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Well, Nvidia has powered a much more popular console... the Nintendo Switch, and Nvidia looks set to power the Switch 2 when it launches next year. So, AMD is c

Well, Nvidia has powered a much more popular console... the Nintendo Switch, and Nvidia looks set to power the Switch 2 when it launches next year. So, AMD is clearly not the only choice.

pinewurst 2y ago
That's not an apples-to-apples comparison. Switch is lower price, lower performance by design and used, even originally, a mature NVIDIA SoC, not really a custom.
mdasen 2y ago
The problem with choosing Nvidia is that they can't make an x86 processor with an integrated GPU. If you're looking to maintain backward compatibility with the Playstation 5, you're probably going to want to stick with an x86 chip. AMD has the rights to make x86 chips and it has the graphics chips to integrate. Nvidia has graphics chips, but it doesn't have the CPUs. Yes, Nvidia can make ARM CPUs, but they haven't been putting out amazing custom cores. AMD can simply repackage some Zen X cores with RDNA X GPU and with a little work have something Sony can use. Nvidia would need to either grab off-the-shelf ARM Cortex cores (like most of their ARM CPUs use) or Sony would need to bet that Nvidia could and would give them leading-edge performance on custom designed cores. But would Nvidia come in at a price that Sony would pay? Probably not. AMD's costs are probably a lot lower since they're going to be doing all that CPU work anyway for the rest of their business. For Nintendo, the calculus is a bit different. Nintendo is fine with off-the-shelf cores that are less powerful than smartphones and they're already on ARM so there's no backward incompatibility there. But for Sony whose business is different, it'd be a huge gamble.
- coder543 2y ago
  I think changing from AMD GPUs to Nvidia GPUs by itself has a good chance of breaking backwards compatibility with how low level and custom Sony's GPU API apparently is, so the CPU core architecture would just be a secondary concern. I was not saying Sony should switch to Nvidia, just pointing out that it is objectively incorrect to say that AMD is the only option for consoles when the most popular console today does not rely on AMD. I also fully believe Intel could scale up an integrated Battlemage to meet Sony's needs, but is it worth the break in compatibility? Is it worth the added risk when Intel's 13th and 14th gen CPUs have had such publicly documented stability issues? I believe the answer to both questions is "probably not."
  - qwytw 2y ago
    > incorrect to say that AMD is the only option for consoles It's a bit of an apples to oranges comparison though, even if all 3 devices are technically consoles. The Switch is basically a tablet with controllers attached and a tablet/phone CPU while PS5/Xbox are just custom build PCs.
    - coder543 2y ago
      The only reason I can see that it would matter that the Switch is a low-end console is if you think Nvidia is incapable of building something higher end. Are you saying that Nvidia couldn't make more powerful hardware for a high end console? Otherwise, the Switch just demonstrates to me that Nvidia is willing to form the right partnership, and reliably supply the same chips for long periods of time. I'm certain Nvidia would have no trouble doing a high end console, customized to Microsoft and/or Sony's exacting specs... for the right price.
      - qwytw 2y ago
        > Are you saying that Nvidia couldn't make more powerful hardware for a high end console? Hard to say. It tooks Qualcomm years make something that was superior to standard ARM designs. GPU is of course another matter. > I'm certain Nvidia would have no trouble doing a high end console, The last mobile/consumer CPU (based on their own core) that they have released came out in 2015 and they have been using off the shelf ARM core designs for their embedded and server stuff. Wouldn't they be effectively be starting from scratch? I'm sure they could achieve that in a few years but do you think it would take them significantly less time that it did Apple or Qualcomm? > Nvidia is incapable of building something higher end I think it depends more on what Nintendo is willing to pay, I doubt they really want a "high-end" chip.
        coder543 2y ago
        > I think it depends more on what Nintendo is willing to pay, I doubt they really want a "high-end" chip. In this thread, we were talking about what Sony and Microsoft would want for successors to the PS5 and XSX, not Nintendo. Nintendo was just a convenient demonstration that Nvidia is clearly willing to partner with console makers like Sony and Microsoft. > Hard to say. It tooks Qualcomm years make something that was superior to standard ARM designs. > The last mobile CPU I wasn't talking about Nvidia custom designing an ARM core, although they have done that in the past, and again, this wouldn't be mobile hardware. Nvidia is using very powerful ARM cores in their Grace CPU today. They have plenty of experience with the off-the-shelf ARM cores, which are very likely good enough for modern consoles.
- alexjplant 2y ago
  > Nvidia has graphics chips, but it doesn't have the CPUs. Yes, Nvidia can make ARM CPUs, but they haven't been putting out amazing custom cores. Ignorant question - do they have to? The last time I was up on gaming hardware it seemed as though most workloads were GPU-bound and that having a higher-end GPU was more important than having a blazing fast CPU. GPUs have also grown much more flexible rendering pipelines as game engines have gotten much more sophisticated and, presumably, parallelized. Would it not make sense for Nvidia to crank out a cost-optimized design comprising their last-gen GPU architecture with 12 ARM cores on an affordable node size? The reason I ask is because I've been reading a lot about 90s console architectures recently. My understanding is that back then the CPU and specialized co-processors had to do a lot of heavy lifting on geometry calculations before telling the display hardware what to draw. In contrast I think most contemporary GPU designs take care of all of the vertex calculations themselves and therefore free the CPU up a lot in this regard. If you have an entity-based game engine and are able to split that object graph into well-defined clusters you can probably parallelize the simulation and scale horizontally decently well. Given these trends I'd think a bunch of cheaper cores could work as well for cheaper than higher-end ones.
  - wmf 2y ago
    PS5 had Zen 2 which was fairly new at the time. If PS6 targets 120 fps they'll want a CPU that's double the performance of Zen 2 per thread. You could definitely achieve this with ARM but I'm not sure how new of an ARM core you would need.
    - t-3 2y ago
      Is there a need to ever target 120 fps? Only the best-of-best eyes will even notice a slight difference from 60.
      - wmf 2y ago
        I don't think my TV can display 120 fps and I'm not buying a new one. But they promise 4K 60 (with upscaling) on the PS5 Pro, so they have to have something beyond that for PS6.
- kmeisthax 2y ago
  Emulating x86 would be an option - though given Sony's history, I doubt they'd consider it seriously. For context... - PS1 BC on PS2 was mostly hardware but they (AFAIK?) had to write some code to translate PS1 GPU commands to the PS2 GS. That's why you could forcibly enable bilinear filtering on PS1 games. Later on they got rid of the PS1 CPU / "IO processor" and replaced it with a PPC chip ("Deckard") running a MIPS emulator. - PS1 BC on PS3 was entirely software; though the Deckard PS2s make this not entirely unprecedented. Sony had already written POPS for PS1 downloads on PS2 BBN[0] and PSP's PS1 Classics, so they knew how to emulate a PS1. - PS2 BC on PS3 was a nightmare. Originally it was all hardware[1], but then they dropped the EE+GS combo chip and went to GPU emulation, then they dropped the PS2 CPU entirely and all backwards compatibility with it. Then they actually wrote a PS2 emulator anyway, which is part of the firmware, but only allowed to be used with PS2 Classics and not as BC. I guess they consider the purchase price of the games on the shop to also pay for the emulator? - No BC was attempted on PS4 at all, AFAIK. PS3 is a weird basketcase of an architecture, but even PS1 or PS2 aren't BC supported. At some point Sony gave up on software emulation and decided it's only worth it for retro re-releases where they can carefully control what games run on the emulator and, more importantly, charge you for each re-release. At least the PS4 versions will still play on a PS5... and PS6... right? [0] A Japan-only PS2 application that served as a replacement for the built-in OSD and let you connect to and download software demos, game trailers, and so on. Also has an e-mail client. [1] Or at least as "all hardware" as the Deckard PS2s are
  - MadnessASAP 2y ago
    > No BC was attempted on PS4 at all, AFAIK. PS3 is a weird basketcase of an architecture, but even PS1 or PS2 aren't BC supported. To Be Faiiiirrrrrr, that whole generation was a basket case. Nintendo with the motion controls. Microsoft with a console that internally was more PC then "traditional" console (and HD-DVD). Sony with the Cell processor and OtherOS™. I do have fond memories of playing around with Linux on the PS3. Two simultaneous threads! 6 more almost cores!! That's practically a supercomputer!!!
    - anonfordays 2y ago
      I remember the hype around cell processors being so high around the release of the PlayStation 3. It was novel for the application, but still fizzled out even with the backing it had.
- kcb 2y ago
  Nvidia has very little desire to make a high-end razor thin margin chip that consoles traditionally demand. This is what Jensen has said, and it makes sense when there are other areas that the silicon can be directed to with much greater profit.
- FileSorter 2y ago
  >The problem with choosing Nvidia is that they can't make an x86 processor with an integrated GPU Can't and not being allowed are two very different things
dathinab 2y ago
> much more popular console which isn't a useful metric because "being a good GPU" wasn't at all why the switch became successful, like you could say it became successful even through it had a pretty bad GPU. Through bad only in the perf. aspect as far as I can tell back then amd wasn't competitive on energy usage basis and maybe not on a price basis as the nvidea chips where a by product of Nvidea trying to enter the media/TV add on/handheld market with stuff like the Nvidea Shield. But yes AMD isn't the only choice, IMHO in difference to what many people seem to think for the price segment most consoles tend to target Intel is a viable choice, too. But then we are missing relevant insider information to properly judge that.
qwytw 2y ago
> the Nintendo Switch, and Nvidia looks set to power the Switch 2 Which runs a very old mobile chip which was already outdated when the Switch came out. Unless Nintendo is planning to go with something high-end this time (e.g. to compete with the Steam Deck and other more powerful handhelds) whatever they get from Nvidia will probably be more or less equivalent to an mid-tier of the shelf Qualcomm SoC. It's interesting that Nvidia is going with that, it will just depress their margins. I guess they want to reenter the mobile CPU market and need something to show off.
- coder543 2y ago
  We already have a good sense of what SoC Nintendo will likely be going with for the Switch 2. Being so dismissive of the Switch shows the disconnect between what most gamers care about, and what some tech enthusiasts think gamers care about. The Switch 1 used a crappy mobile chip, sure, but it was able to run tons of games that no other Tegra device could have dreamed of running, due to the power of having a stable target for optimization, with sufficiently powerful APIs available, and a huge target market. The Switch 1 can do 90% of what a Steam Deck can, while using a fraction of the power, thickness, and cooling. With the Switch 2 almost certainly gaining DLSS, I fully expect the Switch 2 to run circles around the Steam Deck, even without a “high end chip”. It will be weaker on paper, but that won’t matter. I say this as someone who owns a PS5, a Switch OLED, an ROG Ally, and a fairly decent gaming PC. I briefly had an original Steam Deck, but the screen was atrocious. Most people I see talking about Steam Deck’s awesomeness seem to either have very little experience with a Switch, or just have a lot of disdain for Nintendo. Yes, having access to Steam games is cool… but hauling around a massive device with short battery life is not cool to most gamers, and neither is spending forever tweaking settings just to get something that’s marginally better than the Switch 1 can do out of the box. The Switch 1 is at the end of its life right now, but Nintendo is certainly preparing the hardware for the next 6 to 8 years.
  - qwytw 2y ago
    > Being so dismissive of the Switch shows the disconnect between what most gamers care about, and what some tech enthusiasts think gamers care about. What makes you think I am? Hardware wise it's an equivalent of a unremarkable ancient Android tablet, yet it's pretty exceptional what Nintendo manage to achieve despite of that. > The Switch 1 can do 90% of what a Steam Deck can That's highly debatable and almost completely depends on what games specifically you like/play. IMHO PC gaming and Nintendo have relatively little overlap (e.g. compared to to PS and Xbox at least). > Steam Deck’s awesomeness I never implied that the Switch was/is/will be somehow inferior (besides potentially having a slower CPU & GPU). > but Nintendo is certainly preparing the hardware for the next 6 to 8 years It's not obvious that they were the first time and still did fine, why would they change their approach this time (albeit there weren't necessarily that many options on the market back then but it was still an ~2 year old chip).

Well, Nvidia has powered a much more popular console... the Nintendo Switch, and Nvidia looks set to power the Switch 2 when it launches next year. So, AMD is clearly not the only choice.

pinewurst 2y ago

That's not an apples-to-apples comparison. Switch is lower price, lower performance by design and used, even originally, a mature NVIDIA SoC, not really a custom.

mdasen 2y ago

The problem with choosing Nvidia is that they can't make an x86 processor with an integrated GPU. If you're looking to maintain backward compatibility with the Playstation 5, you're probably going to want to stick with an x86 chip. AMD has the rights to make x86 chips and it has the graphics chips to integrate. Nvidia has graphics chips, but it doesn't have the CPUs. Yes, Nvidia can make ARM CPUs, but they haven't been putting out amazing custom cores. AMD can simply repackage some Zen X cores with RDNA X GPU and with a little work have something Sony can use. Nvidia would need to either grab off-the-shelf ARM Cortex cores (like most of their ARM CPUs use) or Sony would need to bet that Nvidia could and would give them leading-edge performance on custom designed cores. But would Nvidia come in at a price that Sony would pay? Probably not. AMD's costs are probably a lot lower since they're going to be doing all that CPU work anyway for the rest of their business. For Nintendo, the calculus is a bit different. Nintendo is fine with off-the-shelf cores that are less powerful than smartphones and they're already on ARM so there's no backward incompatibility there. But for Sony whose business is different, it'd be a huge gamble.

coder543 2y ago
I think changing from AMD GPUs to Nvidia GPUs by itself has a good chance of breaking backwards compatibility with how low level and custom Sony's GPU API apparently is, so the CPU core architecture would just be a secondary concern. I was not saying Sony should switch to Nvidia, just pointing out that it is objectively incorrect to say that AMD is the only option for consoles when the most popular console today does not rely on AMD. I also fully believe Intel could scale up an integrated Battlemage to meet Sony's needs, but is it worth the break in compatibility? Is it worth the added risk when Intel's 13th and 14th gen CPUs have had such publicly documented stability issues? I believe the answer to both questions is "probably not."
- qwytw 2y ago
  > incorrect to say that AMD is the only option for consoles It's a bit of an apples to oranges comparison though, even if all 3 devices are technically consoles. The Switch is basically a tablet with controllers attached and a tablet/phone CPU while PS5/Xbox are just custom build PCs.
  - coder543 2y ago
    The only reason I can see that it would matter that the Switch is a low-end console is if you think Nvidia is incapable of building something higher end. Are you saying that Nvidia couldn't make more powerful hardware for a high end console? Otherwise, the Switch just demonstrates to me that Nvidia is willing to form the right partnership, and reliably supply the same chips for long periods of time. I'm certain Nvidia would have no trouble doing a high end console, customized to Microsoft and/or Sony's exacting specs... for the right price.
    - qwytw 2y ago
      > Are you saying that Nvidia couldn't make more powerful hardware for a high end console? Hard to say. It tooks Qualcomm years make something that was superior to standard ARM designs. GPU is of course another matter. > I'm certain Nvidia would have no trouble doing a high end console, The last mobile/consumer CPU (based on their own core) that they have released came out in 2015 and they have been using off the shelf ARM core designs for their embedded and server stuff. Wouldn't they be effectively be starting from scratch? I'm sure they could achieve that in a few years but do you think it would take them significantly less time that it did Apple or Qualcomm? > Nvidia is incapable of building something higher end I think it depends more on what Nintendo is willing to pay, I doubt they really want a "high-end" chip.
      - coder543 2y ago
        > I think it depends more on what Nintendo is willing to pay, I doubt they really want a "high-end" chip. In this thread, we were talking about what Sony and Microsoft would want for successors to the PS5 and XSX, not Nintendo. Nintendo was just a convenient demonstration that Nvidia is clearly willing to partner with console makers like Sony and Microsoft. > Hard to say. It tooks Qualcomm years make something that was superior to standard ARM designs. > The last mobile CPU I wasn't talking about Nvidia custom designing an ARM core, although they have done that in the past, and again, this wouldn't be mobile hardware. Nvidia is using very powerful ARM cores in their Grace CPU today. They have plenty of experience with the off-the-shelf ARM cores, which are very likely good enough for modern consoles.
alexjplant 2y ago
> Nvidia has graphics chips, but it doesn't have the CPUs. Yes, Nvidia can make ARM CPUs, but they haven't been putting out amazing custom cores. Ignorant question - do they have to? The last time I was up on gaming hardware it seemed as though most workloads were GPU-bound and that having a higher-end GPU was more important than having a blazing fast CPU. GPUs have also grown much more flexible rendering pipelines as game engines have gotten much more sophisticated and, presumably, parallelized. Would it not make sense for Nvidia to crank out a cost-optimized design comprising their last-gen GPU architecture with 12 ARM cores on an affordable node size? The reason I ask is because I've been reading a lot about 90s console architectures recently. My understanding is that back then the CPU and specialized co-processors had to do a lot of heavy lifting on geometry calculations before telling the display hardware what to draw. In contrast I think most contemporary GPU designs take care of all of the vertex calculations themselves and therefore free the CPU up a lot in this regard. If you have an entity-based game engine and are able to split that object graph into well-defined clusters you can probably parallelize the simulation and scale horizontally decently well. Given these trends I'd think a bunch of cheaper cores could work as well for cheaper than higher-end ones.
- wmf 2y ago
  PS5 had Zen 2 which was fairly new at the time. If PS6 targets 120 fps they'll want a CPU that's double the performance of Zen 2 per thread. You could definitely achieve this with ARM but I'm not sure how new of an ARM core you would need.
  - t-3 2y ago
    Is there a need to ever target 120 fps? Only the best-of-best eyes will even notice a slight difference from 60.
    - wmf 2y ago
      I don't think my TV can display 120 fps and I'm not buying a new one. But they promise 4K 60 (with upscaling) on the PS5 Pro, so they have to have something beyond that for PS6.
kmeisthax 2y ago
Emulating x86 would be an option - though given Sony's history, I doubt they'd consider it seriously. For context... - PS1 BC on PS2 was mostly hardware but they (AFAIK?) had to write some code to translate PS1 GPU commands to the PS2 GS. That's why you could forcibly enable bilinear filtering on PS1 games. Later on they got rid of the PS1 CPU / "IO processor" and replaced it with a PPC chip ("Deckard") running a MIPS emulator. - PS1 BC on PS3 was entirely software; though the Deckard PS2s make this not entirely unprecedented. Sony had already written POPS for PS1 downloads on PS2 BBN[0] and PSP's PS1 Classics, so they knew how to emulate a PS1. - PS2 BC on PS3 was a nightmare. Originally it was all hardware[1], but then they dropped the EE+GS combo chip and went to GPU emulation, then they dropped the PS2 CPU entirely and all backwards compatibility with it. Then they actually wrote a PS2 emulator anyway, which is part of the firmware, but only allowed to be used with PS2 Classics and not as BC. I guess they consider the purchase price of the games on the shop to also pay for the emulator? - No BC was attempted on PS4 at all, AFAIK. PS3 is a weird basketcase of an architecture, but even PS1 or PS2 aren't BC supported. At some point Sony gave up on software emulation and decided it's only worth it for retro re-releases where they can carefully control what games run on the emulator and, more importantly, charge you for each re-release. At least the PS4 versions will still play on a PS5... and PS6... right? [0] A Japan-only PS2 application that served as a replacement for the built-in OSD and let you connect to and download software demos, game trailers, and so on. Also has an e-mail client. [1] Or at least as "all hardware" as the Deckard PS2s are
- MadnessASAP 2y ago
  > No BC was attempted on PS4 at all, AFAIK. PS3 is a weird basketcase of an architecture, but even PS1 or PS2 aren't BC supported. To Be Faiiiirrrrrr, that whole generation was a basket case. Nintendo with the motion controls. Microsoft with a console that internally was more PC then "traditional" console (and HD-DVD). Sony with the Cell processor and OtherOS™. I do have fond memories of playing around with Linux on the PS3. Two simultaneous threads! 6 more almost cores!! That's practically a supercomputer!!!
  - anonfordays 2y ago
    I remember the hype around cell processors being so high around the release of the PlayStation 3. It was novel for the application, but still fizzled out even with the backing it had.
kcb 2y ago
Nvidia has very little desire to make a high-end razor thin margin chip that consoles traditionally demand. This is what Jensen has said, and it makes sense when there are other areas that the silicon can be directed to with much greater profit.
FileSorter 2y ago
>The problem with choosing Nvidia is that they can't make an x86 processor with an integrated GPU Can't and not being allowed are two very different things

dathinab 2y ago

> much more popular console which isn't a useful metric because "being a good GPU" wasn't at all why the switch became successful, like you could say it became successful even through it had a pretty bad GPU. Through bad only in the perf. aspect as far as I can tell back then amd wasn't competitive on energy usage basis and maybe not on a price basis as the nvidea chips where a by product of Nvidea trying to enter the media/TV add on/handheld market with stuff like the Nvidea Shield. But yes AMD isn't the only choice, IMHO in difference to what many people seem to think for the price segment most consoles tend to target Intel is a viable choice, too. But then we are missing relevant insider information to properly judge that.

qwytw 2y ago

> the Nintendo Switch, and Nvidia looks set to power the Switch 2 Which runs a very old mobile chip which was already outdated when the Switch came out. Unless Nintendo is planning to go with something high-end this time (e.g. to compete with the Steam Deck and other more powerful handhelds) whatever they get from Nvidia will probably be more or less equivalent to an mid-tier of the shelf Qualcomm SoC. It's interesting that Nvidia is going with that, it will just depress their margins. I guess they want to reenter the mobile CPU market and need something to show off.

coder543 2y ago
We already have a good sense of what SoC Nintendo will likely be going with for the Switch 2. Being so dismissive of the Switch shows the disconnect between what most gamers care about, and what some tech enthusiasts think gamers care about. The Switch 1 used a crappy mobile chip, sure, but it was able to run tons of games that no other Tegra device could have dreamed of running, due to the power of having a stable target for optimization, with sufficiently powerful APIs available, and a huge target market. The Switch 1 can do 90% of what a Steam Deck can, while using a fraction of the power, thickness, and cooling. With the Switch 2 almost certainly gaining DLSS, I fully expect the Switch 2 to run circles around the Steam Deck, even without a “high end chip”. It will be weaker on paper, but that won’t matter. I say this as someone who owns a PS5, a Switch OLED, an ROG Ally, and a fairly decent gaming PC. I briefly had an original Steam Deck, but the screen was atrocious. Most people I see talking about Steam Deck’s awesomeness seem to either have very little experience with a Switch, or just have a lot of disdain for Nintendo. Yes, having access to Steam games is cool… but hauling around a massive device with short battery life is not cool to most gamers, and neither is spending forever tweaking settings just to get something that’s marginally better than the Switch 1 can do out of the box. The Switch 1 is at the end of its life right now, but Nintendo is certainly preparing the hardware for the next 6 to 8 years.
- qwytw 2y ago
  > Being so dismissive of the Switch shows the disconnect between what most gamers care about, and what some tech enthusiasts think gamers care about. What makes you think I am? Hardware wise it's an equivalent of a unremarkable ancient Android tablet, yet it's pretty exceptional what Nintendo manage to achieve despite of that. > The Switch 1 can do 90% of what a Steam Deck can That's highly debatable and almost completely depends on what games specifically you like/play. IMHO PC gaming and Nintendo have relatively little overlap (e.g. compared to to PS and Xbox at least). > Steam Deck’s awesomeness I never implied that the Switch was/is/will be somehow inferior (besides potentially having a slower CPU & GPU). > but Nintendo is certainly preparing the hardware for the next 6 to 8 years It's not obvious that they were the first time and still did fine, why would they change their approach this time (albeit there weren't necessarily that many options on the market back then but it was still an ~2 year old chip).