Nvidia Confirms AI and Ray Tracing Capabilities in Nintendo Switch 2 Chip, But Official Specs Remain Unannounced

At the recent grand reveal of the Nintendo Switch 2, Nintendo wowed the crowd, but remained tight-lipped about the details of its internal chip. However, Nvidia, the company responsible for crafting that custom system, has broken the silence with some updates via a blog post.

During a developer roundtable, Switch 2’s technical director, Tetsuya Sasaki, shed some light on their priorities. “Nintendo doesn’t focus too much on hardware specs,” he admitted. “What we really value is what we can deliver to our consumers.” This sentiment is echoed by Nvidia, as they’re also keeping specifics like core counts and clock speeds under wraps for now. Nevertheless, they boast that this new chip offers a dramatic “10x improvement in graphics performance” over the original Nintendo Switch.

Leveraging Nvidia’s RT cores, the system now supports hardware ray tracing, enabling more realistic lighting and reflections. Meanwhile, tensor cores are key to the DLSS upscaling, potentially allowing the Switch 2 to reach up to 4K resolution when docked and achieve up to 120 frames per second in handheld mode.

Excitingly, these tensor cores aren’t just for show—they enable AI features like face tracking and background removal. These were prominently showcased with the new social GameChat feature and during our hands-on experience with Switch 2 titles such as Super Mario Party Jamboree – Nintendo Switch 2 Edition + Jamboree TV. Though it’s still unclear how similar these capabilities are to the Nvidia Broadcast technology on PC.

Another key update from Nvidia includes the introduction of a variable refresh rate (VRR) display for the Switch 2, powered by G-Sync when in handheld mode, which promises to eliminate screen tearing issues.

Looking back, Nvidia was also behind the original Nintendo Switch’s processing power, creating a customized version of the Tegra X1 chip. Despite being somewhat dated even at its launch, Nintendo managed to continue supporting it, with new games still being released eight years later.

It will be fascinating to see just how much developers are able to leverage this powerful new chip when the Switch 2 hits the shelves on June 5, priced at $449.99. We can’t wait to explore the possibilities.