Could the Nintendo Switch 2 compete with the PS4 Pro?

With Nintendo Switch 2 hardware leaks out in the wild, one question has consistently popped up: how powerful will it truly be? Senior Editor at The Verge, Tom Warren expressed his disbelief in the ongoing consensus that Nintendo's next-generation platform will be as powerful as the last-generation PS4 Pro. This was rebutted by John Linneman of the YouTube channel Digital Foundry under the replies.

Linneman suggested that the system is, on the contrary, likely to leap ahead in many factors due to being a more modern device even though it lags in a few others compared to Sony's last-generation beefed-up console. So where does the Nintendo Switch 2 truly stand in this debate?

Note: This article is speculation based on existing leaks. Things may change as new and official information about the Nintendo Switch 2 tech is revealed.

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The Nintendo Switch 2 seems to be a fairly competitive console even against current platforms

While that is an interesting question, expectations need to be managed bearing various factors in mind. For one, we don't know the full system capabilities due to missing data such as hardware clock speeds. Secondly, as per leaked tech details, this is a handheld system first and foremost, just like its predecessor.

That said, fans expecting raw PS5 or even Xbox Series S performance will be disappointed. After all, the Nintendo Switch 2 is a far smaller device that also has to contend with heat management, power limits, and other factors that the home consoles do not have to.

Now, could it compete with the last-gen PS4 Pro when docked? All factors point toward a resounding "yes" as an answer. To put things into perspective, here is a basic rundown of the leaked specs for Nintendo Switch 2:

• CPU: Octa-core ARM Cortex A78C processor
• RAM: 12 GB LPDDR5X at 120 GB/s and 7,500 MT/s
• GPU: Custom Nvidia Ampere architecture with 1,536 CUDA cores, 12 RT (Ray-Tracing) Cores, and 48 Tensor Cores (plus some features ported back from the succeeding Nvidia Ada Lovelace architecture)

To compare, here is what the PS4 Pro is made of:

• CPU: Octa-core AMD Jaguar processor at 2.1 GHz
• RAM: 8 GB GDDR5 at 218 GB/s
• GPU: Custom AMD Radeon GCN architecture with 32 CUs (Compute Units) at 911 MHz

While its clock speeds are unknown currently, it is unlikely that the system will exceed anything above 1-1.5 GHz due to concerns for battery life and heat generated. Despite that, the 2020 Nintendo Switch 2 CPU is leagues ahead of the outdated Jaguar processor from 2012, which was primarily used in notebook laptops at the time.

The next-gen hardware promises the biggest hardware leap we have seen from Nintendo in quite some time (Image via Nintendo)

Coming to the RAM, while the PS4 Pro has better bandwidth, the Nintendo Switch 2 has it beat in terms of amount and to top it off, the hybrid system has a lot more tricks up its sleeve. The GPU is also fairly modern as it is built atop the Nvidia Ampere architecture that drives the RTX 3000 series GPUs.

This coupled with custom graphics feature sets puts it generations ahead of the PS4 Pro and toe-to-toe with the PS5. The Nintendo Switch retains all the bells and whistles of modern Nvidia graphics cards, including the Ray-Tracing cores for raytraced graphics techniques and Tensor Cores for AI upscaling using Nvidia's proprietary DLSS (Deep Learning Super Sampling) tech for resolutions above 1080p when docked.

It will even support Mesh Shaders, which are absent on the PS4 Pro, allowing for more advanced games, such as Alan Wake 2. This is on top of other bonuses, like much faster storage and a dedicated File Decompression Engine for downscaling game file sizes, which in turn relieves overhead from the CPU.

On paper, things look promising for the Nintendo Switch 2 on a hardware level. The next question in the line is what concessions have been made to make all of this feasible and how well the end product functions. Given recent rumors of a January 2025 reveal, we may not have to wait much longer to find out.