THIS IS A RUMOR

Keep that in mind.

Someone in Japan may have just leaked some final specs for the NVidia architecture inside Nintendo Switch. It wasn't too long ago that we got a supposed Dev kit leak about the current specs in those units at that time that has had some outside confirmations, but now we have something that appears on the surface to be a much more tantalizing prospect towards the final spec sheet. According to Nishikawa Zenji, who apparently is a really famous Japanese journalist who knew about the PlayStation 4 Pro long before it was unveiled and simply just in the planning stages, the Nintendo Switch will likely be based upon the Pascal "Parker" architecture.

For those unfamiliar with those terms, Pascal is the actual architecture used in the 1050+ range of GPU cards (their latest GPUs, and would line up with NVidia's own press release) and the fact "Parker" is mentioned is a reference to the yet to be released Tegra X2. So, what we can infer (while having no exact specs) is that this is a custom Tegra X2 chip feature Pascal architecture. While this doesn't really give us a full hint at what that means, here is what is currently known about the Tegra X2:

Parker delivers 50 to 100 percent higher multi-core CPU performance than other mobile processors(2). This is thanks to its CPU architecture consisting of two next-generation 64-bit Denver CPU cores (Denver 2.0) paired with four 64-bit ARM Cortex A57 CPUs. These all work together in a fully coherent heterogeneous multi-processor configuration.

The Denver 2.0 CPU is a seven-way superscalar processor supporting the ARM v8 instruction set and implements an improved dynamic code optimization algorithm and additional low-power retention states for better energy efficiency. The two Denver cores and the Cortex A57 CPU complex are interconnected through a proprietary coherent interconnect fabric.

A new 256-core Pascal GPU in Parker delivers the performance needed to run advanced deep learning inference algorithms for self-driving capabilities. And it offers the raw graphics performance and features to power multiple high-resolution displays, such as cockpit instrument displays and in-vehicle infotainment panels.

It's notable this comes out to about 1.5 TFLOPS of performance, which is more than the Xbox One but less than the PlayStation 4. However, the journalist notes that it is likely the performance will be knocked down to 1 TFLOP in order to have a longer battery life when taken on the go. This would also be the first real suggestion we have had that performance is gimped purposefully to make the device mobile, though it may still be possible to increase performance when docked to support the 1080p resolution natively, ramping up an internal fan for cooling. Even still, at 1 TFLOP that makes the difference between the Nintendo Switch and the Xbox One about the same as the the difference between the Xbox One and the PlayStation 4.

So it will have a slightly better performance than the XBOne when docked, and slightly above WiiU when on the go? I can live with that. I just hope the architecture is not too dificult to port games to.

I really hope Nintendo ditches the A57 cores on their chips.

1.5TFlops?! I can't get hyped! I can't!

If this is true maybe it could do 1 TFLOPSwhen used as a handheld, but when placed in the dock it could do 1.5 TFLOPS

Not a leak, not a rumour but poor reporting from an unreputable fansite.

Some Japanese journalist says he thinks Switch will use a custom Tegra X2 ( so does most of Vgc) and just like us, he has no source.

Tegra x2 is is only 1.5Tflops when it's specs are measured in FP16, it's FP32 which we care about and that's pits it at 750Gflops. It's pretty much half as "powerful" as tge Xbox Ones GPU

"According to Nishikawa Zenji, who apparently is a really famous Japanese journalist who knew about the PlayStation 4 Pro long before it was unveiled and simply just in the planning stages"

Seems like he has some sort of foot inside the industry - but yeah, this could be either a rumor, a leak or speculation for all I know. Still, I think this lends a little more credence towards 1.5Tflops inside the Switch. And like I said in the OP, I have no idea what so ever what any of this means. Is there any possibility of this being close to the power of X1 when docked? Didn't sound like it on your comment though

God FP16 is goofing up the internet. We had the ps4pro at 8.4 TF and now this... It is 1.5TF in FP16 which is used in some specific situations but in most situations, FP32 is used so it is nonsense to try to spin it that way. There is a reason why FP32 has been used as the standard as far as TF performance goes and not FP16...

Edit: Reworded better

I just love the site's name "Zelda Informer"

Yeah, hate to say it, but this is nonsense.

Beyond being a rumor that's a few weeks old, the RUMORED 1.5 teraflop number is misleading, since it supposedly runs at FP16, while it's capable of FP32 at only .75 teraflops. I don't know anything about any of this, but at the very least I know that this doesn't put it in the same league as Xbox One.

On top of that, it's a CUSTOM chip, so the specs of the Tegra X2 doesn't necessarily apply to the Switch anyway.

As someone who's pretty illiterate on the subject, I sympathize with people who misreport this stuff. Computer specs are hard to accurately put into layman terms, since even RAW NUMBERS can be misleading. But yeah, nothing new here.