Rumor: Nintendo Switch 2 to Feature a Custom Nvidia Chip - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 01 March 2024 / 11,973 Views
The next console from Nintendo, a successor to the hugely popular Switch, will reportedly features a custom Nvidia chip, according to Reuters.
The Switch includes the Nvidia's Tegra X1 chip, while one source stated the Switch 2 will likely include a custom designed chip from Nvidia.
"Nintendo's current Switch handheld console already includes Nvidia's Tegra X1 chip," reads the report. "A new version of the Switch console expected this year is likely to include a Nvidia custom design."
Nintendo declined to comment on the report from Reuters.
It is rumored the Switch 2 will launch later this year and will have a 8-inch LCD screen. This would be igger than the screens that come with the different Switch models. The Switch OLED has a 7-inch OLED screen, the original Switch has a 6.2-inch LCD screen, and the Switch Lite has a 5.5 inch screen.
Kantan Games CEO Dr. Serkan Toto previously predicted Nintendo would release the successor to the Nintendo Switch for $400 later this year with a chance the price of games will increase to $70.
"The time is finally here for a Switch successor, even though I can say a 'Pro' model actually did exist and certain developers were already working with the dev kit," said Toto. "I believe the next hardware will drop [in 2024] for $400. There is a high chance that games will cost more, too: $70."
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can contact the author on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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For anyone confused by the headline (given that the original switch used a Nvidia chip too), the original switch used an off the shelf Nvidia design, rather than a custom one. Given Nintendo’s financial position at the time this made sense, and also Nvidia wasn’t sure at the time just how many Switches would be sold, so they probably didn’t want to play ball on a custom design.
Now that the switch has been a massive success, and Nintendo is in a much better position, they can afford to work with Nvidia on something more customized. Additionally, Nvidia is probably much more eager to do something custom this time because they are much more confident that Nintendo can guarantee high sales volume for years to come
Apparently, a lot of work goes into these designs.
Also remember that Nintendo called the Switch chip as "custom" as well.
It wasn't custom.
not only was it not custom, it lacked the memory bandwidth a GPU driven design needs (as opposed to CPU or compute), even if all NVidia did was massively improve the memory speeds, the next Switch 2 would be a large improvement, the original Switch hardware was like an old cellphone chip, not like a tablet or GPU chip, it is only 64 bit, which is nuts for a gaming chip
Tegra X1 was a full ARM mobile chip.
"Cell Phone" and "Tablet" chips are one in the same, often the only difference is TDP's and clockrates.
The chip itself was using class leading LPDDR4 3200mhz memory at the time. - Remember this was almost a decade ago before LPDDR4X, LPDDR5, LPDDR5X came along which pushed frequencies to 8533Mhz.
And that Ram falls roughly inline of the chips of that era.
I.E. Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge, iPhone 6s and tablets.
If you are only looking at the raw bandwidth numbers, then you aren't looking at the bigger picture and the bandwidth gains Maxwell brought to the table via delta colour compression and tiled based rasterization, improving culling and more.
The memory bus doesn't determine what is a cell phone chip or isn't.
The Radeon 6500XT is a GPU with a 64bit memory bus... Is a Desktop GPU.
The Snapdragon 805 had a 128bit memory bus and was found in phones.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Qualcomm_Snapdragon_systems_on_chips
The Tegra X1 has a memory bus and configuration that is befit of the era it was designed in.
You linked a list that showed the 805 uses 64 bit memory.
128 bit? "The Snapdragon 8cx Compute Platform for Windows 10 PCs".
You are arguing for argument's sake. Just agree with me lol.
I said it lacked the 128 bit bus that is required for good GPU performance, and you are arguing for some reason despite your link agreeing with me
I wonder what you understand by "custom"? In contrast to the standard X1 chip, the Switch chip has 4 CPU cores less, lower clock frequencies and probably modified security and voltage features. The chip in the Switch can only be found in this form in the Switch. That's exactly what the word "custom" means. If anyone here is thinking of a completely newly designed chip then they must have been living in the North Pool for the last 20 years. There is no such thing anymore.
Tegra X1 only had 2 sets of 4-core clusters, but only one cluster can be active at once which is governed by the software scheduler.
However in order to switch between the quad A53 cores and A57 cores, you needed to power down the device entirely, so the A53 cores went unused.
nVidia eventually did a revision of the Tegra X1 making all Tegra X1 chips even in Tablets, Shield TV and more... Basically silicon-identical to the Switch chip.
The only "Custom part about the Tegra X1 is the nerfed clockrates.
So you are very wrong that the Switch chip is only found in the Switch.
༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ Give OLED version
Another rumor...
yes and the game channels on youtube will be "NIVIDA WILL POWER SWITCH" etc
Will people buy the switch 2?
Or will it be having the same kind of situation with Wii and wiiu
The Wii U was poorly marketed and suffered from a massive software drought through most of its first year. Unless Nintendo drops the ball that badly a second time, the Switch 2 should do very well.
We've known about Nvidia's T239 Tegra SoC for a while now. Digital Foundry even made an article and video about it.
they made out the last chip was going to be a custom chip and it turned out to be the same standard chip that was in the same Tegra X1 from the Nvidia shield that was out 2 years before the switch
So the switch will have some switchable power now
This wouldnt be surprising. Nvidia is the way to go for these small devices.
I mean yeah, that's the stuff we've been hearing since we've got data from the Nvdia ransom attack which leaked afterwards ... Two years ago almost.
If the rumours are true and switch2 be announced in march i wonder if the switch can still beat the ds let alone ps2.
If they are okay with hurting the front end of Switch 2 sales, they could keep making Switch 1's and start selling them for cheaper to push them. If they want Switch 2 sales to really take off, they will stop making Switch 1's and not discount them much.
They will do whatever they think will lead to more long-term profits.
Oh no, the one with that is another system called Shit Sherlock, first name No.
