An analysis of the Nintendo Switch 2 SoC has been conducted by YouTuber Geekerwan, offering a detailed benchmark of the console’s CPU and GPU.
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It’ll be a few more days until we see Fast Fusion on Nintendo Switch 2, but the game’s launch trailer has already come in. This is actually our best look yet showing different courses, actual racing, the fusion mechanic, multiplayer, and GameShare support.
I really like the game share feature, you can play with friends with just 1 game. I hope all multiplayer games have this feature.
The GPU in particular is very weak. It offers about 75% of the performance of the lowest Ampere-based RTX 3050M from 2020, and even compared to the already underwhelming and heavily criticized Ada Lovelace refresh, it falls behind by roughly 10%. In terms of relative performance, it sits somewhere between the PS4 and the Xbox Series S. It’s also important to note that it likely uses slower LPDDR5 memory, which further limits its bandwidth compared to traditional desktop or console setups, though in larger quantity.
On the CPU side, things are much better. It uses the Cortex-A78C, which is a slightly more powerful variant of the A78 core found in older flagship mobile SoCs like the Snapdragon 888 (used in devices such as the Samsung Galaxy S21). The difference here is that the A78C features larger cores designed for sustained workloads, meaning better performance, though at the cost of higher power consumption.
Even with DLSS doing much of the heavy lifting, there are already reports of relatively lightweight games like Street Fighter V running at native 540p. So, I wouldn’t bet on the Switch 2 keeping pace with next-gen titles. For the current generation, however, it should hold up reasonably well, though once again, that’s largely thanks to DLSS quite literally carrying the GPU on its back.
What’s curious is that Nintendo seems to have flipped the usual console design priorities. Instead of favoring GPU power and cutting corners on CPU performance, as we often see, they’ve gone the opposite route: the CPU is fairly decent for its class, but the GPU is noticeably weaker than expected. This tells me that they might be preparing for a mid-gen refresh, or more likely a V2 variant with a more efficient GPU down the line.
The odd bit is that the GPU although Ampere architecture actually follows the build design of the Lovelace 40 series so it’s definitely custom built specifically for the Switch.
Yea, I’m ok waiting for a Black Friday deal on this.
This channel should be the new Digital Foundry. Just facts, no guessing, no lies, no bias, no annoying giggling. Let's wait for June 5 to confirm this.
And they want $450. The PS5 digital was $400. Leave it to Nintendo to be Nintendo. No identity loss here.