Confirmed: Nintendo Switch powered by a stock Nvidia Tegra X1 - No customizations

Even Asuka likes the Switch

Bart, Lisa, the honors please?

@DocSanchez: I didn't realize things like RAM don't count towards overall power. My bad. Stupid of me.

Games matter, and sales of this system matters, like @charizard1605 have said, as long as Nintendo keeps bringing the flow of games, the Switch will be fine and 3rd parties will come.

No surprises here.

Could release a Pro version down the line with a Tegra X2 :P.

Either way, it doesn't matter as long as good games come.

I'd be happy with older-console level graphics on a handheld device with good controls.

More useful than the paperweight station

So basically the Switch is a WiiU........................a garbage console.

Im mad now, i thought the hybrid device would be more powerful than PC, Arrrrrrrrrr, Nintendooooommmed!

Well, what was anyone expecting? Nintendo currently has the most expensive and weakest hardware on the market. In addition to that their accessories are equal ridiculous in price. I look forward to its failure.

seems powerfull enough for a handheld device but for a console this is unacceptable.

@ronvalencia Factor 5 is rising from their grave, got their franchises back, especially Turrican!

The following comes from Julian Eggebrecht, Co-Founder of Factor 5...

- Switch is performance wise between Wii U and Xbox One

- developing is as easy or even easier than on PS4

- all modern GPU Standards

- they got all rights back to Turrican

Seems like Eggebrecht knows a good deal about the Switch, and it's obvious they're working on the system. Can't wait to see what they're doing!

@silversix_: Honestly, I watch those "graphics comparison" videos IGN does on Facebook all the time, and I never see any remarkable difference between the platforms. So if a console gets the gist of the visual style down, I don't really care. Graphical leaps are so underwhelming anymore.

I don't think it will fail, if you look at the reviews zelda is getting.

Games over graphics.

That is nice to know, but what are the practical, layman understanding of it uses?

Would the games play better than the Wii U?

Is it an effecient (power-saving) chip?

In a scale of one to five, how powerful is this chip compared to the Xbox One or Playstation 4?

It's more powerful than the Wii U, and less powerful than the Xbox One

Switch performance is also between Wii U and Scorpio. In other words, it's not saying much. The takeaway here is that it's really easy to develop for.

Well, first of all, if you're watching comparison videos, its much harder to see a difference in a compressed video than playing natively on your monitor or tv. Secondly, power doesn't only get you better visuals (textures and such) but also performance (fps), resolution (there's barely any tv's sold that are under 1080p but the Switch still uses that resolution... its 2017, HELLO?) and can get you cooler stuff such as physics, particle effects etc. Ignoring all of this is simply stupid.

To me, personally, it makes no sense at all. When i hear people saying that they don't care about power because graphics aren't important, they're completely missing the point.

Where does it say between Wii U and Scorpio?

it's not much better than the ps3 and xbox 360, so it's really comparable to a wii u, but it's slightly, and then I mean slightly, faster than the wiiu and a lot worse than the x1 and ps4.

There's a reason why zelda runs on both the switch and wii u, the switch version is hardly any better than the wii u version.

So as a console, compared to the ps4 pro for instance the difference is as big as back in 2005 with the wii and the 360.

Its mind boggling and doesn't have much logic to the system.

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/126518986?t=02h59m38s

Well said.

There are plenty of tablets out today that are MUCH more powerful then this device. By far not the most powerful handheld.

Only disappointing is Nintendo gimped the Tegra X1 even further, I get it they do it for handheld mode..but docked?...c'mon... :P

You mean Wii U and Xbox One S. This thing is no where close to the power of Scorpio WOW!

Yes and No...

Tegra X1 has the following advantage

1. "Pack math" e.g. double rate FP16 processing, Wii U's AMD GPU only has single rate processing. First AMD GPU with "pack math" is Vega NCU and PS4 Pro.

2. DirectX12 Feature Level 12_1 register handling and hardware features.

3. NVIDIA specific features e.g. it's async compute version (not compatible with DX12), tile cache rendering with polygon binning. First AMD GPU with tile cache rendering with polygon binning is Vega.

GPU vendor specific optimization is very important when it's falls outside the known API standards.

Also Switch only has access to 3 CPUs and 3GB of RAM for games. Even though it is weak as hell I still want one.

http://nintendotoday.com/switch-3-gb-ram/

1) yes, the switch is like a wii u+

2)yes, it is super efficient especially when compared to the apus in the twins

3) uh, it's like a 1.5/5....yeah, it's pretty much a full generation behind (even more so when compared to the pro and scorpio)

2. There are workarounds for XBO and PS4 efficiency issues e.g.

a. minimise polygon overdraw i.e. careful polygon budgeting.

b. XBO has software based tile renderer with up to 109 GB/s memory write bandwidth.

c. use heavy async compute for AMD GPUs e.g. Doom 2016 has AMD GPUs slotting into their TFLOPS rankings with NVIDIA's TFLOPS. Async compute's memory bandwidth usage are not sync'ed with normal sync compute workloads, hence maximizing idle memory bandwidth.

d. use FP16 and integer data formats for input and output. The compute processing is handled by 32bit ALUs on the GPU.

Going to use the same argument console gamers use;

Find me a tablet/handheld that is more powerful than the Switch for $299 MSRP.

Have fun

The Shield.

On mobile mode, Qualcomm Snapdragon 808 with similar GFLOPS.

@EG101: Kepler is a horrible architecture, I wouldn't touch that thing with a 10 foot pole.

Well that is literally a lie from Nvidia then, and it is disappointing. They said it was a custom chip. I don't think the slight adjustments like elements turned off would count.

I had little hope it had an X2 chip so it's not a massive deal I guess.

And I have to say that not having the Pascal chip is dumb. I know that issue is old at this point, but they'd have less heat issues with it, so they could have better clocks and/or better battery life. That's my understanding of the difference anyway.

Maybe the price was just too much, or the timing was all off.

My understanding is that Nvidia was leaving the mobile SoC market to pursuit in smart cars for driving AI. But now that the Switch is selling, Nvidia may get their confidence back in the mobile game, but with Nintendo. I'm sure the next Nintendo console will have the latest customized Tegra to offer.

I could care less it's not going to stop me from enjoying Nintendo games.

Does this make Spawn Wave wrong or misleading about the X2 chip being in the system if I recall correctly?

So...should I be enjoying zelda more or less because of this?

I think for most gamers who are less technically-literate, they are more concerned if the Nvidia chip does not cause any problems for the Switch. For example, does not cause overheating of the console.

Qualcomm SoCs also has double rate FP16 and tile render features.

This just in: Gaming Giant Nintendo doesn't match the hardware of tech Giants Microsoft and Sony

shocker..............

According to NewZoo stats, Nintendo is not even in the top 10 gaming companies.

O nooos, what will we ever do with ourselves.

The Switch is like a wet fart. You really thought you wanted it until it happened.

I don't really care what the Switch has under the hood at this point. Zelda is by far the best game on the market at the moment. And being able to take it with me anywhere is the best feature of any console out right now.

I haven't touched Horizon Zero Dawn since Zelda launched. And I was playing Horizon on a 4K HDR TV with a PS4 Pro. I haven't put a VR headset on since. And it looks like Mass Effect Andromeda isn't going to pull me away either. Nintendo has proven time and time again that they don't need state of the art specs to bring the heat.

@FireEmblem_Man: Nobody is perfect even her.

You haven't been paying attention. Many fanboys thought the NS would be as powerful as an Xbone right up until...well many of them still think it can be, through the magical power of optimization <spreads hands to drawn imaginary rainbow>

I admittedly not the biggest supporter of the Switch. But, the hardware is powerful enough to offer one of, If not the best open world game ever. So, I will take its lack of power with a grain of salt. The real test of this thing is if it can garner interest outside of the die hard Nintendo fans.

if Nintendo can keep a steady flow of good to great games and good to great indie titles it should do better than the Wii U at least. At this point 25-30 million would be a success for Nintendo. We shall see I suppose.

well I mean, the numbers are there, we can't like it now so we'll have to throw our Switches away