Latest Switch tech details, including new mode that boosts mobile clocks by 25 percent

Digital Foundry published a lengthy report about the technical details surrounding Switch today. The piece is highlighted by the reveal of a new, optional handheld mode that boosts mobile clocks by 25 percent.

Here’s the rundown:

– Digital Foundry says Switch’s “build quality and design is excellent”
– 4310mAh, 16Whr battery takes up a good portion of the internal space
– Apparently “third party replacements by the end-user shouldn’t be too difficult”
– Switch is held together by screws
– Detachable microSD card reader
– This seems to sit on top of the heat-shield when the unit is first opened
– 32GB of eMMC NAND storage also seems to occupy its own mini-daughterboard, as opposed to being soldered directly onto the mainboard
– This offers Nintendo the chance to more easily produce premium SKUs with more generous storage capacity, while retaining the same mainboard
– Heat pipe siphons heat away from the Nvidia Tegra processor
– Active cooling is available to stop the processor overheating, ensuring consistent performance
– Seems to be a more lightly modified X1, still on the 20nm process
– Nintendo has added to the available performance modes available to developers in a recent update
– This bumps the mobile GPU power
– A new ‘NX add-on’ note introduces an expanded table of operating modes

– Developers can opt for a 384MHz GPU clock – a straight 25 per cent uplift in compute power compared to the default 307.2MHz option
– Both frequencies are available to developers in what it calls ‘normal mode’ operation
– Users can’t choose between them
– Adjustments have been made to available memory bandwidth
– 1600MHz option is now only available in ‘boost mode’ (when Switch is docked)
– 1600MHz support in mobile mode is deprecated
– Devs can opt to run handheld modes while in the dock too
– Documentation has no new modes for docked performance
– Not all games will use the 384MHz GPU mobile mode
– 307.2MHz remains the default option
– The expanded table above still shows memory frequencies in line with Tegra X1’s capabilities and a look at the Chinese Switch teardown shows two Samsung LPDDR4 modules in parallel, in exactly the same configuration used in Shield Android TV
– The only difference seems to come from the capacity of the RAM chips
– Shield uses two 1.5GB modules
– Switch ups that to a 2x 2GB configuration for 4GB of total system memory
– Configuration suggests a 64-bit memory bus
– Switch has a processor that looks like a Tegra X1, with specs from Nintendo in line with X1, and power consumption that fits the characteristics of the chip’s 20nm fabrication process
– Digital Foundry says Switch is “by far and away the most powerful handheld console ever made, backed by a dedicated API designed to extract maximum performance from the hardware”
– Gulf in performance between mobile and docked configurations is considerable

This is just a summary of Digital Foundry’s report. You can find even more information here.