A few days ago I shared with you a special dedicated to the comparison between the Nintendo Switch 2 and the Nintendo Switch, and today I want to dive into a very interesting topic, the GPU of this new console, since it will undoubtedly be one of the components the most important and innovative compared to the current model.

The Nintendo Switch 2 GPU is one of the most controversial components that is causing the most buzz because it will break AMD’s dominance in consoles and because it will mark the return of NVIDIA to this market. As I told you then, AMD tried to put one of its GPUs in Nintendo’s new console, but lost against NVIDIA because the green giant’s solution rIt worked better with a lower TDP.

For Nintendo, the power-to-watt ratio with very low power consumption was key when choosing a GPU for the new console. This is logical, as it will allow the company to design a new portable console with a greater degree of autonomy without the need for a larger and heavier battery, but at the same time it complicates it find a close equivalent to said GPU.

Possible Nintendo Switch 2 GPU Specs

Two possible configurations are considered, one with 1536 shaders and the other with 1280 shaders. The former would be more powerful than the latter, but in both cases the TDP would act as a very limiting factor in the performance mode the console will use in portable mode, so in practice the performance differences between the two in portable mode would be very small.

I want to give you a broad view of the possible GPU specs of the Nintendo Switch 2, so I’ll leave you with a complete rundown of what the component would look like with each of these two possible configurations.

More powerful configuration

• 1536 shaders at 750 MHz in portable mode.
• 48 texturing units.
• 32 raster units.
• 12 second generation RT cores.
• 48 tensor cores of the third generation.
• Performance in FP32: 2.30 TFLOPs.

A less powerful configuration

• 1280 shaders at 750 MHz in portable mode.
• 40 texturing units.
• 24 raster units.
• 10 second generation RT cores.
• 40 tensor cores of the third generation.
• Performance in FP32: 1.92 TFLOPs.

The difference in shaders between the two GPUs would not produce much difference in terms of performance in portable mode, as the maximum operating frequency would be very low. The Nintendo Switch is capable of reaching a 384 MHz GPU in portable mode, so the Nintendo Switch 2 would be capable almost twice the operating frequencyif the specifications we just saw are met.

In portable mode it will be max TDP 5 wattsas i mentioned earlier. It is not clear what the maximum value will be in docked mode, but I think it would be quite reasonable to think about it 30 watts, because that’s the level the console could easily handle with a dual fan configuration.

Architecture and advanced technology

The Nintendo Switch 2 GPU will use the Ampere architecture and be manufactured on Samsung’s 8nm node, according to the latest rumours, but it will enhanced with exclusive Ada Lovelac featurese, which will basically focus on improving efficiency and performance per watt consumed.

Information is still quite scarce, but the concept of this GPU as a hybrid halfway between Ampere and Ada Lovelace This could have a very positive impact on its gaming performance, both in portable and docked mode, although it doesn’t seem like it will have what it takes to offer full NVIDIA DLSS support.

This GPU will have RT cores so it will be able to accelerate ray tracing. It will also have tensor cores, which means that NVIDIA DLSS Super Resolution can be used to the games. This technology is intelligent rescaling that is accelerated through tensor kernels and can maintain higher image quality even at very low resolutions.

It will also be compatible with NVIDIA DLSS ray reconstructionnoise reduction designed to improve image quality and performance when using path tracking. It was an important break on PC, but it won’t make much sense on Nintendo Switch 2, as trajectory tracing will be too big for that console.

Performance and recommended resolution

Even in its most powerful configuration, which would have 1,536 shaders, the Nintendo Switch GPU does not reach the recommended level to move today’s demanding 1080p games. Consider that the GeForce RTX 2050 Mobile, which has 2,048 shaders and runs at a maximum of 1,245 MHz, already struggles to move at this level and is much more powerful.

The Nintendo Switch 2 won’t be a native 1080p gaming console with really demanding games, but I’m sure it will be able to achieve that resolution. using NVIDIA DLSS Super Resolution. This technology can be configured in different modes:

• A quality mode that renders 67% pixels.
• Balanced mode that renders 58% pixels.
• A performance mode that renders 50% of the pixels.
• Ultra Performance mode that renders 33% of pixels.

This console could use NVIDIA DLSS Super Resolution in pro performance mode upscale from 540p to 1080p. Using this mode starting with such a low number of pixels will affect the sharpness of the image, but thanks to the use of AI, the improvements presented by NVIDIA and the fact that we are finally talking about a screen of only 8 inches, the result of the Final should be quite good.

In dock mode, due to the increase in TDP and increase in GPU operating frequencies, it may be possible to use a higher base resolution to achieve 1080p, to achieve higher sharpness or to maintain performance mode, but rescale to a higher resolutionlike 1440p. In this case it would be rendered at 720p and upscaled to 1440p.

Most games for Nintendo Switch 2 will run at 30 FPSI am convinced of that. It doesn’t mean that some titles can reach 60 FPS, but they will be simpler games with a lower technical level than the ones of the current generation. As the backward compatibility mode with Nintendo Switch is more powerful, it should at least improve the performance and resolution of games on said console.

Differences between laptop mode and dock mode

Image courtesy of XNZ

I’ve already told you quite a bit in the previous parts, but I think it’s necessary to summarize the most important points to better understand how the console will behave depending on the way we use it, and it will have an impact in our gaming experience.

GPU in laptop mode

• Maximum TDP 5 watts.
• Frequency up to 750 MHz.
• Most likely render resolution: 540p, upscaled to 1080p with NVIDIA DLSS.
• Most demanding games will most likely run at 30 FPS.

GPU in dock mode

• Maximum TDP 30 watts.
• Frequency of 1 GHz or more.
• Most likely render resolution: 720p, upscaled to 1440p with NVIDIA DLSS.
• Most demanding games will most likely run at 30 FPS.

Unified memory and GPU, will you have enough?

On the goals that the capital N has with the Nintendo Switch 2, it is clear that it does. This console will be configured with 12 GB LPDDR5X memory configured as dual channel so the GPU will have access to a large amount of memory and will have significant bandwidth.

I still don’t know how much memory Nintendo reserves for the system and apps, but with how well the company usually optimizes maybe no more than 1 GBwhich would mean that the remaining 11 GB would be free for games and could be used in a completely flexible way to store things that the CPU needs, which in a PC does RAM, and things that the GPU needs, something, the computer makes VRAM.

If the Nintendo Switch 2 renders most of its games at 540p and upscales to 1080p, it will have a lot of unified memory, and the same will happen if it renders at 720p and upscales to 1440p in docked mode. think that The Xbox Series S only has 10GB of unified memoryand that only a little over 8GB of that is for free games, so a Nintendo console would have more memory than a Microsoft console.

It is this detail that is key not only to achieve good performance in general and for the GPU to develop its full power, but also so that developers do not have to worry about port cross platform games to Nintendo Switch 2. That was exactly one of the problems with the Nintendo Switch, which came with only 4GB of memory in a generation where 8GB was standard.

What graphics card would the Nintendo Switch 2 GPU be equal to?

The truth is that it doesn’t have a direct equivalent and it’s very hard to find one that comes close because it’s a semi-custom, low-power GPU tailored to very specific needs, plus it combines features and backups two different generations Ampere and Ada Lovelace.

Closest, bridging differencesit would be a GeForce RTX 2050 Mobilea graphics card that uses the Ampere architecture and has 2,048 shaders. Its clock speed is 735 MHz-1245 MHz, normal and turbo mode, it reaches a maximum performance of 5.1 TFLOPs in FP32 and is compatible with NVIDIA DLSS Super Resolution and Ray Reconstruction.

The GeForce RTX 2050 Mobile has second-generation RT cores and third-generation tensor cores and comes with 4GB of GDDR6 memory on a 64-bit bus, so its bandwidth is 112 GB/s. The Nintendo Switch 2 GPU could have bandwidth 120 GB/s, thanks to its 128-bit bus.

On the AMD side, the closest thing would be, again, distance saving, and Radeon 780M at low frequency. This GPU has a performance of 8.29 TFLOPs in FP32 if we include the dual-emission shaders, and 4,145 TFLOPs without those shaders. However, the Nintendo Switch 2 GPU would be much more technologically advanced, both in terms of power per watt and the difference its NVIDIA DLSS compatibility will make.

Nintendo Switch 2 GPU as well It will be much more powerful in ray tracing than the Radeon 780M, so much so that it can eventually apply this technology to a limited extent for less demanding games as well as some exclusive Nintendo franchises that usually don’t require a lot of power to look great thanks to their careful art direction.