There is no doubt that the most popular ISA in the hardware market is not x86 but ARM, the reason is that it is found in all types of PostPC devices, whether it is ‘acts of smartphones, tablets, smartTV, different microcontrollers and therefore in endless applications. Which may suggest at first glance that Nvidia is interested in these markets, but things do not appear to be the case.
No NVIDIA RTX on smartphones at the moment
The announcement a few days ago of the launch of the following Samsung Exynos SoCs with an integrated RDNA 2 GPU, which will support Variable Rate Shading and Ray Tracing, prompted NVIDIA to be asked about an RTX for smartphones. Question to which the CEO of NVIDIA answered with the following words:
Ray Tracing sets are pretty big, to be honest the dataset is at least big and there is still time for that. When the time is right, we will consider it.
NVIDIA therefore does not have an answer to the RDNA 2 for smartphones that AMD presented a few days ago, which should not surprise us since NVIDIA, from the launch of its Tegra X2, left the SoC market for PostPC devices to focus on the SoC market for the automotive and robotics market. We can bet that they will continue with the next generation of their NVIDIA Tegra, under the code name Orin.
It should be borne in mind that the purchase of ARM Holdings by NVIDIA also involves the purchase of Mali, which has seen off-peak times in recent years. It is not known whether NVIDIA will close this division or instead take advantage of its technology to relaunch itself under a rebranding under the GeForce brand. As the purchase was not finalized, ARM’s structuring plans were therefore not disclosed.
Do Huang’s comments contradict Switch Pro rumors?
An incessant rumor repeated by the media is that the renewed version of the Nintendo Switch will come with a completely new SoC and that it could include an RTX GPU inside, which not only contradicts the information extracted in the latest updates. of the said console, but also of the CEO of NVIDIA on the creation of an RTX GPU for smartphones. Although the Nintendo console’s SoC is the NVIDIA Tegra X1, it is a 2015 SoC from the year that failed in smartphones and tablets and was used by Nintendo to build its console.
NVIDIA, unlike AMD, does not have a custom SoC activity and none of the Tegra family products subsequently released on the X1 are suitable for a video game console and NVIDIA has shown no interest in using it. develop one despite the excellent sales of the console. theoretically justify the launch of a more powerful SoC.
In the event that Nintendo had NVIDIA again, the only option would be to have one of its automotive SoCs, whose Tegra Xavier is too big and Orin is dated next year. No obstante NVIDIA puede tener un proyecto aún no revelado junto a Nintendo, pero no parece que el interés de NVIDIA por ARM tenga que ver con hacer una versión portátil de las GeForce, sino en llevar a ARM al PC y combinarlas con las RTX de toda life.
