The Nintendo Switch has been around for more than seven years, and the company has not yet made an official announcement about its successor. Although a new version of the gaming handheld is expected to be revealed within this fiscal year, early speculations suggest that it may not be particularly powerful.
Comparing Generations
The original Switch's hardware now feels quite outdated, especially when put next to modern gaming handhelds such as the ROG Ally and Legion Go, currently priced at $499 on Amazon. Nevertheless, the Nvidia Tegra X1 chip inside it still has the capacity to deliver a better experience. In previous tests where it was overclocked, YouTuber Naga demonstrated that the SoC could enhance gaming performance with just a little extra effort.
Overclocking Results
Naga has recently conducted another round of tests with the highly overclocked Nintendo Switch. In the complete overclocked setup, the YouTuber increased the CPU clock speed to 2,805 MHz, the GPU to 1,420 MHz, and memory to 3,200 MHz. By comparison, the stock configurations run at 2,397 MHz for the CPU, 1,228 MHz for the GPU, and 2,133 MHz for memory.
It's also important to mention that Naga upgraded the RAM from 4 GB to 8 GB. Furthermore, the tests were performed on the OLED version of the console, but similar results would be expected from a non-OLED Switch as both share the same internal hardware.
Performance Metrics
When it comes to performance gains, the stock version of the gaming handheld scored 374 in single-core and 1,098 in multi-core benchmarks on Geekbench 6. With the overclocked settings, the scores increased to 446 and 1,409, respectively. In Glmark2, the stock version achieved 3,115 points, while the fully overclocked version reached 4,723 points.
Additionally, Naga tested GravityMark, obtaining a score of 5,170 for the overclocked Switch, compared to 3,770 for the stock model. The overclocking also resulted in significantly higher scores in Cuda95 and Membench relative to the stock configuration.
Emulation Performance
An intriguing detail shared in the video is the overclocked Switch's ability to emulate GameCube games using the Dolphin emulator. Naga focused on testing Mario Kart, where the stock model runs at around 30 FPS. However, with the overclocking, the handheld can maintain around 60 FPS. For more information, you can check out the video linked below.
Naga on YouTube (video embedded above) via: Wccftech
