Nintendo Switch News: Specs Possibly Revealed Ahead Of Event

Nintendo is waiting until January to reveal the information on the Nintendo Switch’s specs, but a new report from last week gave us an idea of what to expect.

The Nintendo Switch will use Nvidia’s Maxwell graphics processing technology, according to VentureBeat. It was also confirmed the Switch would use one of Nvidia’s Tegra chip during the Switch announcement event in October.

The Switch’s use of the custom Maxwell Tegra means the console will have at least more than 1 teraflop of performance, according to VentureBeat.

"The custom Maxwell Tegra (which uses a 20nm process as opposed to the more efficient 16nm process of the Pascal) in the machine is still powerful enough to play Nintendo-style games that rely on quality art over horsepower, but don't expect Switch software to match the graphical fidelity of the highest-end PS4 games," VentureBeat reported.

This week, Eurogamer has more information on the system’s CPU and GPU speeds. Whether the Switch is docked or not, the CPU power is the same, according to the site. "This ensures that running game logic won't be compromised while gaming on the go: the game simulation itself will remain entirely consistent," the site reported. "The machine's embedded memory controller runs at 1600MHz while docked ... but the default power mode undocked sees this drop to 1331MHz. However, developers can opt to retain full memory bandwidth in their titles should they choose to do so."

The Switch’s GPU speed may be controversial, Eurogamer says. If the Switch is docked, clock speeds for the system are at 768MHz. The site also points out, that this is much lower than the 1GHz that Nvidia’s Shield Android TV runs as far as GPU speed.

"But the big surprise from our perspective was the extent to which Nintendo has down-clocked the GPU to hit its thermal and battery life targets," Digital Foundry said. "That's not a typo: it really is 307.2MHz--meaning that in portable mode, Switch runs at exactly 40 percent of the clockspeed of the fully docked device."

A report from Eurogamer claimed the Switch’s portable screen supports multi-touch and has a resolution of 720p.

Nintendo will officially announce the Switch’s specs at an event on Jan. 12, where Nintendo will also reveal the Switch’s price and launch lineup.