Tegra-Powered :
When it comes to hardware that powers consoles, you’ll find AMD chips inside almost every major gaming console. From Sony to Microsoft to Nintendo, it’s AMD’s playground. But, that is about to change with the Nintendo NX. Multiple sources have confirmed that the upcoming Nintendo console will be powered by a NVIDIA Tegra chip.
NX was rumoured to be powered by an AMD chip. Looking back at the history of Nintendo consoles and how almost every modern console uses AMD chips, it becomes clear as to why an assumption like this might be formed. ATI’s Flipper GPU power the Nintendo GameCube. Again, ATI’s 90nm ” Hollywood ” powered the original Wii. The Wii U used a custom multi-chip module developed by IBM, Renesas and ( yes, you guessed it right ) AMD. But, things are different this time around. The current Tegra X1 ( Maxwell based ) is powering Shield Android TV console and the Google Pixel C tablet. Furthermore, it can handle 4k and 60FPS 1080p gaming quite easily. The Tegra chip powering the NX will be Pascal-based.
Nintendo’s move from AMD to NVIDIA is pretty huge in a number of ways. Because the Tegra is a mobile SoC, it marks Nintendo’s shit from GPU or CPU/APU design. It also means that NVIDIA has made its entry in the console race. Especially relevant, though, is the fact that rumours of the NX being a unified console and mobile handheld, may very well be true.
No technical specifications of the NVIDIA chip being used in the NX are known thus far. The console itself is very much in the shadows when it comes to details and specifications. It is expected that Nintendo will do a full reveal of the NX console at E3 2016 in June.
Sources : Eurogamer, Tweak Town.
