Nintendo Switch Pro leak: features Ampere GPU, DLSS & Ray Tracing
Leaks point to a new Nintendo console
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The Nintendo Switch Pro specs have leaked, and it appears to feature an Ampere GPU, DLSS and Ray Tracing. Nvidia suffered a major data leak that around 1TB in size. It includes several previously unknown details about their DLSS technology, in addition to their upcoming products. This is undoubtedly a huge leak for Nvidia, with the hackers releasing source code for DLSS, in addition to details about DLSS 2.2.
The hackers have allegedly stolen around 1TB of data from Nvidia, which could spell huge amounts of trouble for the business, as DLSS is one of their key differentiators in their battle for market dominance against AMD. The South-American hacking group LAPSUS$ seem to want Nvidia to remove the mining hashrate limiters on their LHR model video cards, and threaten to release more information if their wishes are not fulfilled. However, this leak also contained details about the successor of one of the most popular video game consoles of all time, the Nintendo Switch. Switch Pro rumors were long thought dead after the reveal of the Nintendo Switch OLED, however, this most recent leak reignites the flame of speculation, meaning that we could indeed get a brand-new Nintendo Switch, if these reported leaks are true. If Nvidia does not comply with these demands, we might see more Nintendo Switch Pro leaks in the future, too.
Nintendo Switch Pro leaked specifications
In the midst of the chaos, details about Nintendo’s next-generation system have been revealed. This is listed in the leak as ‘NVN2’, seemingly a nod to an ‘NX-based’ system with Ampere architecture featured in the leak, according to Twitter user NWPlayer123. NVN was the original Switch’s codename, meaning that NVN2 is easily construed as being its successor.
In addition to this, we can see that there are also references that NVN2 is designed to work with Ray Tracing capabilities, in addition to DLSS 2.2. The leaks also mention the T234/T239 SOCs. This was originally broken by Kopite7Kimi, who quickly came online after the leaks went online to further state that only their leaks about the Nintendo Switch Pro were correct.
The Nvidia T239 chip will be based on the T234 standard that Nvidia has already formalized, with information publicly available about the chip. Therefore, you can ascertain that a part of Nvidia’s new SOC for the Nintendo Switch Pro, will be a slightly modified version of T234, with some extra bells and whistles attached. This is very similar to the setup that Nvidia used when designing the original chip for the Nintendo Switch, which was based on a modified Nvidia Tegra X1 solution.
| SOC | Nvidia T234 |
| CUDA Cores | 2048 |
| ARM Cortex Cores | 12x A78AE Hercules cores (64-bit) |
| L2 cache | 3MB |
| L3 cache | 6MB |
| GPU Architecture | Ampere |
| VRAM | LPDDR5 (32GB max) |
| Bandwidth | 200 GB/s |
Furthermore, there were incredibly heated rumors about the Nintendo Switch Pro being able to use DLSS and Ray-Tracing, meaning that everyone was surprised when we eventually saw the Nintendo Switch OLED get announced, since everyone thought that we were going to see this new Switch system, instead. Based on the architecture that we can see, you can presume that the Nintendo Switch Pro will retain compatibility with the older console in some fashion, and will be featuring a much more modern SOC, capable of much more than the Nintendo Switch’s ageing and ailing Tegra-based solution.
In the Nintendo Switch Pro leaks, T239 is defined as a name that begins with ‘D’, whether that actually relates to the data stating it’s either ‘Dane’ or ‘Drake’ remains to be seen. T239 is defined as Drake, as this handy Twitter user tells us. It could be possible that Drake is a die-shrunk Dane, which means that it’s possible that the project was either cancelled or recalibrated mid-way through development, which would tell us that the console is not quite ready to be shown to the public yet.
There has of course been fervent online speculation as to whether we’re going to see a Nintendo Switch Pro, and the delay of the system itself is the only thing that we can think of that meant the project had gotten delayed. In an interview with Polygon, Nintendo of America president Doug Bowser stated that the Nintendo Switch was only at the ‘midpoint’ of its lifecycle.
‘We believe we’re just at the midpoint of this life cycle on [the Nintendo Switch] platform’ when asked about when we might be able to see a beefier model of the Nintendo Switch arrive on store shelves. This tells us that indeed, Nintendo will be planning another hardware SKU, with journalist Hideki Yasuda additionally inferring that Nintendo needs a new console in order to ensure that Nintendo hit their hardware sales targets.
Nintendo Switch Pro leaks: in summary
The Nintendo Switch Pro leaks have been swirling around for a good while, but Nintendo took the industry by surprise when they announced the Nintendo Switch OLED. However, it appears that work has indeed been done on the next-generation version of the Nintendo Switch, which could have been delayed in part to the global semiconductor shortage, in addition to a die-shrink from the intended process nodes that they were going to used. Since this is an NX-Based system from the leaks as previously stated, we expect that this will be an extension of the existing Nintendo Switch platform, instead of an entirely new one.
Therefore, it could go hand-in-hand with all of the business pressure that Nintendo currently has to keep selling new hardware. Many online pundits have stated that Nintendo needs a new SKU in its stack to keep hardware sales rolling, and this is bolstered by an incredibly strong software lineup throughout 2022. We’re beginning to see the long-term plans of the Nintendo Switch bear fruit here, giving credence to Doug Bowser’s claims that the Nintendo Switch platform isn’t done quite yet.
The Nintendo Switch Pro leaks feature an Ampere-based solution, so you can expect to see cutting-edge technology going into whatever system Nintendo chooses to make next. We just hope it can come sooner rather than later, as the original Nintendo Switch’s hardware wasn’t exactly cutting-edge when it was released and is starting to show its very frail bones when running modern titles like Pokemon Legends: Arceus.
