbox One X has 12GB of RAM, i didnt know that.
* = PS4 Pro has 1GB extra RAM, but its only used for OS purposes, as far as i know.
EDIT: Seems like the Xbox One X has 12GB of RAM, i didnt know that.
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They would have probably be able to clock it higher, but nothing indicates a better cpu sadly.
Yes. I'm a little hopeful for this as Nintendo does have a track record of using mid cycle upgrades to universally improve old software (without forcing devs to go back and manually support it) but at the same time not exactly in this way (game performance). Docked clocks undocked is really mainly what I'm hoping for since all games already have that profile so it'd be a pretty painless upgrade.
I guess they could, in theory, just upgrade the existing profile, but this comes with a high risk of some games not liking this at all (crashes, etc.), so I don't expect them to take this "hack-y" approach. There are simply too many games out in the wild already to risk this.
Maximum bandwith for LPDDR4x on a 64bit interface is always 33.3Gbytes/sec (4266Mhz * 64 / 8 / 1024) regardless of the configuration of the RAM modules (i.e. two chips with a 32bit interface each or one chip with a 64bit interface). This is indeed a 33% increase over regular LPDDR4 ram (which maxes out at 3200Mhz) but to further increase the bandwidth, you'd need to provide the SoC with a wider memory interface.
One X has 12GB and it allows more assets to be loaded into the memory. Higher resolution textures, shadows, more lighting effects, higher resolutions, longer draw distances, etc.
I had no idea. Does that mean that it cuts down on loading, since that information is already stored in the RAM?
I hope this is true since I plan to buy a Switch this holiday season for Pokémon (I want to play at home too on the tv)
They could allocate more to the OS to add some new OS features. Currently there is 800MB allocated to the Switch OS I believe.
I doubt this will have more than 4GB though.
Yeah docked clocks undocked is the dream but it doesn't seem like this device will get us there. Mike's tweets seem to suggest a modest increase in GPU performance, a boost to 784MHz would need ~2x the performance. Also he seems to suggest there will be a smaller battery on this than the original, so even in the case that they allow a 2x clock speed increase the smaller battery would probably give it an overall worse battery life than the original, which I doubt they want.
I think 384MHz being the new base, 460MHz being the middle boost and some higher amount being the new high boost mode is what we can expect (if anything).
Do games actually rely on GPU speed for code? I know some (old, mostly) games rely on CPU speed but I've never heard of that for GPU speed. And what with mobile throttling and everything these days you would think that would be a very risky way to develop games in general.
But even if that was the case could they not tell the firmware to return something like "384" if the game asks for the GPU speed even if it's running at a higher rate? It would be a pretty easy fix, see when a game was last updated, if it was before X date (when developers had "new" Switch devkits handy) then treat the GPU speed as what the original designated profile had it set to.
Could there be any other issues with bumping up GPU performance? Again with the way mobile architecture has worked for many years now I didn't expect that to be something that could cause issues.
If it has 6GB I would guess most games will default to 4GB support.
With games.specifcally patched for Pro using more.memory with higher quality texture.
What else will increased RAM.be used for? Quote possibly native voice chat and longer video record time as I believe recordings are stored in memory before being saved. And Nintendo has expressed interest to let people record for longer than 30 seconds via comments I recall from. 2017 when video recording was first added.
he states that lite and new both have these 3 versions
also the first two are dev kits too?
Yeah but if the system isn't much more powerful it won't make a big difference. 4 GB is plenty for a current Switch but the limits come from its bandwidth, CPU and GPU first, not the memory amount. If this is just a modest upgrade even 6GB is fine.
Comparisons with X don't make much sense if Switch Pro is lower than that
I don't think anyone should be expecting any more RAM. Just slightly faster RAM.
From what I understand he's saying the T214 chip (aka Mariko) has three profiles, those three profiles being present in the documentation of both the Lite and the "new" Switch. All that means is that both the Lite and the "new" are using that T214 chip, since every device using the chip would have documentation of that chip in the firmware.
So the third profile would refer to a standard devkit used to develop games for both the Lite and "new".
From what I understand he's saying the T214 chip (aka Mariko) has three profiles, those three profiles being present in the documentation of both the Lite and the "new" Switch. All that means is that both the Lite and the "new" are using that T214 chip, since every device using the chip would have documentation of that chip in the firmware.
So the third profile would refer to a standard devkit used to develop games for both the Lite and "new".
Yeah, thats true. I was thinking of OS features, but wasnt sure what they could add of exclusive features.
I'm curious of not having native party chat is due to RAM restiction. But longer recording could be a good option, indeed.
He's also made a few new posts today but I haven't been able to go through them yet.
I'm going to expect less clock boost then in portable mode if the battery is a lot smaller
Docked clock speed I still think will get a decent boost
Yeah and some games that really push the system by using every last scrap of memory available currently do not support video. Warframe comes to mind
This might have some clarification?
not sure if it's been posted yet...
not a lot we didn't already know
This is what I've thought a moderately enhanced Switch could bring since it first started getting teased.
Could this just be about the Lite model, or would this suggest that all Mariko units might feature reduced batteries? Does this suggest that the Lite and OG would both get the same battery?
Wouldn't a 50% GPU jump and 50GB/sec bandwidth basically be a Tegra Parker (commonly referred to as a Tegra X2) in performance?
X2 also has doubled bandwidth.
But Maxwell and Pascal are essentially the same architecture with Pascal being a die shrink of Maxwell with improvements.
So the "not X2" part is old news and not particularly noteworthy considering DF and Thraktor already concluded that weeks ago and we have good evidence it's a die shrink of the Maxwell X1 which means it will.get some of the perf you see I. X2 regardless
All my hopes were for the newer Switch was being able to get 550-600GFlops docked and getting the CPU at about 1.4GHz clocked. And slightly improved bandwidth. If it can deliver this I will buy one no issue. But with no calls about CPU clock I'm a little worried.
I still think a "Switch Pro" for say September 2020 (ahead of the PS5/XB2 launches) would make a lot of sense.
That would be 3 1/2 years since the Switch launch, so I think a new higher end model is reasonable and the chip Nvidia could give Nintendo by then probably would be quite nice.
That would be 3 1/2 years since the Switch launch, so I think a new higher end model is reasonable and the chip Nvidia could give Nintendo by then probably would be quite nice.
Again, we know the CPU can be clocked at 1.75GHz in the OG Switch. It probably can't sustain that for a long period of time but this revision likely can. So it all comes down to whether Nintendo allows developers to use that profile that currently already exists for longer periods of time.
I know, I read your response. But unlike the GPU the CPU has never wavered from the 1GHz clock in any profile so it implies to me that they aren't going to be having CPU performance profiles anytime soon.
Apart from the already-mentioned doubled bandwith (Parker has a 128bit memory interface compared to the X1's 64bit interface), Parker also has two Nvidia Denver2 CPUs cores in addition to the four ARM A57 cores already in the X1 (it doesn't have the latter's four smaller A53 cores).
Denver2 is one of Nvidia's own custom ARMv8 designs, but don't ask me whether these are any good and/or could be a good fit for a possible Switch successor, because I have no idea...
It will cancel some. Worst case scenario it will use as much energy as OG RAM, which would be .5 watts more.
Yeah I noticed something didn't add up when I checked on TX2 specs after I initially posted, having 8GB ram with a 128 bit bus at only 2.25x the amount as the 4GB Ram on OG switch. I do know that double the bus means double the bandwidth. But I would think adding more RAM would increase bandwidth?
Does OG switch's RAM consist of one 4GB piece or two 2GB pieces?
Since firmware 7.0.0 there are two profiles that have a 1785mhz CPU clock.
See here: https://switchbrew.org/wiki/PPC_services#PerformanceMode
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