Nintendo Switch 2 Final Tech Specs Have Been Confirmed

We all know the Nintendo Switch 2 is going to be significantly more powerful than its predecessor, but just what kind of internals is the new console boasting? Well, thanks to a new breakdown by Digital Foundry, we can now finally dive into the specifics.

First, let’s take a look at the custom Nvidia SoC (system on a chip). When compared to the equivalent for the original Switch – which, as DF’s Rich Leadbetter says, was effectively a “vanilla” Tegra X1 – the new Nvidia T239 for the Switch 2 is absolutely custom-built specifically for Nintendo.

The CPU architecture is made up of eight ARM Cortex A78C cores running the ARMv8 64-bit instruction set with cryptography extensions enabled. Two of these have been reserved by Nintendo for the operating system, with the remaining six are available for developer use. This is the same ratio to the original Switch, which utilised four ARM Cortex A57 cores with one reserved for the operating system.

With the cache configurations shared by Nvidia, DF says the Switch 2 is utilising 64K of L1 instruction cache and another 64K of L1 data cache. With L2, all eight cores have 256K each, while 4MB of L3 cache is shared amongst the lot. Numbers! Letters!

CPU clocks reveal the CPU runs at 1100MHz in handheld mode and dropping down to 998MHz when switching over to performance modes. Docked mode yields a CPU clock of 998MHz, while the maximum clock for the CPU is 1.7GHz.

Looking at the graphics hardware, previous leaks can be confirmed, with the Switch 2 utilising Nvidia’s Ampere architecture, rated for 3.072 TFLOPs when in docked mode and 1.71 TFLOPs in handheld mode. (The original Switch used Maxwell architecture.) 1536 CUDA cores are confirmed compared to the 256 used on the OG Switch, while GPU clocks yield 561MHz when running in handheld mode and 1007MHz when docked.

When it comes to ray tracing, Switch 2 is rated at 1.21 gigawatts 10 gigarays per second in handheld mode and doubling up to 20 gigarays when docked. Ray tracing has yet to be seen in confirmed games up to this point, but it’s it’ll surely come in the future.

Moving onto memory, and again, the leaks have been confirmed with two 6GB modules making up a total of 12GB of LPDDR5X. Memory bandwidth is confirmed at 102GB/s in docked mode versus 68GB/s when running in handheld mode. 3GB of RAM is reserved for the system itself, while 9GB is available for developer use. Compare this to the original Switch, which used a total of 4GB RAM, with 3.2GB available for developers.

Now, something particularly interesting is that GameChat will supposedly have a “significant impact on system resources”, with Nintendo actually providing developers with a testing tool, essentially simulating the latency and issues that GameChat would run into in the real world. Digital Foundry says that GameChat is “an area of developer concern”.

Let’s take a more simplified look at the specs in comparison to the original Switch – again, huge thanks to Digital Foundry for the details on this:

So that’s yer lot! Information has also been made available for the screen, but it’s nothing that hasn’t already been confirmed by Nintendo. All in all, the prior leaks have largely been proven to be true, and it’ll be interesting to see just how developers make use of the specs in the years to come.

What are your thoughts on the technical specifications for the Switch 2? Let us know with a comment down below.