Like the once again hot rumor mill on Reddit, especially in the subreddit r/GamingLeaksAndRumours As can be seen, the Nintendo Switch 2 will be offered in two different versions next year for $399 and $449. A system-on-a-chip from Nvidia will once again serve as the basis for the hybrid game console, which PCGH has taken a close look at and assessed in this analysis.
Nvidia Tegra T239 with Ampere GPU
Like the website’s recent research Eurogamer have revealed that the upcoming Nintendo Switch 2 will be based on a custom SoC with the model name Nvidia Tegra T239. This would also correspond to the information that has been leaked so far, which also brought an adapted chip based on the already known Nvidia Tegra T234 (“Orin”) from the Nvidia Orin AGX developer kit into play. Since this system-on-a-chip with its up to 200 TOPS and a power loss of up to 60 watts is not suitable for the requirements of a game console, very significant adjustments are required. According to the latest information, the new Tegra T239 will be designed as follows:
- 8 x ARM Cortex-A78C with 8 MiByte L3 cache
- 12 – 16 GiByte LPDDR5 system memory for CPU/GPU
- Memory interface with 128-bit and 102 GiByte/s
- Nvidia Ampere GPU with 12 Compute Units
- 1,536 shader units with max. 1 GHz
An analysis of the YouTube channel “Digital Foundry” examines the performance of such a custom processor in detail.
Samsung is still said to be responsible for production, using the well-known 8 nm process for the Nvidia Tegra T234 and could use a finer node for the Tegra T239. The entire design must be significantly more efficient for use in a hybrid handheld game console.
DLSS 3.5 with Ray Reconstruction should be set
Thanks to the Ampere architecture, the Nintendo Switch 2 should also be able to handle Nvidia’s latest upscaling DLSS 3.5 with ray reconstruction for ray tracing, the so-called DLSS Ray Reconstruction. The intermediate image calculation with the help of DLSS frame generation would be eliminated, as this feature is reserved for the Ada Lovelace graphics chip architecture currently used in the Geforce RTX 4000. In addition to the CPU/GPU combination mentioned, the new game console will have 12 to 16 GiBytes of RAM.
The performance of an Nvidia Geforce RTX 3050
According to rumors, the game console should be able to achieve the performance of a Geforce RTX 3050, which the manufacturer is said to have demonstrated using a matrix demo based on Unreal Engine 5.x and confirmed behind closed doors. This has not been confirmed.
Switch 2 could be on par with the PS4 Pro
According to a statement from Activision boss Bobby Kotick, the console will be on a par with the Playstation 4 Pro – but the original source has since retracted their statement. In an email to Nintendo President Shunturo Furukawa, Bobby Kotick said the following.
“Given the approach to the 8th generation platforms and our offering for PS4 and Xbox One, it is reasonable to assume that we can also develop something compelling for the Switch NG (“Next Generation”).”
Bobby Kotick, CEO of Activision
The Playstation 4 Pro has a computing power of around 4.2 TFLOPS, which would put the Nintendo Switch 2 on par with the Nvidia Tegra T239. The rumors also predict that the Switch 2 will have at least 4 TFLOPS, which would be ten times the performance of the first Nintendo Switch with 0.4 TFLOPS. Nintendo itself has not yet said a word about a possible Switch 2.
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Source: Eurogamer, Digital Foundry