Nintendo Switch 2 hardware leak: NVIDIA chip made on Samsung 8nm, up to 16GB LPDDR5

Nintendo will launch its next-gen Switch 2 in the future, with some new leaks from insiders at NVIDIA leaking that it will use a Samsung 8nm process node and up to 16GB of LPDDR5 memory.

In a new video from leaker Moore's Law is Dead, we're to expect the next-gen Nintendo Switch 2 will reportedly use a new SoC from NVIDIA on Samsung's older 8nm process node, which makes sense. Why? Because NVIDIA has a tight relationship with Samsung for its 8nm process node, making GeForce RTX 30 series "Ampere" GPUs, it's very economical for Nintendo for its new Switch 2 handheld.

Sure, NVIDIA could walk up to TSMC and ask to make its next-gen SoC for the Nintendo Switch 2 on a smaller 6nm process node, but that isn't as economical as using Samsung's older 8nm process node. TSMC's fresh 6nm process node is being used heavily by AMD for multiple products: CPUs, APUs, consoles, and more.

Nintendo would want to be ready to sell hundreds of millions of next-gen Switch 2 handheld consoles over the years to come, and that would be hard if it's waiting for TSMC to pump out 6nm wafers. Samsung 8nm wafers on the other hand, will be made in oodles and oodles of chips ready for Nintendo's new Switch 2 handheld... makes sense.

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The first source told MLID: "I'm not that close to the project, but I can say that Samsung 8nm is a perfect match for Nintendo. It's the lowest cost/transistor node on the market, and it's not expected to be as competitive for capacity as more modern nodes over the next few years. Also, remember that with 128-bit LPDDR5, Nintendo could realistically choose 8GB, 12GB, or 16GB capacities for the SoC we designed for them."

The second source said: "To be honest, the Switch 2 isn't really on my radar anymore -- right now I am focused on finishing up validation for Blackwell. Switch 2 silicon has been done since late 2022. As far as I am aware, that Digital Foundry article looking at the T239 processor leaked from when we were hacked is an almost entirely correct summary of what's true about the silicon in the Switch 2."

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This source continued: "We presented several options to Nintendo, including one that utilized Lovelace, and they basically selected a cost-optimized version of Orin. It has some efficiency tweaks from Lovelace, and a few other goodies added as well. Oh, and AMD bid against us HARD for the Switch 2 btw, but ended up losing the bid."

Inside, the Nintendo Switch 2 will reportedly use the "T239" chip with 8 x Arm A78C cores, an Ampere GPU with 1536 CUDA cores, 128-bit LPDDR5 memory support with up to 102GB/sec of memory bandwidth in total. There are "extra little bonuses" inside of this chip, too.

The media block has been backported from the latest Ada Lovelace GPU architecture -- a custom Ampere GPU will be found in T239 -- so it "should be faster with support for more formats, including AV1." Improved clock-gating is here, which is a way of improving efficiency from dormant silicon, is another Ada feature that has "somehow found its way into T239".

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There's also FDE, which is the File Decompression Engine, similar to what Sony uses as the decompression block inside its PlayStation 5 console. MLID's new video states this basically allows for ultra-fast decompression of assets from storage and into memory. There was a recent report from Nate The Hate talking about a The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild demo running on next-generation Switch 2 hardware with "zero loading times".

The new T239 chip has the hardware capable to have ultra-fast loading, but it's "going to need a much faster storage format to make that possible".