Nintendo: New Switch OLED doesn't have any CPU, GPU, or RAM upgrades

Nintendo announced a new Switch model today, but it's not the fancy high-end 4K Switch that gamers expected.

The new Switch OLED isn't a next-gen system that pushes Nintendo into a new era of 4K gaming. Instead, it's a quality-of-life upgrade to the existing Switch models and doesn't have any internal hardware upgrades.

Nintendo confirms that the Switch OLED doesn't feature a new upgraded Tegra SoC for 4K gaming. There's no Xavier chip with gen-1 Tensor cores or the outrageously overpowered Orin SoC + Ada Lovelace GPU combo complete with DLSS support. The new Switch has the exact same 1GHz Cortex-A57 CPU and 4GB of LPDDR4-1600 RAM as the base models.

"Nintendo Switch (OLED model) does not have a new CPU, or more RAM, from previous Nintendo Switch models," Nintendo told The Verge.

As we outlined previously, it's highly likely that the Switch OLED uses the same 16nm Tegra X1+ SoC as the Switch Lite and Switch 2019 revision. The console's specifications page mentions 1080p 60FPS being the max performance target and there's no listing of 4K output or UHD resolution anywhere.

So what sets the Switch OLED apart?

• 6.9-inch OLED display with more vibrant colors
• New kickstand
• Double the internal flash memory to 64GB
• Dock now has an ethernet port
• Improved stereo/audio

That's about it. Everything else is the same; same games, same peripherals, same chip, same battery.

The Switch OLED is out October 8, 2021 for $349.99.