Nintendo Switch 2 isn't far away at all now, with fresh leaks suggesting the Switch 2 "is so much weaker than everyone was expecting".
The latest rumors have the Switch 2 performance with the GPU clocked at 1.0GHz in docked mode, and down to just 561MHz in handheld mode (in order to improve battery life). Inside, the Switch 2 will be powered by a custom NVIDIA Tegra SoC, with the Ampere-based GPU clocked at 1.0GHz delivering around 3.1 TFLOPs, and at 561MHz the Switch 2 will pump 1.71 TFLOPs.
We heard about the Tegra T239 SoC in leaks from February 2024, made on the Samsung 8nm process node and featuring 16GB of LPDDR5 memory. Nintendo's new Switch 2 and is purported 3.1 TFLOPs of performance will see it best the Valve Steam Deck (with its GPU reaching around 1.6 TFLOPs according to Valve).
If we compare the Nintendo Switch 2 against the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S consoles, the PS5 hits 10.2 TFLOPs while the Xbox Series X can reach 12 TFLOPs. Microsoft's cheaper Xbox Series S console even hits 4 TLFOPs, so the Switch 2 would end up being slower than the XSS console, but other leakers say that the Switch 2 will have performance similar to the Xbox Series S in rasterization, but faster in ray tracing.
- Read more: This is the first game confirmed for Nintendo's next-gen Switch 2 handheld
- Read more: Nintendo Switch 2 rumored base cost of $400
- Read more: Nintendo Switch 2: docked mode could hit 4 TFLOPs, clocked 'crazy low' in handheld mode
- Read more: Nintendo Switch 2: Xbox Series S perf, with better ray tracing, console-optimized DLSS
- Read more: Nintendo Switch 2 hardware leak: NVIDIA chip made on Samsung 8nm, up to 16GB LPDDR5
In a new post on X from leaker Kepler_L2 we're hearing that the memory bandwidth bottleneck could be the biggest issue for Switch 2, with its LPDDR5 memory having just 102GB/sec of memory bandwidth, which is less than half of the 224GB/sec from the Xbox Series S.
Nintendo will have NVIDIA's DLSS upscaling technology on the new Switch 2, which will be the most interesting thing about it in terms of performance enhancement technologies. We should expect to see the Switch 2 internally rendering at lower resolutions, upscaling the performance to 1080p 60FPS or even up to 4K in docked mode (at 30FPS, and I'm sure much more watered down visuals).
