Nintendo Switch 2 teardown confirms Nvidia Tegra T239 chip, SK Hynix memory, more details

[DragonSlayer101]

TL;DR: A teardown of the newly announced Nintendo Switch 2 has seemingly confirmed key hardware specs not yet officially announced. According to screenshots published by a reliable hardware modder, the device uses an Nvidia Tegra processor and SK Hynix memory.

The teardown was performed by YouTuber and X user @KurnalSalts, known for his deep dive videos on Arm chips used in smartphones, laptops, AR headsets, and other gadgets. According to his since-deleted post, the Switch 2 is powered by Nvidia's Tegra T239 SoC, which comes with an Arm Cortex X1 HP-core, three Cortex A78 performance cores, and four Cortex A55 efficiency cores, paired with a custom Ampere-based GPU with 12 SMs and 1,536 CUDA cores.

The tipster also revealed that the Switch 2 uses memory modules from SK Hynix, though the exact memory configuration remains unconfirmed. Earlier rumors suggested that it uses 12GB of LPDDR5 RAM in dual-channel mode with a 128-bit memory interface. The teardown also revealed a 256GB UFS 3.1 flash storage module from SK Hynix and what looks like a Wi-Fi chip from MediaTek.

Kurnal says he will publish his trademark deep dive into the Tegra chip and the rest of the hardware in the near future. Hardware enthusiasts are hoping that the promised video will reveal more details about the Switch 2, including information about the process node used to manufacture the Nvidia SoC.

The processor powering the Switch 2 is believed to be made by Samsung, but there's been significant speculation in the recent past about whether it's based on the company's 8nm DUV foundry node or the newer 5nm EUV process. While the Digital Foundry YouTube channel is doubling down on the 8nm rumors, some Nintendo communities on Reddit and X believe that Nvidia switched to the 5nm technology for its new SoC.

Nintendo announced the Switch 2 in January before sharing more details earlier this month. The new console features multiple hardware and software upgrades over its predecessor, including a bigger display, improved controls, enhanced audio, and 4K output for TV. Priced at $449.99, it goes on pre-order today at Best Buy, Target, Walmart, and GameStop. It is slated to hit store shelves in North America on June 5.

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Nintendo Switch 2 teardown confirms Nvidia Tegra T239 chip, SK Hynix memory, more details

 

[Squid Surprise]

I love that people think that the hardware in a Nintendo system has ever been relevant…
Nintendo has always been about their IP and the “fun” games you can play…
They leave the hardware battle to MS and Sony .

Once upon a time it was Sega - the Dreamcast was far superior hardware - yet Sega hardware is gone and Nintendo lives on…

 

[WhiteLeaff]

Buggy specs from google?

"Supposedly, the Tegra T239 utilises eight cores in a single cluster, not twelve as @kopite7kimi claimed last year. Seemingly, the chipset still relies on ARM Cortex-A78AE cores, though. The rumoured efficiency cores also appear to have been axed for some reason. Incidentally, the Tegra T239 is expected to be a customised version of Tegra T234, which NVIDIA codenamed Orin"

 

[AndreV]

I love that people think that the hardware in a Nintendo system has ever been relevant…
Nintendo has always been about their IP and the “fun” games you can play…
They leave the hardware battle to MS and Sony .

Once upon a time it was Sega - the Dreamcast was far superior hardware - yet Sega hardware is gone and Nintendo lives on…

yes, some Nintendo systems have been relevant hardware wise, for example SNES and N64, they were at the top of their generation in many aspects(but not quite all). That's why they had games that the other didnt get.

 

[Theinsanegamer]

I love that people think that the hardware in a Nintendo system has ever been relevant…
Nintendo has always been about their IP and the “fun” games you can play…
They leave the hardware battle to MS and Sony .

Well, it is relevant if you want third party titles on your system. We know games like BotW have their performance held back by the Switch's hardware.

Once upon a time it was Sega - the Dreamcast was far superior hardware - yet Sega hardware is gone and Nintendo lives on…

this is intellectually dishonest. The Dreamcast did not fail because of its "far superior" hardware. The dreamcast was the first in a long line of screwups by Sega, including:
The sega cd/32x taking development resources away from a proper succesor.

Both systems having few games and burning consumer trust

The Saturn being a 32 bit 2d system that got 3d strapped onto it instead of being developed for 3d from the ground up (and being stuck with quadrilaterals which failed).

The Saturn having a poor software library outside japan and being replaced in only 3 years, burning yet more consumer trust.

What ultimately killed that system was launching in late 98 (99 in the west), three years after the competition and only two years before the PS2, putting it in an awkward space where its hardware wasn't top of the line for long and was stuck with outdated GD-ROM tech instead of DVDs and it's 3d tech was decidedly last gen and immediately overshadowed by the PS2, which in the US launched only a year later.

 

[NumberNine]

Make me wonder what percentage of the gains will be real and what percentage will be an artifically extrapolated illusion...

 

[Kashim]

I love that people think that the hardware in a Nintendo system has ever been relevant…
Nintendo has always been about their IP and the “fun” games you can play…
They leave the hardware battle to MS and Sony .

Once upon a time it was Sega - the Dreamcast was far superior hardware - yet Sega hardware is gone and Nintendo lives on…

I love that people think they can post some random word salad to justify their opinions. You can say what you want about MS and Sony, but Nintendo is far more greedy when it comes to consoles. It's always been accepted that console makers lose money on every piece of hardware they sell, because they make up the losses through software sales. Not so with Nintendo. They realized long ago they can make a profit on low end hardware that's 5 generations behind everyone else. So now that's all they will ever do. People are dumb enough to pay big bucks for severely outdated hardware, so why not?

It's nonsense that Nintendo games are "fun" so you have to pay ridiculous prices for both the hardware and the software. All they have is Mario and Zelda that they keep rehashing over and over again, so you play the same game you played 30 years ago, but now it costs way more money. You want to pay $450 for the crappy system and another $90 for Mario or Zelda? Be my guest. For me it's a hard pass. I haven't bought a Nintendo console in about 20 years and I never will again, so none of this BS affects me at all.

As for your nonsense about Sega vs. Nintendo, it had nothing to do with superior hardware. The Dreamcast wasn't even competing with Nintendo, it was in fact competing with Sony's Playstation. And yes, the Dreamcast had superior hardware. What actually killed the Dreamcast was piracy. Hackers discovered a flaw in the Dreamcast's copy protection and everyone was able to easily burn Dreamcast games on standard blank CDs.

PS. - I doubt the Switch 2 will do nearly as well as its predecessor. Mainly because Nintendo got a little too greedy with their pricing. $450 for low end hardware that doesn't even had an OLED screen? Get real. Probably costs them under $200 to actually make that thing.

 

[Squid Surprise]

I love that people think they can post some random word salad to justify their opinions. You can say what you want about MS and Sony, but Nintendo is far more greedy when it comes to consoles. It's always been accepted that console makers lose money on every piece of hardware they sell, because they make up the losses through software sales. Not so with Nintendo. They realized long ago they can make a profit on low end hardware that's 5 generations behind everyone else. So now that's all they will ever do. People are dumb enough to pay big bucks for severely outdated hardware, so why not?

And WHY do you think they can get away with this? Because their games don't depend on hardware nearly as much as the competition's...

It's nonsense that Nintendo games are "fun" so you have to pay ridiculous prices for both the hardware and the software. All they have is Mario and Zelda that they keep rehashing over and over again, so you play the same game you played 30 years ago, but now it costs way more money. You want to pay $450 for the crappy system and another $90 for Mario or Zelda? Be my guest. For me it's a hard pass. I haven't bought a Nintendo console in about 20 years and I never will again, so none of this BS affects me at all.

I don't really have a vested interest... but... there's a reason that Nintendo continues to sell a ton... maybe you don't agree, but clearly there are plenty of people who think their games are more fun.

As for your nonsense about Sega vs. Nintendo, it had nothing to do with superior hardware. The Dreamcast wasn't even competing with Nintendo, it was in fact competing with Sony's Playstation. And yes, the Dreamcast had superior hardware. What actually killed the Dreamcast was piracy. Hackers discovered a flaw in the Dreamcast's copy protection and everyone was able to easily burn Dreamcast games on standard blank CDs.

I was simply making a point that the Dreamcast, which had the best hardware of its generation, still managed to fail utterly. By the way, it wasn't piracy that killed it (Playstation suffered - and still suffers - from just as much or more), but a combination of things. The mess that Sega had already made with their previous consoles - especially the Saturn - left many 3rd party developers leery of Sega, leaving no real "killer apps" for the Dreamcast to market their platform on... not to mention its own lack of support from Sega bigwigs - receiving far less marketing budgets than its competitors at the time...

As an aside, there is ZERO evidence that piracy is harmful to any console. In fact, many argue that the Playstation, which was the easiest console to play pirated games on, GAINED popularity as more people wanted to buy it thinking they'd be able to get free games...

PS. - I doubt the Switch 2 will do nearly as well as its predecessor. Mainly because Nintendo got a little too greedy with their pricing. $450 for low end hardware that doesn't even had an OLED screen? Get real. Probably costs them under $200 to actually make that thing.

Here, I agree with you... I think of the Switch 2 as a very similar concept to the WiiU... they're simply trying to capitalize on virtually the exact same console with minimal upgrades... I suspect the NEXT console will be far more successful.

 

[FuuKa]

I love that people think that the hardware in a Nintendo system has ever been relevant…
Nintendo has always been about their IP and the “fun” games you can play…
They leave the hardware battle to MS and Sony .

Once upon a time it was Sega - the Dreamcast was far superior hardware - yet Sega hardware is gone and Nintendo lives on…

They leave relevant hardware behind because it allows way better margins.

Their public, mostly children, or casual gamers, allows that. They are not here, reading Techspot, they don't care. They want the fun of Donkey Kong and Mario, the rest is indeed irelevant.

 

[bviktor]

I love that people think that the hardware in a Nintendo system has ever been relevant…
Nintendo has always been about their IP and the “fun” games you can play…
They leave the hardware battle to MS and Sony .

Once upon a time it was Sega - the Dreamcast was far superior hardware - yet Sega hardware is gone and Nintendo lives on…

It's relevant when I just don't ever want to turn on the console because it takes ages for menus to load and updates to install.

 

[Squid Surprise]

It's relevant when I just don't ever want to turn on the console because it takes ages for menus to load and updates to install.

Nintendo uses cartridges.... while their FPS and graphics can be argued to be subpar, when it comes to load times and menus, etc., they tend to be the best performers...

 

[hover389]

Pretty sure the switch 2 only has A78C cores and no X1 or A55 cores

 

[Xelions]

The comments are really taking the switch out of context. Is the console priced too high (and take inflation into account too, and every other company has) - well we won't know until we see it's official specs. Let's also remember that the hardware is in a compact form factor and that adds cost. It's also been in production for 12+ months. Please don't compare your PC graphics cards cause they are as big as a switch and the performance gains from the 2000 series all the way to the 5000 series - I don't need to say much about that and it also applies to AMD graphics cards too. The era of native output is over, with DLSS and FSR tagged with all this A.I. which will be in essentially everything so what ROI-value-quality where getting will be getting lower!

People can dis Nintendo all they want for their games - for whatever reasons - but they have their target audience, they're quality releases most of the time. They have successful game development studios, Sony and MS issues have been minor hardware problems but more so game releases - all the way from too few, to too buggy. It's not to say there haven't been quality releases all console systems. It is to say that Nintendo have been successful in their approach. Maybe in the future we will see a collaborative effort on a single console and the game studios will be the battle for competition.

And with a closing thought I'd like to add that across generations of consoles from different companies we've seen innovations, and in my opinion Nintendo has been at the top, taking the most risk and gaining the most reward. It's not to say that Sony hasn't had success, or MS but simply to a lesser value.

 

[EdmondRC]

Digital Foundry has been very adamant that the Switch 2 is on 8nm and not a better process node. The problem I have with that is that the T234, which apparently the T239 is based off of was 455mm2. Even with 1/3 less CPU cores and 75% of the CUDA cores, getting that down to 214mm2 (46% of T234) doesn't quite seem plausible. I believe there is pretty strong case that the T239 is on a more efficient node. DF was basing this on the laptop 2050 GPU die size only being 200mm2, but even with 4 fewer SMs that leaves very little room for the CPU. It's not like 100% of the chip is the GPU and by removing 1/4 of the SMs automatically get 50mm2 for the CPU. It seems a lot more realistic to base the size of the chip off of the T234 which is more compatible with the design purpose of the T239. I believe the T239 would only get about 30-40% smaller given the T234 specs on like for like node, not 54% smaller. Obviously, I'm not an expert and I could be missing some other components unnecessary on T234, but I still think it's the better starting place for comparison.