Nintendo Switch 2 Leaked Motherboard Analysis Suggests SoC Uses Samsung 5nm Node; NVIDIA DLSS 4K Upscaling Mentioned in New Patent

The Nintendo Switch 2 SoC likely uses Samsung 5nm node instead of the 8nm node, according to a new analysis of the SoC seen on the leaked motherboard.

Following the release of the pictures showcasing the next Nintendo system’s motherboard yesterday, multiple users have been looking at the components to try and understand more about the console before its official reveal. According to an analysis posted on Famiiboards, as reported on the Gaming Leaks and Rumors subreddit, there is enough evidence to suggest the Switch 2 SoC uses a Samsung 5nm process node and not an 8nm process node. The T239 chip that powers the system is said to feature around 15 billion transistors, which would be 326mm^2 on the 8nm process node, a bigger size than the chip seen on the leaked motherboard. The T239 chip, on the other hand, is around 200mm^2, which lines up not only with the Samsung 5nm node used for the Snapdragon 8 Gen1 chip but with the timeline as well, as the Snapdragon chip was released in late 2021, and the first T239 engineering samples came in April 2022. If this is true, it definitely bodes well for the system’s performance level.

One more Nintendo Switch 2 feature that has been rumored for a long time but has yet to be officially confirmed is NVIDIA DLSS support. A new patent from Nintendo, spotted by Laura Kate Dale, which was filed in the United States earlier this week, strongly suggests that the console will indeed support NVIDIA’s AI-powered upscaler, whose main goal, besides upscaling to 1080p and 4K resolutions from much input lower resolutions, would also be to keep file sizes low, considering one of the examples given in the patent itself which mentions the different file sizes between 4K resolution and 1080p resolution textures.

Another new Nintendo patent published yesterday seems to yet again verify claims the Switch 2 will use DLSS style AI upscaling (Nvidia chip) to improve output resolution for games, rather than trying to natively run them at higher internal resolutions.

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— Laura Kate Dale – LauraKBuzz (@laurakbuzz.bsky.social) January 1, 2025 at 2:40 PM

With leaks becoming more frequent and accurate, the Nintendo Switch 2 reveal is bound to be imminent. Hopefully, the Japanese company will soon finally reveal what has become one of the worst-kept secrets of the past few years.