NVIDIA CEO Hails Switch 2 Chip As An Unprecedented Marvel Of Mobile Graphics
Jensen Huang, the head honcho at NVIDIA, poured on the praise for Nintendo's soon-to-be-released Switch 2 console in a video posted to YouTube, saying it signals the beginning of a "bold new chapter" in gaming. A big part of that claim lies with the custom silicon inside, which NVIDIA designed, just as it did with the original Switch console that released in 2017.
Though he doesn't say it in the video, the silicon inside the Switch 2 is essentially a custom Tegra T239 chip with some significant upgrades over the Tegra X1 found in all versions of the first-generation Switch (Switch, Switch OLED, and Switch Lite). We also don't get any confirmed details from the boss in charge of NVIDIA, though he did heap on the hyperbole, saying NVIDIA had to "reinvent everything" for the Switch 2. He also called the custom silicon inside a "technical marvel."
"The chip inside Nintendo Switch 2 is unlike anything we've built before. It brings together three breakthroughs. The most advanced graphics ever in a mobile device. Full hardware ray tracing, high dynamic range for brighter highlights and deeper shadows. And an architecture that supports backward compatibility, dedicated AI processors to sharpen, animate, and enhance gameplay in real time; and it's ultra low power," Huang says.
To be clear, the Switch 2 is not going to close the performance gap with Sony's PlayStation 5 or PlayStation 5 Pro, or Microsoft's Xbox Series X|S. However, the T239 is a powerful chip for such a small form factor, featuring 1,536 CUDA cores running at 561MHz in mobile form and 1GHz while docked. The Ampere-based GPU delivers 1.71 TFLOPS in handheld mode, and 3.072 TFLOPS in docked mode.
It also sports 12GB of LPDDR5X memory linked to a 128-bit bus for 68GB/s of memory bandwidth in handheld mode and 102GB/s in docked mode. Other key specs include eight Arm Cortex-A78C cores, 256GB of UFS 3.1 storage, dedicated RT and Tensor cores, and DLSS support. It also supports 4K gaming when docked.
In the video, which was shared by Nintendo of America, Huang also gave credit to former Nintendo president Satoru Iwata, who passed away in 2015, for his vision to "create something no one had seen before."
"We lost Iwatasan before the launch, but his clarity, his purpose, it still inspires our work every day," Huang said.
The Switch 2 releases to retail on June 5, 2025. It will be interesting to see how it fares in sales compared to the original Switch, which is Nintendo's second-most successful game console of all time at 152.12 million units shipped, behind only the Nintendo DS at 154.02 million units.
