Nvidia's architecture is top of the line, best of the best, even an "off the shelf part" would be fine, but I don't think the T239 is only that. I think they tweaked it hard to make sure if can get good performance without the heat/power consumption issues of the Tegra X1.
The fact is it is different from Switch 1 in that it was designed for the Switch 2 more or less. The Tegra X1 was not. And Nintendo has expressed that they were not satisfied with the Tegra X1's performance. They wanted higher performance. The fact that they're happier and more satisfied with the Tegra 239 to me suggests it was tailored more to the needs of the Switch 2.
Either that or Nvidia is simply better at making these kinds of chips today, same difference. It's good for the Switch 2 either way.
Nintendo is fortunate in a lot of ways they got grandfathered into basically a long term relationship with Nvidia when Nvidia was a lot smaller company (circa 2015) and now it just makes sense for both parties to continue on together with Switch 2. But if Nvidia was a company back then that are today (third largest company in the world by market cap after Apple and MS), odds are Nintendo probably would be using some crappier AMD chip instead today.
Nvidia doesn't really emphasize the Tegra product line any more that much, Nintendo being a vendor and the Switch being a massive success keeps them likely in that pool and lets them take things from their top of the line GPU architectures and bring it into play for Nintendo, but likely if there wasn't a pre-existing relationship with a track record of massive success, Nintendo might have to be paying Nvidia more money to get them to pull resources away just for a game console (small potatoes for Nvidia).
Last edited by Soundwave - on 04 May 2025
