[Digital Foundry] Inside Nvidia's New T239 Processor: The Next-Gen Tegra For Switch 2?

Thread: [Digital Foundry] Inside Nvidia's New T239 Processor: The Next-Gen Tegra For Switch 2?
Bullet Club

Bullet Club

I'll probably just lurk for a while
 
Platforms
  1. PC
  2. Xbox
  3. PlayStation
  4. Nintendo


For several years now, Nvidia has been working on a new gaming processor codenamed T239. Derived from a Tegra chip designed for the automotive and robotics industry, T239 combines an eight-core ARM CPU cluster with an Nvidia Ampere-class GPU with 1536 CUDA cores, advanced machine learning and RT capabilities - plus a file decompression engine for fast loading. Rich assesses the leaks and disclosures on T239, ties it to the next Switch project and fires up an ultra-low spec Ampere GPU to get some idea of what this processor can achieve.
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So it is basically what we expected, but with a bits of new kit.....nice.

The fact that he is speculating so much shows how only select devs have kits at this point. I expect that to change after GDC.
 
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My post from the other thread :
Chozofication said:
Watched DF's Richard Leadbetter's video on the supposed next gen switch chip.

What I got from it besides what could already be guessed is that I now think it's going to have 16gb ram.

Why I think that is because if it's going to have an 128bit bus, that would limit it to either 8gb or 16gb. (Same bus width as the 4060 ti btw 🤭)

And based on that video the chip will have dedicated decompression hardware - something switch lacked which hurt load times - I really doubt they would go to the trouble to add that and then gimp it by having just 8gb.

Anyway that's my 2c. The supposed* hardware with 16gb ram, dedicated decompression and dlss 3+ support… wow this thing would be amazing. As in, clearly better than xbox series S (minus the cpu) in a handheld amazing.
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Chozofication said:
My post from the other thread :
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16 GB would be great. I've got a portable on order right now that comes with 16 GB of memory. They would totally be gimping the package with 8 GB, but they may do just that. You an never be too sure that they will do the rational thing. "Hurr... we opted for less RAM so that you can stand the controller up and it will jump around on its own. So much new play options with that!"
 
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Optimus said:
Wii U had a whopping 1 GB for software.
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Which was a big jump from xbox 360 considering their gpus were comparable.

Allowed for much better textures. Also there's evidence that botw used 1.5gb

For the record I would have never guessed switch 1 would have more than 4gb and I did predict ps4 would have 8gb prior to the announcement, so my track record so far is on point.
 
Chozofication said:
Which was a big jump from xbox 360 considering their gpus were comparable.

Allowed for much better textures. Also there's evidence that botw used 1.5gb

For the record I would have never guessed switch 1 would have more than 4gb and I did predict ps4 would have 8gb prior to the announcement, so my track record so far is on point.
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I feel like Switch having 4 GB was a move in the right direction. We have to consider that Nintendo wanted Switch to have just 2 GB. To go from 1 GB to 4 GB makes 16 GB far more rational.
 
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Optimus said:
I feel like Switch having 4 GB was a move in the right direction. We have to consider that Nintendo wanted Switch to have just 2 GB. To go from 1 GB to 4 GB makes 16 GB far more rational.
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They wanted it to have 3gb actually 🤓

Capcom talked them into 4gb. Which is kind of ironic considering they didn't try to port games like re7 and just used cloud streaming lol
 
Chozofication said:
They wanted it to have 3gb actually 🤓

Capcom talked them into 4gb. Which is kind of ironic considering they didn't try to port games like re7 and just used cloud streaming lol
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Eh I forget as time goes by. I just assume whatever it was they actually wanted was utterly unfeasible and would have crippled this damn thing out of the gate. They got so lucky.
 
Optimus said:
Eh I forget as time goes by. I just assume whatever it was they actually wanted was utterly unfeasible and would have crippled this damn thing out of the gate. They got so lucky.
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Yeah Wii U had 2gb total so I think 3gb for switch was just them thinking "well we have to put a little bit more in at least"

I would be shocked if switch 2 had 8gb. Oh sure they are/have considered it, but someone somewhere will have talked some sense into them before it's final.

12gb is a possibility
 
Chozofication said:
Yeah Wii U had 2gb total so I think 3gb for switch was just them thinking "well we have to put a little bit more in at least"

I would be shocked if switch 2 had 8gb. Oh sure they are/have considered it, but someone somewhere will have talked some sense into them before it's final.

12gb is a possibility
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Wii U had a total of 2 GB of memory but 1 GB was reserved for the system. BotW was an exception if it got to use 1.5 GB and was not something any other developer outside of Nintendo would have gotten to do.
 
Optimus said:
Wii U had a total of 2 GB of memory but 1 GB was reserved for the system. BotW was an exception if it got to use 1.5 GB and was not something any other developer outside of Nintendo would have gotten to do.
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I know, but it still has 2gb so it's not like they went to 4gb from 1gb as you said

Who knows what games could use more than 1gb beyond botw… that would be interesting to know

Also switch can use more than 3gb so if switch 2 has a similar amount of memory reserved for the os, it would have more ram for games than ps5, with 16gb.

Which if that's the case the extra ram could be used as a buffer to speed up load times.
 
I would love to be wrong and this thing get 12GB....but its totally going to get 8GB. Though that would be fine if they also added 1GB of slower ram for OS/background tasks like Sony did on the PS4.
 
Arkam said:
I would love to be wrong and this thing get 12GB....but its totally going to get 8GB. Though that would be fine if they also added 1GB of slower ram for OS/background tasks like Sony did on the PS4.
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I'd bet real money it won't be 8gb

But hypothetically if it did, it would at least be more ram for games than ps4, as that only had 5gb for games.

That extra 1gb was only on the ps4 pro. Yeah, i have this stuff committed to memory lol

So if switch 2 had 8gb, and 1gb for the os, that'd be 7 for games… so right in between ps4 pro and xbox one x which had 5.5gb and 9 for games respectively
 
Chozofication said:
I'd bet real money it won't be 8gb

But hypothetically if it did, it would at least be more ram for games than ps4, as that only had 5gb for games.

That extra 1gb was only on the ps4 pro. Yeah, i have this stuff committed to memory lol
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My memory isnt the best, but I am pretty sure they had 256MB for background tasks on the base model too. We just bumped it on the Pro as we added more OS features.

And I would love for it to be >8GB. 16GB would be an absolute dream. But it is Nintendo and they are random as hell.
 
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Arkam said:
My memory isnt the best, but I am pretty sure they had 256MB for background tasks on the base model too. We just bumped it on the Pro as we added more OS features.

And I would love for it to be >8GB. 16GB would be an absolute dream. But it is Nintendo and they are random as hell.
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Could be, i just know only ps4 pro had an extra gb of ddr3/4 on there, and ps4 has 5gb for games total

I guess it would help to know what the spot price on 16gb lpddr5 is and compare that cost to the 4gb on switch at launch
 
Chozofication said:
I'd bet real money it won't be 8gb

But hypothetically if it did, it would at least be more ram for games than ps4, as that only had 5gb for games.

That extra 1gb was only on the ps4 pro. Yeah, i have this stuff committed to memory lol

So if switch 2 had 8gb, and 1gb for the os, that'd be 7 for games… so right in between ps4 pro and xbox one x which had 5.5gb and 9 for games respectively
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Just tbc: You separate regular ram from VRam, right?
 
Somehow I never got to buy a Switch, since most of the stuff that got released for it that was interesting to me I already had on my Wii U.

Switch 2 will be mine though. I am so bored of the run of the mill stuff on Xbox and PS right now.
 
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3rd party ports will run at 1080 maybe sometimes 1440. First party Nintendo will be 4K but it will be closer to PS4 graphics with modern effects like RT or nanite.
 
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