Nintendo Switch 2 Allegedly Not Powered by AMD APU Due to Poor Battery Life

[AleksandarK]

Nintendo's next-generation Switch 2 handheld gaming console is nearing its release. As leaks intensify about its future specifications, we get information about its planning stages. According to Moore's Law is Dead YouTube video, we learn that Nintendo didn't choose AMD APU to be the powerhouse behind Switch 2 due to poor battery life. In a bid to secure the best chip at a mere five watts of power, the Japanese company had two choices: NVIDIA Tegra or AMD APU. With some preliminary testing and evaluation, AMD APU wasn't reportedly power-efficient at 5 Watt TDP, while the NVIDIA Tegra chip was maintaining sufficient battery life and performance at target specifications.

Allegedly the AMD APU was good for 15 W design, but Nintendo didn't want to place a bigger battery so that the device remains lighter and cheaper. The final design will likely carry a battery with a 20 Wh capacity, which will be the main power source behind the NVIDIA Tegra T239 SoC. As a reminder, the Tegra T239 SoC features eight-core Arm A78C cluster with modified NVIDIA Ampere cores in combination with DLSS, featuring some of the latest encoding/decoding elements from Ada Lovelace, like AV1. There are likely 1536 CUDA cores paired with 128-bit LPDDR5 memory running at 102 GB/s bandwidth. For final specifications, we have to wait for the official launch, but with rumors starting to intensify, we can expect to see it relatively soon.



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[chrcoluk]

I think the addition of DLSS will be good for the switch. Although of course probably wont be implemented on Switch 1 games so extra oomph still good for those as well.

 

[FoulOnWhite]

No doubt they will sell a lot of these, so bit of a downer for AMD.

 

[Neo_Morpheus]

Ampere with DLSS cores

What does that means?

I know CUDA cores, but never heard about DLSS cores.

What I will like to see is if it delivers the same performance at 5 watts compared to the 15w stated for AMD.

Another rumor was that they wanted backwards compatibility, which would make sense to stay with Ngreedia.

 

[Halo3Addict]

I just figured they would stick with Tegra to ensure backwards compatibility.

 

[TheDeeGee]

What does that means?

What I will like to see if it delivers the same performance at 5 watts compared to the 15w stated.

Another rumor was that they wanted backwards compatibility, which would make sense to stay with Ngreedia.

Who's Ngreedia? Never heard of that GPU brand.

I know the mighty company NVIDIA and mediocre AMD.

 

[dgianstefani]

I think the addition of DLSS will be good for the switch. Although of course probably wont be implemented on Switch 1 games so extra oomph still good for those as well.

Yeah good upscaling on consoles is borderline essential, much more so on a portable device.

The PS5 Pro moving away from FSR was a fantastic move, and made the variable resolution + upscaling much less noticeable compared to any of the other current gen consoles, which are blurry messes every time I have the unfortunate experience of witnessing their output. Still, shame there's no games for the platform.

I suspect the Switch 2 will be a rather excellent device.

 

[AnarchoPrimitiv]

Who's Ngreedia? Never heard of that GPU brand.

I know the mighty company NVIDIA and mediocre AMD.

"Mighty"? Now we're anthropomorphizing these brands?

 

[Caring1]

Well I certainly hope the Tegra Chip has improved.

"One of the major challenges faced by Nvidia was the high-power consumption of its Tegra processors. This led to poor battery life in mobile devices, a significant drawback for consumers who prioritize battery efficiency.31 Jan 2024"

 

[wolf]

Who's Ngreedia?

Just some low effort childish name calling from one of the resident volunteer marketing employees for AMD.

As for the actual content at hand..

I've certainly had DLSS (and to a lesser extent FSR and XeSS) reduce power consumption so I can see why the benefits are readily apparent for a handheld. It hopefully also allows for higher than 1080p output when in docked mode, something like DLSS Ultra Performance so 720p->2160p when docked, or even a dynamic input res with fixed output res with an FPS target. Even 720p looks quite nice on my switch OLED so I don't really have any concerns about handheld IQ for a switch 2.

 

[SOAREVERSOR]

Well I certainly hope the Tegra Chip has improved.

"One of the major challenges faced by Nvidia was the high-power consumption of its Tegra processors. This led to poor battery life in mobile devices, a significant drawback for consumers who prioritize battery efficiency.31 Jan 2024"

They are talking about tablets and phones here. I had an ASUS Android tablet powered by Tegra. Compared to my iPad the battery life was horrible.

But a portable console is a different animal. Yes battery life matters, a lot, ditto power consumption, but unlike a tablet it's not a device you expect to be able to use all day, or for several days, and not have to charge.

No doubt they will sell a lot of these, so bit of a downer for AMD.

Who cares? They wanted backwards compatability, which is admirable, but that means they were going to go Tegra again.

 

[SIGSEGV]

There's nothing to see here, move along

 

[Onasi]

Honestly, anything would be an upgrade at this point compared to the woefully outdated Switch hardware. That console is begging for death when it attempts to run, say, Tears of the Kingdom. So more modern CPU-cores and a decent-ish GPU with upscaling will do wonder. It won’t be some performance monster, of course, but people don’t buy the Switch for that. Hard to draw any parallels with desktop GPUs. 1536 cores is less than a 3050 and there will be power constraints too. So, I dunno, 1650 level maybe?

 

[azrael]

Allegedly the AMD APU was good for 15 W design, but Nintendo didn't want to place a bigger battery so that the device remains lighter and cheaper to manufacture.

Here's the necessary fix.

 

[GenericNinja]

ARM is obviously the better choice at 5 watts. I just wish they weren't releasing it on a plus version of a 2016 manufacturing process, using a 2020 ARM CPU and 2020 Nvidia GPU. I know it will be much better than the current Switch but in 2025 it could have far higher capabilities. Nintendo is releasing a product which is farther behind the tech curve than the original Switch was in 2017. Old processes only get so cheap and much more efficient and performant mainstream manufacturing processes would have cost very little more to use. Nintendo is shaving dollars of performance to gain cents of profit. I am much more interested in a Steam Deck 2 or 3rd Party Handheld running SteamOS like a Strix Halo Ally 2.

 

[tommo1982]

I don't see DLSS as beneficial. It means devs wont have to optimise as much and turn DLSS on to reach the fps target. Besides, doesn't 5W means it will be basically weaker than a smartphone?

 

[Daven]

I wonder about the sales numbers for the different handheld consoles. The switch probably has the most from a single unit but all the other handhelds might total the switch.

 

[Onasi]

@Daven
Nah, Switch has yet to overtake the DS and the GameBoy/GBC isn't much behind. Just summing up all the pre-Switch Nintendo handhelds would be more than 3 times current Switch sales. This is not taking any other manufacturers into account. The DS alone was BIG. Like, massive.

 

[evernessince]

No doubt they will sell a lot of these, so bit of a downer for AMD.

I'm not so sure, there is a lot more competition in the hand-held market now with the steam deck and copycats. The plus side of the steam deck is also that no one can force you to upgrade, it's not like a console where backwards comparability can be dropped suddenly, forcing you to buy something to keep playing new games. It's not like a console where there's some new hardware control utilized in games (and nintendo does this all the time) forces you to buy the new hardware to play new games. There will always be a ton of PC games designed to work on lower spec systems, particularly so now that these handheld devices are so popular.

Original switch benefited from the pandemic but it's got more competition than ever now.

 

[Onasi]

@evernessince
True, but there are a lot of people who buy "Nintendo", not just "a handheld console", and that counts for quite a lot. One doesn't get your Zeldas, Marios and Fire Emblems on the Deck. Plus, there is Japan - a traditionally strong market for Nintendo (the aforementioned DS draws a lot of its success from there) and with just as traditional aversion for PC gaming.

 

[Daven]

@Daven
Nah, Switch has yet to overtake the DS and the GameBoy/GBC isn't much behind. Just summing up all the pre-Switch Nintendo handhelds would be more than 3 times current Switch sales. This is not taking any other manufacturers into account. The DS alone was BIG. Like, massive.

I’m talking about current handhelds from Valve, MSI, Asus, Ayaneo, Retroid, Ayn, Lenovo, etc.

 

[maximumterror]

No doubt they will sell a lot of these, so bit of a downer for AMD.

AMD doesn't make stuff for Android.

 

[Onasi]

AMD doesn't make stuff for Android.

First, the Switch doesn't run Android. Secondly, I have no idea why you think AMD APUs can't run Android. It's not some closed proprietary OS.

I’m talking about current handhelds from Valve, MSI, Asus, Ayaneo, Retroid, Ayn, Lenovo, etc.

Then yeah, Switch is miles ahead, even though we don't have much in sales figures for those.

 

[Daven]

Then yeah, Switch is miles ahead, even though we don't have much in sales figures for those.

Sales numbers are lacking but there is also the timeframe on the market. Wouldn’t be fair to compare all Switch sales if time on market is longer. I’m betting that over the last year at least Switch sales are below total other handheld sales mainly because the Switch is EOL.

So it will be interesting to see what happens when we restart the clock and how the Switch 2 fares against these new handheld console contenders; most of which have AMD chips.

 

[Dragokar]

Don't worry when the Switch 3 will arrive they finally will not sell physical games and everyone is within Nintendo's grace, and we all know how important the community is for the law firm. xD