Nintendo Switch reportedly runs a lot slower when undocked

Scorpus

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A detailed report from Digital Foundry has uncovered much of the hardware inside the Nintendo Switch, including the clock speeds for the CPU and GPU inside the Nvidia Tegra X1 SoC that the game console utilizes. Interestingly, the Switch will run significantly slower when undocked from its TV-tethered base station, at least according to Digital Foundry's multiple sources.

As a refresher, the Tegra X1 is an ARM-based SoC with four Cortex-A57 CPU cores and four Cortex-A53 CPU cores clocked up to 1.9 GHz and 1.3 GHz respectively. There's also a Maxwell GPU with 256 CUDA cores clocked up to 1000 MHz, along with an LPDDR4 memory controller. We've seen this chip before in last year's Google Pixel C utilizing its full capabilities.

In the Switch, Nintendo will be underclocking the Tegra X1 across the board. The CPU will only hit a maximum frequency of 1.02 GHz regardless of whether it's docked or undocked, which is close to half the rated maximum frequency of the A57 cores. It's not clear why Nintendo has decided to underclock the CPU in this way, particularly when it's docked and isn't power constrained.

The GPU is clocked at 768 MHz when docked, but this reduces to just 307.2 MHz when undocked. In other words, the Switch is 60 percent slower (from a GPU perspective) when undocked, which is a huge performance penalty.

There are a couple of reasons why Nintendo may have opted for this severe underclock while undocked. Firstly, the GPU will consume less power when underclocked, so it will be more friendly to the battery. And secondly, the Switch itself only has a 6.2-inch 720p display. If the Switch normally operates at 1080p when attached to a TV, it makes some sense to underclock the GPU by 60 percent when rendering to its 720p screen, as 720p features 56 percent fewer pixels than 1080p.

It's no surprise that the Switch will be significantly less powerful than today's main gaming consoles, but it's a bit surprising to see Nintendo not utilize the full power of Nvidia's Tegra X1 SoC. We'll hear more about the Switch when Nintendo releases further details in January.

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It will be interesting to see whether they bypass the battery when docked or if they still having it suck the energy through it. The latter would likely mean that the battery would wear quickly.
 
I love the technical term "a lot" used in the headline lol

But otherwise, I'm not surprised. It just sounds like it will be a pain to develop for though.
 
The real question is, will you even see any performance lost when undocked? I am going to assume that you are not going to lose any frame rates when you undock.
 
This probably has more do do with heat than power consumption. The tablet doesn't offer anymore heat dissipation docked than it does independent of the dock. Either way, what I've seen of the switch is more than adequate of what I'll be asking of it. It's a nintendo, I have my PC for high end graphics. I love Zelda, Mario and Smash Brothers games. Especially considering the form factor.

Also factor in the digital download games you can get with it like Ocarina of Time and Majora's mask. You can pretty much play all legacy games on the WiiU, I don't know why the same wouldn't be true for the switch.

Legacy gaming on the switch is what I'm really looking forward to.
 
The more I hear, the more I'm worried. don't let me down Nintendo


Have to agree. When they announced it, I was ready to get one immediately. Now I'm not so sure. Their promo video made it look like it was going to be pretty damn powerful, but now I fear that it won't have the needed power to play the games they were hinting at previously.
 
Oh my, I read 8 comments and was worried there was going to be much more hate.

It's not clear why Nintendo has decided to underclock the CPU in this way, particularly when it's docked and isn't power constrained
Because they don't need more.

As a point of comparison, the WiiU had a tad bit more mhz but less cores, normally they leave one for the OS and the rest for gaming like in the DSs, so it ran with a dual core. On video, this one packs more of a punch than the WiiU and even the 3DS (That has to render real 3D images).

It is dumb to assume that they will cripple the console and that users just have to deal with it.
 
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