Switch 2 – the tech specs that Nintendo and Nvidia are not sharing
Nintendo has rarely been forthcoming about the technical specifications of its consoles, giving only the minimum of details and – quite rightly, some might say – focusing on the games themselves. It makes sense, bearing in mind that the firm exited the console specs arms race with the Wii back in 2006. The pattern continues with Switch 2 and its core processor with only the Nvidia partnership confirmed and by extension, the fact that the new machine has both machine learning capabilities (hello, DLSS!) and hardware-accelerated ray tracing. So how much horsepower does the machine have? How does it compare to, say, PlayStation 4 or Steam Deck?
The truth is that we know plenty about the technological make-up of the machine – even without any official disclosures from Nintendo or Nvidia. The story begins on June 11, 2021 where noted PC leaker kopite7kimi discussed a chip called T239, apparently derived from the T234 processor Nvidia uses for the automotive industry and its own Jetson Nano dev kit. Since then, we know from our own sources that T239 may share the same GPU architecture as T234 – the Ampere architecture used by Nvidia for its RTX 30-series graphics cards – but everything else is all-new. The deep learning accelerator and ARM Cortex A78AE are gone, while the 2048 CUDA core GPU is slimmed down to 1536 cores. Meanwhile, a 256-bit memory interface drops down to 128-bit. In the process, the gigantic 455mm2 T234 processor drops down to around 200mm2 – much larger than Steam Deck’s, but fabricated on a less sophisticated, less transistor-dense process.
How do we know that these facts are true and apply to Switch 2? A combination of Linux disclosures for T239 combined with an Nvidia hack allowed sleuths online – principally on Reddit and the Famiboards forum – to piece together an almost complete spec list for the chip. Meanwhile, T239 itself formed part of Nvidia and Nintendo shipping manifests, all but confirming that this is indeed the Switch 2 processor, while confirmed technology like a file decompression accelerator (taking the burden from the CPU for handling assets coming in hot from storage) are very game-based technologies that would have little application for anything other than a games machine.
Controversy dogged T239 as kopite7kimi’s leak that the chip uses the same inefficient Samsung 8nm technology as the RTX 30-series cards seemed at odds with the need for a small, cool chip for a handheld. However, when a fully populated Switch 2 motherboard leaked, showing a circa 200mm2 processor clearly made by Samsung, virtually all doubt fell away. However, this led to doubts about the capabilities of the processor. Steam Deck is over three years old now, using a superior 7nm process for its 162mm2 processor. 7nm itself was used for both PS5 and Xbox Series consoles going back to 2020. The core process for Switch 2 is worse in 2025 – but does it matter?
The only missing part of the specs concerns the Switch 2’s clock speeds. With the chip so large, we should expect low frequencies and this leak – plausible but still unconfirmed to this day – corroborates that. Based on my own expectations from T239 (where I simulated approximate Switch 2 GPU performance by using a wider 2048-core RTX 2050 downclocked to 750MHz), I expected the circa 1GHz GPU clocks, while the 561MHz mobile mode looks sensible. Downclocking memory bandwidth from 102GB/s docked to 68GB/s for handheld play also mirrors what Nintendo did with the original Switch. The only question mark still remaining over these clocks concerns why the CPU frequency in handheld play (1101MHz) is faster than docked (998MHz).
With all of these specifications in mind, I have to say that there’s nothing from last week’s Nintendo Direct or the hands-on demos in the Paris and New York events that look at all surprising. Everything seems to slot in perfectly with expectations, barring a conspicuous lack of DLSS-supported games. Way back when, Activision’s Bobby Kotick described the machine as offering PS4 class power and by and large, that’s in the ballpark of what the third-party demos revealed. Elden Ring runs at 1080p at 30fps or thereabouts on PS4, and that’s what we saw with Switch 2 in last week’s Direct. Despite some briefing from Sega that Yakuza Zero runs at 4K60, all the gameplay assets we’ve seen look like the same 1080p60 as PS4. It’s the same with Final Fantasy 7 Remake: true, Switch 2 gets the Intergrade version but again, it’s running at 1080p and wobbly frame-pacing apart, runs at 30fps.
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Switch 2 – the tech specs that Nintendo and Nvidia are not sharing, source
