Since the announcement of the Nintendo Switch 2, there has been a great deal of speculation on the specifications of the console and what it will be capable of. A tech YouTuber discovered a piece of hardware on a Chinese auction site that provides some valuable clues.

YouTuber Geekerwan produces videos for both English and Chinese audiences, regularly offering insights and reviews into new and upcoming hardware, including smartphones and handheld gaming devices. His latest video contains a detailed analysis of a motherboard reported to be the same as the one used in the Switch 2. The board was found on the Chinese auction site Xianyu and was bought for $150.

Switch 2 offers GTX 1050 Ti-level performance docked, below Steam Deck in handheld mode

On testing, the motherboard was not able to power on, and Geekerwan is unsure if the board was damaged, missing vital components, or simply an early unfinished engineering sample. However, close examination of the board and the chips on it can provide some useful information.

The star of the show was the Nvidia SoC, which is almost double the size of the Tegra X1 chip used in the original Switch. The chip is labelled as GMLX30 revision A1. Further examination showed an octa-core A78C CPU cluster on a T239 chip. It appears that Samsung's 8nm process was used for fabrication. Nvidia claims “10x the graphics performance” of the original Switch. Geekerwan’s results suggest the performance will be closer to 7x to 7.5x better.

Analysis of the chip architecture showed that it resembled the Ampere architecture usually used in the Nvidia RTX 30 series. Nintendo has already confirmed that the Switch 2 supports RTX features such as DLSS and ray tracing.

By combining all this information, plus other things he learned, Geekerwan was able to make an educated guess as to where the performance of the Switch 2 would sit. Creating the simulated Switch 2 on PC, the closest match he could find that was a rough equivalent was a hugely downclocked RTX 2050.

By simulating this theoretical chip, Geekerwan was able to run benchmark tests. The results showed that the simulated Switch 2 chip estimate was posting figures roughly equivalent to a GTX 1050 Ti in docked mode. In handheld mode, the scores fell just behind the Steam Deck. While this may seem like a disappointment for some, these scores are well above the original Switch and overtake the PS4.

It is still unknown if the leaked clock speed for the Switch 2 is accurate, so it may be possible that Nvidia and Nintendo can squeeze more performance from the chip.

About the Author

Rebecca Hills-Duty

Writing and journalism experience at VRFocus, UploadVR, The Escapist, HTC, PC Gamer, Tech Radar+ and Dexerto. Can sometimes be found playing with retro tech.