I saw this on another board. I have suspected this since March this year when I originally read the rumors about AMD working on Arctic Isles. X86 means ports and the use of 14nm chips could not only mean a revolution in lower temperatures but a visible step up in graphical performance.

''wccftech.com has released a lot of information the past few months about the likely NX chip, last ones yesterday.

There’s also strong evidence to suggest that Nindendo’s next generation gaming device “Nintendo NX” – which is coming next year – will be powered by an AMD semi-custom SOC. Making it a very likely candidate to feature AMD’s 3rd generation “Arctic Islands” GCN architecture.

AMD Updating Entire Graphics Line-Up In The Coming Quarters - 14nm/16nm Arctic Islands GPUs Arriving In 2016

Interestingly, all whispers point towards that semi-custom design as being Nintendo’s next generation gaming device dubbed “Nintendo NX” which coincidentally is pegged for a 2016 holiday launch, right around when AMD expects to start generating revenue from the upcoming semi-custom ramp mentioned above.

If Nintendo’s chosen semi-custom design is x86 based then any game that’s been released on either the PS4 or the XBOX ONE can be ported over to the new device with relative ease. Allowing Nintendo to jump in on the competition rather than form a niche of its own as it did with the Wii U. With a device that’s rumored to have “industry leading chips” which are “incredibly powerful” not only can Nintendo come out with a device that’s compatible with all the current and upcoming gaming titles, it can do so with hardware that’s potentially better than that of the competition. Something which Nintendo has struggled to achieve over several previous console generations but has the perfect opportunity to accomplish now.

Rumor: AMD Making Custom x86 SOC For Apple's 2017 And 2018 iMac Designs - Nintendo NX Likely Powered By AMD As Well

It was widely speculated that the ARM semi-custom chip would end up as the processor that would power Nintendo’s new handheld device, while the x86 chip announced alongside it would be a tailor-made server chip. Today, VentureBeat reports that the third and latest semi-custom chip would actually power Nintendo’s upcoming living room device, the Nintendo NX game console.

Nintendo choosing AMD for the second time goes beyond AMD’s traditional strong points with APUs. It allows all the developers that worked on games for the PC, PS4 and XBOX ONE to can carry over their experiences to the Nintendo NX without having to go through another the hurdle of working on a different architecture like IBM’s PowerPC. All the while backward compatibility to older Wii U games can be maintained through emulators enabled by the significant performance jump that the new x86 CPU is bound to bring.

It’s quite obvious that the Nintendo NX is set to launch during next year’s holiday season. Which makes TSMC’s 16nm FinFET or Samsung’s 14nm FinFET the perfect manufacturing nodes for it rather than the old 28nm node that current console chips are based on. This means that it will actually go head to head with Sony’s and Microsoft’s upcoming console refresh with smaller devices enabled by that very same FinFET technology. The new process will enable AMD to make the processors for these devices a lot smaller and significantly more power efficient. Which would in turn allow for more affordable systems that feature much more compact and sleek designs.So expect the Nintendo NX to boast a small and sleek form factor as well as an attractive price point.

AMD Is Likely Making The Processor For Nintendo NX - Announces Third Semi-Custom Design Win''