Wednesday, January 15th 2025

Nintendo Switch 2 Docked and Handheld Performance Revealed By Tipster

by
GGforever
 Discuss (17 Comments)
It is a known fact that the Switch 2 is by no means planning on being a performance beast. Nintendo's focus has always been on their ecosystem, and not on raw performance, which will continue being the case. As such, the Switch 2 is widely expected to sport an NVIDIA Tegra SoC paired with 12 GB of LPDDR5 system memory and an Ampere-based GPU. Now, a fresh leak has detailed the docked and handheld mode performance that can be expected from the widely anticipated Switch successor, and the numbers seem to fall right around what was initially expected.

The leak, sourced from a Nintendo forum, reveals that in docked mode, the Nintendo Switch 2's GPU will be clocked at 1000 MHz, up from 768 MHz for the soon-to-be previous generation Switch, allowing for 3.1 TFLOPS of performance. In handheld mode, unsurprisingly, the GPU clock will be limited to 561 MHz, allowing for 1.71 TFLOPS of raw performance. These numbers are far from impressive for 2025, although Nintendo will likely make up for the lack of raw horsepower using upscaling technologies similar to DLSS, allowing for a vastly improved experience than what its otherwise unimpressive hardware could have afforded.
Source: Notebookcheck

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17 Comments on Nintendo Switch 2 Docked and Handheld Performance Revealed By Tipster

#1
Steevo
It’s proof that you don’t need all the RT and eye candy if you make good games
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#2
Hakker
SteevoIt’s proof that you don’t need all the RT and eye candy if you make good games
Which is also more and more a problem at Nintendo. It rehash upon rehash and less new games. I mean beyond Breath of the Wild, Tears of the Sun and Mario Odessey it's been mostly the same games a generation ago.
You'll get Sash Bros Switch 2, Mario Kart 9, Mario Party 28 and all but they are just the same as the one before it with one or 2 new things in it. Nintendo is becoming EA Sports slow mode update.
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#3
Sound_Card
I'm very curious what the specs were of the AMD counteroffer (It was an ARM design). Rumor is that Nintendo was very close to choosing AMD for the next chip and AMD was not very happy when the deal fell apart as the chip was a sick performer.
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#4
Zunexxx
Sound_CardI'm very curious what the specs were of the AMD counteroffer (It was an ARM design). Rumor is that Nintendo was very close to choosing AMD for the next chip and AMD was not very happy when the deal fell apart as the chip was a sick performer.
gpu side, I could see them just reusing their available skus tbh, so maybe rdna3.5 8 or 12 cu? 8 more likely with lower clocks ig.
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#5
Hakker
Sound_CardI'm very curious what the specs were of the AMD counteroffer (It was an ARM design). Rumor is that Nintendo was very close to choosing AMD for the next chip and AMD was not very happy when the deal fell apart as the chip was a sick performer.
Probably has more to do with backwards compatibility. AMD would probably go with a zen4-5 cpu with an 890M kind of GPU on it making everything on the Switch incompatible since that is based on arm and I don't think AMD was willing to code a low level emulation layer for it to make it all happen on the Switch 2. Sure the specs would have been great but I think it failed on the Switch 1 emulation level.
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#6
wNotyarD
HakkerWhich is also more and more a problem at Nintendo. It rehash upon rehash and less new games. I mean beyond Breath of the Wild, Tears of the Sun and Mario Odessey it's been mostly the same games a generation ago.
You'll get Sash Bros Switch 2, Mario Kart 9, Mario Party 28 and all but they are just the same as the one before it with one or 2 new things in it. Nintendo is becoming EA Sports slow mode update.
Problem with the industry at large. The last 3 years have been infested with remasters and remakes, and I'd dare say Playstation is the most grievous offender. One thing is to update either Wii (which had low graphics) or Wii U (which had low userbase) games to the Switch, other is updating PS4 (which is enormous, both graphically and in sales) games to the PS5.

Having iterative releases on celebrated and awarded franchises is far from an issue in my point of view. It shows commitment to the devs' vision and the fans' passion.
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#7
SOAREVERSOR
HakkerWhich is also more and more a problem at Nintendo. It rehash upon rehash and less new games. I mean beyond Breath of the Wild, Tears of the Sun and Mario Odessey it's been mostly the same games a generation ago.
You'll get Sash Bros Switch 2, Mario Kart 9, Mario Party 28 and all but they are just the same as the one before it with one or 2 new things in it. Nintendo is becoming EA Sports slow mode update.
none of what you listed are the games we play the most on the Switch and it's the main gaming item in our home. There's a ton more out for it.
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#8
Sound_Card
HakkerProbably has more to do with backwards compatibility. AMD would probably go with a zen4-5 cpu with an 890M kind of GPU on it making everything on the Switch incompatible since that is based on arm and I don't think AMD was willing to code a low level emulation layer for it to make it all happen on the Switch 2. Sure the specs would have been great but I think it failed on the Switch 1 emulation level.
It was an ARM design, not x86, so no Zen cores.
Posted on Reply
#9
chrcoluk
wNotyarDProblem with the industry at large. The last 3 years have been infested with remasters and remakes, and I'd dare say Playstation is the most grievous offender. One thing is to update either Wii (which had low graphics) or Wii U (which had low userbase) games to the Switch, other is updating PS4 (which is enormous, both graphically and in sales) games to the PS5.

Having iterative releases on celebrated and awarded franchises is far from an issue in my point of view. It shows commitment to the devs' vision and the fans' passion.
Is a lot of them, but on the flip side most new games are trash. I would rather remasters of good games than the trash that comes out now, all these dark soul clones, game as a service nonsense and so on.
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#10
Nater
Does Nintendo not realize that they could make a $1000 console with all the bells and whistles and we'd buy IT - AND - their low-powered handheld?

I want UE5 Zelda and Mario in 4K dammit. Rehash all your games all you want, but FFS. :/
Posted on Reply
#11
windwhirl
NaterDoes Nintendo not realize that they could make a $1000 console with all the bells and whistles and we'd buy IT - AND - their low-powered handheld?
Honestly, I think Nintendo is smart to stick to this format. Just one handheld console. Their handhelds have outsold almost every other console out there, with the sole exception being the PS2 (and the 160 million sales number that Sony pulled out of its hat after years of leaving it at 155 million seemed like a petty move out of desperation). Plus, it lets developers focus on just one console from Nintendo, instead of two.

Also, $1000 console? I'm not sure a lot of people would be interested in that. People haven't seem too interested in anything going beyond 600 USD.
NaterI want UE5 Zelda and Mario in 4K dammit.
Well, now you'll get that if the DLSS stuff is up to par :laugh:
Posted on Reply
#12
wNotyarD
NaterI want UE5 Zelda and Mario in 4K dammit. Rehash all your games all you want, but FFS. :/
Hell no, fam. I want to game, not to watch a stutterfest.
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#13
sephiroth117
NaterDoes Nintendo not realize that they could make a $1000 console with all the bells and whistles and we'd buy IT - AND - their low-powered handheld?

I want UE5 Zelda and Mario in 4K dammit. Rehash all your games all you want, but FFS. :/
"we'd" buy it -> yes 5% would, keep in mind many people cannot afford 1000$ for a console, I don't support gatekeeping and closing gaming like that for a few fortunate elites, it's not how video-games got where they are today.

150m switch sold and counting, more than 1.2 billion games sold on it, they're doing something right, period :).
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#14
Daven
The Nintendo Switch should be a haven for Indie game developers as these games tend to be less resource intensive. But I'm guessing there are extreme barriers for small time developers getting on a Nintendo product.
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#15
wNotyarD
DavenThe Nintendo Switch should be a haven for Indie game developers as these games tend to be less resource intensive. But I'm guessing there are extreme barriers for small time developers getting on a Nintendo product.
As far as I'm aware, it is. Nintendo itself produces the Indie World showcases for promoting them indies.

EDIT: curated indie games may be a thing which Nintendo does on their showcases. However, I don't know how extreme (if any) barriers there are to publish something on the eShop. The amount of blatant garbage available there is ludicrous.
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#16
SOAREVERSOR
sephiroth117"we'd" buy it -> yes 5% would, keep in mind many people cannot afford 1000$ for a console, I don't support gatekeeping and closing gaming like that for a few fortunate elites, it's not how video-games got where they are today.

150m switch sold and counting, more than 1.2 billion games sold on it, they're doing something right, period :).
Switch is on path to outsell the PS2.
Posted on Reply
#17
Chrispy_
So much of the Tegra lineup from the last 15 years has been server workloads, datacenter and more recently AI.

With the exception of the Shield and Switch, both of which were pretty underwhelming as gaming hardware, Tegra just seems like a terrible fit.

I'm assuming Nintendo want to continue using Tegra for backwards compatibility?
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