Latest Nintendo Switch 2 rumor suggests an even bigger jump in hardware performance than before

Nintendo Switch 2 leaks have been relentlessly pouring in over the past few weeks. While the steady influx of rumors has given fans an idea of what to expect from the tech, a brand-new leak has arrived to blow away their expectations. A 4chan user has suggested that the previously leaked Tegra 239 chipset is not what's inside the next-gen system.

Instead, a far more powerful variant known as Tegra 254 is reportedly at the heart of the Nintendo Switch 2. This means a much bigger improvement over the suggested Tegra 239, which allegedly results in native 1080p resolutions, better visuals, and more.

Given this leak has emerged out of the blue, it does sound suspicious on many fronts, especially the finer details.

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New Nintendo Switch 2 leak hints at powerful hardware, canceled Gamescom tech demo, and more

4chan leak claims that the Samsung 8nm chip is wrong and definitely isn't MediaTek either - moved to newer hardware at behest of Nvidia byu/Seller-Ree inGamingLeaksAndRumours

The leak includes many details, including the suggestion that the currently-known Tegra 239 was intended for the Nintendo Switch Pro back in 2019, which never saw the light of the day. That is because the only hardware Nintendo launched in the past few years was the OLED model.

This piece of information is perhaps the most reasonable of them all, as it seems plausible that the COVID pandemic in 2020 threw a wrench in production plans for pretty much every tech giant under the sun. However, assuming the global pandemic never happened, and they would have gone with this SoC, it would have been seriously cutting-edge for 2019 tech.

To surmise, the Tegra 239 is rumored to have GPU architecture based on Nvidia Ampere. For those unaware, that is the foundation of the popular PC hardware manufacturer's RTX 3000 series of cards, which first debuted in 2020.

In other words, the leaker suggests that the Tegra 239-specced Nintendo Switch Pro would have been the first Ampere-based hardware to hit the market before Nvidia's own flagship cards even did.

The leaker goes on to suggest that Nvidia dissuaded Nintendo from pursuing the Tegra 239 for their next-gen tech due to it not being efficient enough, especially in terms of battery life

This leads us to the brand-new Tegra 254, which is seemingly a cut-down version of the chips originally designed for the Nvidia Drive project called Atlan. Per public knowledge, this chip has been repurposed into the Nvidia Thor, which also targets the automated vehicles sector.

However, it seems like Nintendo has been offered Atlan in a power-efficient variant to drive the Nintendo Switch 2. It is said to be using the Nvidia Lovelace GPU architecture, which is what's inside the latest RTX 4000 series cards. Sounds farfetched? We agree.

However, the leaker does make a sensible point that the Samsung 8nm fabrication reported to be used in the Tegra 239 would have been inefficient and that the newer architecture scales better. The former has become a subject of controversy due to size and power consumption worries after Nvidia leaker @kopite7kimi on X (formerly Twitter) suggested that the Nintendo Switch 2 will be using an 8nm die.

Interestingly, no details on the die size of this new Tegra 254 were offered. We do have a few extra details on the rumored Gamescom 2023 demo leaks, though. For one, the Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild tech demo for the Nintendo Switch 2 was reportedly running at native 4K resolution, contrary to past suggestions that it was upscaled from a lower threshold using Nvidia's DLSS technology.

Then, there is the Unreal Engine 5 Matrix Awakens demo, which has now been suggested to be rendered natively at 1440p and upscaled to 4K via DLSS 3.0 (and not 3.1 or even 3.5 as it was previously hinted at).

This is incredibly bizarre as the same demo runs at the same resolution on the PlayStation 5 and much lower on the Xbox Series S at just 900p. This is also where this rumor loses credibility for most, if not all, readers.

The leaker also claims that a third demo was planned for the Nintendo Switch 2 at Gamescom but did not make it in time due to polish problems. However, it was themed around the Super Mario 64 Princess Peach castle with dense foliage and path-traced reflections.

A few additional details suggest the inclusion of PCIE 4.0 NVME SSD and USB4 at either 20 or 40 Gbps. Overall, much of this rumor sounds a bit too "out there" to be taken seriously despite some sensible points.

All in all, players should take all these details with a grain of salt until we eventually see the Nintendo Switch 2 in action for ourselves.