The Nintendo 3DS vs. The World

[img]This week IGN caught wind of some previously unreleased details of the Nintendo 3DS hardware, specifically the type of processors, GPU, memory, and the internal storage space of the device. But what exactly does this new information mean? How exactly does Nintendo's forthcoming handheld shape up against other mobile products?
Firstly, it is important to remember that software dictates the efficiency of hardware, and judging a product by its core components alone cannot attest to its overall performance. Still, there is merit in considering the raw potential of the hardware at work, and when compared with the specifications of other products, we can get a sense of what to expect when the Nintendo 3DS finally releases.

With that in mind, we've taken a closer look at the specs of several current products to see how the 3DS ranks in terms of total power.

Handhelds
Nintendo 3DS Nintendo DSi Sony PSP
CPU 266MHz ARM11 x 2 133MHz ARM9 and 33MHz ARM7 333MHz MIPS
GPU 133MHz DMP PICA220 N/A N/A
RAM 64MBs 16MBs 64MBs
VRAM 4MBs N/A 2MBs
N/A indicates information was either unavailable or not applicable.

By looking at the raw data, we can see that the specs of the Nintendo 3DS are significantly more powerful than the Nintendo DSi, doubling the speeds of the ARM9 processor with the 266MHz ARM11, and replacing the weak ARM7 with another 266MHz ARM11. The 3DS' GPU also provides extra graphical processing power, whereas the DSi integrates graphics processing into the CPU. The 3DS also packs four times the RAM of the DSi. While this is a clear improvement over its predecessor, comparing the Nintendo 3DS to the Sony PSP is trickier.

Current model PSPs (PSPgo and PSP-3000) utilize a higher speed CPU, but the Nintendo 3DS utilizes dual processors, which allows it to process two different tasks simultaneously. But, again, without direct knowledge of how the 3DS will utilize the dual CPU configuration, it is impossible to determine conclusively whether or not it will ultimately be faster than the PSP. The PSP features less dedicated VRAM than the 3DS, though they are on-par with one another with 64MBs of dedicated RAM.

Media Players and Smartphones
Zune HD iPod touch Evo 4G
CPU 800MHz ARM11 800MHz Cortex A8 1 GHz Qualcomm QSD8650
GPU NVIDIA Tegra 200MHz PowerVR SGX N/A
RAM 128MBs 256MBs 512MBs
VRAM N/A N/A N/A
N/A indicates information was either unavailable or not applicable.

But what about other mobile devices, like the media players and smartphones? Well, it's difficult to determine how they compare as the range of applications is much greater on smartphones and media players. Still, these devices are now being marketed as mobile gaming platforms, and in terms of potential power, they blow dedicated gaming handhelds out of the water. The Zune HD, 4th generation iPod touch, and HTC Evo 4G all have substantially faster CPUs, large quantities of RAM, and dedicated graphics processing cores. But again, the beefy operating systems and background applications on these devices limit the amount of the total processing power that can be dedicated to gaming, and therefore, their advantages in graphical prowess are hard to determine.

Ultimately, we'll have to wait until we can get our hands on a production-grade model of the Nintendo 3DS before we can attest to how it's performance and graphical fidelity compares to other mobile devices, but as it stands, the 3DS looks promising.

R



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