The Nintendo Switch 2 is already pretty sketchy in terms of specs. Although nothing has been confirmed by Nintendo yet, we have so much reliable information that we generally know what can we expect of this new and long-awaited console from the Japanese company, whose launch will take place in 2024.

One of the questions you ask yourself most often in this regard is How will the Nintendo Switch 2 compare to the Xbox Series S, Microsoft’s next generation budget console and I honestly think this is an excellent question and a very interesting topic. For this reason, I wanted to do a comparative analysis with the information we currently have in order to offer you an answer.

Before we can give a specific answer, it is necessary to see the specifications of each console, as these will give us the information we need to be able to create direct comparisons and extract specific performance data which serve as a reference for us. I will also take into account the technologies supported by each console and explain how they may differ.

Nintendo Switch 2 Specs (Estimated)

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• 8-inch LCD display with 1080p resolution. A version with an OLED panel should arrive later.
• NVIDIA Tegra T239 SoC, a customized version of Tegra Orin. It should use TSMC’s 5nm node, although there are rumors that it could use Samsung’s 8nm node, something that would make sense in terms of cost but would be counterproductive in terms of efficiency and temperatures. The shared TDP would be a maximum of 30 watts.
• An 8-core ARM Cortex-A78C CPU, of which one or two cores would be reserved for the operating system and core applications. I have no information about its possible operating frequencies, but the GPU would have priority in this regard.
• 12 GB or 16 GB of unified LPDDR5 memory on a 128-bit bus, which would leave us with a bandwidth of 102.4 GB/s.
• A custom GPU based on the Ampere architecture, but with exclusive Ada Lovelace enhancements. It should have 1,536 shaders, 12 RT cores for ray tracing, 48 texturing units, 48 ​​tensor cores for AI, 24 rasterization units and a third-generation Optical Flow Accelerator (Ampere, without image generation support).
• Other important keys to the GPU: the operating speed should be between 1000 MHz and 1400 MHz, depending on whether the console is used in docked mode or portable mode, how much NVIDIA can scale this GPU with such a TGP. It will feature DisplayPort connectivity with HDMI 2.1 output level bandwidth, 8th generation NvEnc codecs (Ada Lovelace level), improved dynamic frequency management (Ada Lovelace level) and a new file decompression engine.
• In terms of supported technologies, a GPU of this type would be compatible with DLSS 2 Super Resolution and Ray Reconstruction, although the latter technology would have no real use since it is specifically designed for trajectory tracking.
• It will not be compatible with NVIDIA Frame Generation, as it will be equipped with the previous generation optical flow accelerator (Amp). Please note that this may change, although it is unlikely.
• A PCIe or UFS SSD storage unit with a capacity of at least 128 GB.

Xbox Series S specs

• Custom AMD APU built on TSMC’s 7nm node.
• Zen 2 CPU with 8 cores and 16 threads at 3.6 GHz (3.4 GHz with 16 active threads). It normally runs in 8-core mode with SMT disabled.
• Radeon RDNA 2 GPU with 1280 shaders, 80 texturing units, 32 rasterization units and 20 first generation ray tracing acceleration units.
• The graphics core runs at 1565 MHz and has a shared TBP with the 100 watt CPU, allowing it to scale to much higher frequencies than an integrated portable console solution where space, cooling and power are much more limited.
• 10 GB of unified GDDR6 memory divided into two blocks, one 8 GB with a bandwidth of 224 GB/s and the other 2 GB with a bandwidth of 56 GB/s. This last block is reserved for the operating system and applications, although Microsoft has freed up an additional 512 MB for games in this block.
• 512GB PCIE Gen4 SSD with a sequential read speed of 2.4 GB/s.
• Without an optical drive, it only uses digital format.
• DirectX 12_2 support, which is now the highest level within the Ultimate version of the said API. It speeds up ray tracing, is compatible with AMD FSR 2 and, according to the architecture, could also support AMD FSR 3 Fluid Motion Frames without problems.

Nintendo Switch 2 vs Xbox Series S: Raw power

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This list of specifications we just saw allows us to start to get an idea of ​​how the two consoles compare, but both use very different architectures. They also have different TDP configurations, which of course affects the maximum performance they are able to achieve and maintain, the most limited in this sense being the Nintendo Switch 2.

The Xbox Series S uses an x86 processor based on the Zen 2 architecture, but highly customized. Its processor has significant cuts both at the level of FPU and working frequencies, as well as the L3 cache, which is reduced from 32 MB to 8 MB. With an 8-core ARM Cortex-78C CPU we could achieve a maximum configuration of 8 MB L3but we would have more restrictions on the frequency level and Your overall performance would be much lower than the Zen 2 processor that the Xbox Series S has.

The same would happen with the Nintendo Switch 2 GPU, although this component is undoubtedly the most interesting, as it will theoretically use a more advanced architecture than the Xbox Series S graphics core, since it will be a custom solution based on Ampere. but with exclusive enhancements by Ada Lovelace. If you end up going with a 1536 shader configuration and an approximate portable mode speed of around 1GHz, your raw performance would be 3.07 TFLOPs in FP32the number that would remain below 4 TFLOPs Xbox Series S.

I know what you’re thinking, TFLOPs aren’t everything when it comes to gaming, and you’re absolutely right, but I wanted to give you this information so we have a solid reference to start from. It will also greatly affect the performance of the graphics core in games. memory system bandwidthand in this case, the Nintendo Switch 2 would only achieve 102.4 GB/s, which is less than half the 224 GB/s bandwidth of Microsoft’s console.

We have a CPU with lower performance, less power in FP32 and half the bandwidth, three pieces of information that already allow us to suspect that in terms of raw performance in games, the Nintendo Switch 2 will be clearly below Microsoft’s console. However, this data also makes something very important clear, and that is this portable It should easily beat the PS4.

If Nintendo configures this console with 12 GB of unified memory, developers will have plenty of room to work smoothly, and ports of current-gen titles to the Nintendo Switch 2 should be relatively simple and maintain a fairly decent level of quality, something very different from what happened with the Nintendo Switch adaptations, which normally arrived with ultra-low qualities and a dynamic resolution of 360p. In the nineties We played Quake in 320p resolutionso you can get an idea.

We should also not forget that in the end we are talking about a hybrid console, and it will be limited by the level of TDP. Nintendo will most likely put it in range 30 watts, which would make a very big difference compared to the Xbox Series S which has a TDP 100 watts. This is possible because said console is desktop, has larger dimensions and weight, and can be mounted on it with more powerful power and cooling systems.

Supported Technologies: Nintendo would win the game

Although on a raw power level we would have a clear winner and it makes perfect sense. However, when it comes to technology Nintendo Switch 2 would be a more advanced console, and this could allow it to close the gap compared to the Xbox Series S. The most important technology would be NVIDIA DLSS 2, which performs the process of accelerated image reconstruction and scaling through tensor cores and with the help of artificial intelligence.

With DLSS 2, it is not only possible to improve performance, but also it measures better and maintains higher image quality even starting at a lower pixel count, which puts this technology well above AMD FSR 2. To put it in perspective, DLSS 2 in performance mode at 1080p resolution usually looks almost as good as FSR 2 in quality mode at the same resolution.

Theoretically, GPU Ampere pIt could also work with AMD FSR 3 frame interpolation, so there should be no compatibility issues in this case. On the other hand, adapting Ray Reconstruction to the real capabilities of the Nintendo Switch 2 could also make an important difference. Furthermore, we must not forget that NVIDIA’s third generation RT core is much more advanced and works much better with ray tracing than RDNA 2.

However, in this case, Nintendo Switch 2 bandwidth level limitations will negatively affect your raytracing performance, so much so that I think it might even end up a little lower than the Xbox Series S in that regard. Keep in mind that we’re not talking about a 20% or 50% difference, but that the Nintendo console would have less than half its bandwidth.

In general, I believe that if the specifications that we have seen in this article are met, the Nintendo Switch 2 will be able to offer very good experience in portable mode even with current games in 1080p resolution, and DLSS 2 technology in performance mode should achieve excellent results on an 8-inch screen.

I am very curious to see what the Nintendo Switch 2 could offer. in dock mode. I’m aware that we can’t expect miracles in this sense, because in the end it will most likely happen the same as with the original model, i.e. an increase in the frequencies in the CPU and GPU, but this could be enough to significantly improve the performance in games. Consider simply increasing the GPU speed from 1000MHz to 1300MHz would increase performance on the FP32 to 3.99 TFLOPs.

How Nintendo’s new console would be positioned

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I have answered this question before in a fairly simple way, but I will go a little deeper into this topic so that it is not more clear to you. If the specifications we have seen in this article are met, the Nintendo Switch 2 It would be more powerful than the PS4 even in portable mode, and yes, by supporting more advanced technologies and using an SSD or UFS drive, it would offer an experience much better at games.

The question we can now ask ourselves is If it would be better than the PS4 Pro and the answer is yes in many ways. This console has a better GPU in raw performance, but more limited in terms of technology, it has the disadvantage of being tied to a hard drive of only 100MB/s and its Jaguar CPU creates a huge bottleneck, making a Cyberpunk version of 2077 for said console ridiculous, if we compare it to the Xbox Series S version.

Nintendo has golden opportunity with this consoleand it could also be a very important product for NVIDIA, because if things go as I mentioned in this article, the personalized Tegra chip could create a huge interest in the design of future consoles. Yes, I’m referring to the next-gen Xbox and PlayStation, which currently use AMD Ryzen APUs, but which could end up making the jump to NVIDIA solutions.

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