Nintendo Switch 2 Overheats Playing Demanding AAA Games

[sephiroth117]

They sold more than 3 millions already, some units will exhibit issues: defective SoC, bad thermal pad/paste application, defective heatsink, rattling fans etc.

It heats more so any issue will have far more consequence here for sure

 

[Hecate91]

Hall Effect sticks are too pricey to mass produce to meet the price target.

Not really, you can get controllers with hall effect sticks in them for around $30.

The display is outdated? I don't think so. Just business to do IPS for the first version then sell an OLED ver down the line, when sales are dropping after ~2yrs.

Thats just Nintendo being Nintendo, but for the price point I would expect an OLED display.

 

[_roman_]

People claim the high nintendo build quality. I have higher bare minimum standards as those nintendo products.

45°C Room temperature should be long term measured in a special temperature room. One company I worked with had such a room. i highly doubt nintendo has any quality department or any proper engineering.

Thanks to those green banana testers ( early buyers). Always nice to read some news about certain companies with those high brand names.

Selling high volumes of course justifies such issues. I remember the days when i sat on the conveyor belt day after day to check every single high security mobile phone. That switch is not that complicated as such device.

 

[evernessince]

people have this nostalgic views of the past that isn't really grounded in reality.
Go look how much the mega drive cost at launch and adjust it for inflation, you're in for the same bad surprise your parents probably had when you asked them to buy one. I'll wait

I think it's prudent to point out that game and console pricing being high back then was justifiable because the market was both small and a risk for companies to enter.

It's entirely different from today where the market is both safe and massive. Companies can afford to do lower margins on console hardware, especially given that the consoles are also taking a cut of every game sale and even charge for online access (something you need).

Your argument here isn't the gatcha you think it is.

 

[Hyderz]

Also switch 2 uses the same cheap thermal paste that switch 1 uses.. some peeps replaced it and got better results

 

[evernessince]

no no, those are good enough to call modern today still. kek, can't expect them to put WiFi 7 chips in those things.

Intel wifi 7 modules are $10 more than wifi 6 and that's retail. I'm willing to bet that you if you adjust for inflation it's around the same price as wifi 6 modules were when the original switch launched.

Whether it's "good enough" is really not relevant, it's clear cost cutting by Nintendo despite a price increase.

Analog sticks, well, guess u go buy 3rd party controllers for better ones. Hall Effect sticks are too pricey to mass produce to meet the price target.

There are dozens of companies making quality hall effect controllers in the $26 - $50 price range.

No, they aren't too expensive to produce. They are widely available at very affordable prices. You can even find HE keyboards at $40-60 nowdays and those are typically more expensive.

The display is outdated? I don't think so. Just business to do IPS for the first version then sell an OLED ver down the line, when sales are dropping after ~2yrs.

There's no question the display is outdated.

- It's response performance is that of a circa 2003 display
- It doesn't have backlight zones
- The supported color range is subpar

Typically, a display has to be good with at least one thing, the switch 2's display is good with nothing.

 

[trsttte]

This is entirely Nintendo's fault for not bothering to pay a small premium for a node shrink to 5nm. I genuinely have no idea why they didn't, they're going to earn a bazillion $ from $90 games, just shrink the margins on the console a bit so it can have decent power efficiency.

Not just a node shrink (which some news mention might have happened) but also a more modern core architecture. The T239 chip used in the swicth 2 is based on the automotive T234 from the jetson orin platform launched in 2021 - it's truly custom and not just a rebadge of the T234 but even on 2021 that thing wasn't new, otherwise it wouldn't be on the automotive market.

The Playstation and Xbox used Zen2 from 2019 in 2020, 1 year old technology I guess it's fine with the timelines involved in these products. The switch is peddling more than 5 years old technology, that's pretty ridiculous.

 

[Nhonho]

Nintendo should release a console version of the NS2 without screen and with larger heatsinks and better internal ventilation..

 

[wolf]

pushing back on the "Inflation" argument that gets tossed around a lot on tech boards

It doesn't just have to be one thing, it can be, and is, contributed to by inflation.

 

[phints]

Nintendo should release a console version of the NS2 without screen and with larger heatsinks and better internal ventilation..

Doesn't need that crap, it just needs TSMC 3N. Just look at the huge perf/watt jump Nvidia had going from RTX 30 series to 40 series (Samsung 8N to TSMC 5N).

While Nintendo is at it put on an proper OLED display, the LCD it ships with is appalling.

Since we're on the subject, just get a Steam Deck OLED not this trash.

 

[Jtuck9]

It would be interesting to see their margins...

 

[Bomby569]

The Sega Mega Drive used advanced hardware for the time, as did many consoles, you also owned physical copies of your games.
There isn't any excuse for the high price of the switch 2, it's pure greed from the company that charges you over and over again to play the same classic titles but will hardware ban you for running ROMs you own.

so it really wasn't "made as cheap as possible" or "sold at mad prices" was it?

 

[sLowEnd]

Could this be the Samsung 8nm process at fault that Nvidia had trouble with for the RTX 3000?

You're right that the Samsung 8nm process used for Ampere isn't known for great efficiency. But, it's still possible to engineer an appropriate cooling solution despite that. At the end of the day it's still "this heatsink needs to handle X watts of heat"

If it's overheating, then that's entirely on Nintendo for not designing the console with a cooling solution that's fit for purpose.

 

[Jtuck9]

You're right that the Samsung 8nm process used for Ampere isn't known for great efficiency. But, it's still possible to engineer an appropriate cooling solution despite that. At the end of the day it's still "this heatsink needs to handle X watts of heat"

If it's overheating, then that's entirely on Nintendo for not designing the console with a cooling solution that's fit for purpose.

I'm wondering what sort of effect a different display might have on top of that, i.e. an OLED.

 

[Event Horizon]

I'm wondering what sort of effect a different display might have on top of that, i.e. an OLED.

Switching to OLED could be huge. The Steam Deck's OLED panel was thinner than the LCD panel and the extra space allowed them to improve the cooling system (they also upgraded the wifi and battery, and gave the APU a node shrink). It can absolutely reduce temps and fan noise but it will be completely up to Nintendo.

 

[Jtuck9]

Switching to OLED could be huge. The Steam Deck's OLED panel was thinner than the LCD panel and the extra space allowed them to improve the cooling system (they also upgraded the wifi and battery, and gave the APU a node shrink). It can absolutely reduce temps and fan noise but it will be compY

I believe the recent Dell Alienware Panels use graphite sheets.

 

[TheGeekn°72]

Not really, you can get controllers with hall effect sticks in them for around $30.

There are dozens of companies making quality hall effect controllers in the $26 - $50 price range.
No, they aren't too expensive to produce. They are widely available at very affordable prices. You can even find HE keyboards at $40-60 nowdays and those are typically more expensive.

I don't have a whole lotta hours clocked in with it yet but my 45€ 8BitDo Pro2 is darn impressive, it feels better quality than my DualSense and gets hall effect sticks, can't wait to try it out more in sims or FPSes

Intel wifi 7 modules are $10 more than wifi 6 and that's retail. I'm willing to bet that you if you adjust for inflation it's around the same price as wifi 6 modules were when the original switch launched.
Whether it's "good enough" is really not relevant, it's clear cost cutting by Nintendo despite a price increase.

I gotta ask, do devices like the Switch and other such portable devices need more than 6/6E ? I got a Wifi 7 AP because I'm streaming VR from my desktop so I do enjoy the extra bandwidth and lower latency that comes with the tech but I don't really see handhelds getting significant benefit from it...

There's no question the display is outdated.

- It's response performance is that of a circa 2003 display
- It doesn't have backlight zones
- The supported color range is subpar

Typically, a display has to be good with at least one thing, the switch 2's display is good with nothing.

of all the things I expected to be bad about the Switch 2, I didn't think Nintendo would put a crap screen on it...
Still, makes you wonder how they managed to make the cooling trash like it is when x86 handhelds with otherwise more powerful SoCs can work it out just fine

 

[Rightness_1]

What should anyone expect from cheap junk with a CPU/GPU from 10 years ago that's been overclocked too far? nGreedia and ARM, just avoid.

Seriously with the awful and anaemic hardware this things got, the awful screen, and the utterly insane rip-off game prices, this thing should have been priced at $150-$200 max.

 

[JustBenching]

What should anyone expect from cheap junk with a CPU/GPU from 10 years ago that's been overclocked too far? nGreedia and ARM, just avoid.

Seriously with the awful and anaemic hardware this things got, the awful screen, and the utterly insane rip-off game prices, this thing should have been priced at $150-$200 max.

Both switch 1 and switch 2 are heavily underclocked actually. Thats why they are by far, with nothing coming even close in the handheld space, thinnest devices in existence. Why do we have to spit toxic nonsense just because nvidia is invloved? Stop it, its not healthy man, chill out.

 

[Prime2515102]

people have this nostalgic views of the past that isn't really grounded in reality.
Go look how much the mega drive cost at launch and adjust it for inflation, you're in for the same bad surprise your parents probably had when you asked them to buy one. I'll wait

I can't imagine who the people were that bought the NEO-GEO or the 3DO. Those were upwards of $1600 in today's money, and NEO-GEO games were $740-ish to $980-ish each. Yikes.

 

[Bomby569]

I can't imagine who the people were that bought the NEO-GEO or the 3DO. Those were upwards of $1600 in today's money, and NEO-GEO games were $740-ish to $980-ish each. Yikes.

they saw sega and nintendo printing money and they all went insane. It only ended when the playstation came out, someone correct me if i'm wrong.
There always someone to buy anything, for more insane it is.

 

[Lycanwolfen]

Trying to fit that much power is such a small package. One little tiny heat pipe to cool something that powerfull. Look at sony over the year they really tested things before leaving factory quality control was top on sony mind. Now Microsoft though when they rushed the xbox 360 to market did not use much quality control on the cooling side. I remember taking apart a xbox 360 that was having red rings of death when playing a game and just opening it up you could see the major problem simple common sense went out the window when cooling was involved. There was a heatsink and the fan was an inch away from it and blowing out. I did a temp test running game heatsink was reaching temps of 80 to 90c. I reversed the fan and air flow to blow directly over the heatsink did a temp test in a hard game 30c and never got any hotter. Really MS was stupid on that one.

Nintendo should have tested hard game play before leaving factory.

they saw sega and nintendo printing money and they all went insane. It only ended when the playstation came out, someone correct me if i'm wrong.
There always someone to buy anything, for more insane it is.

I can't imagine who the people were that bought the NEO-GEO or the 3DO. Those were upwards of $1600 in today's money, and NEO-GEO games were $740-ish to $980-ish each. Yikes.

I owned a 3D0 panasonic back in the 90's Not much games but listening to a CD with that color effect was awesome if you were high.

 

[Bomby569]

Trying to fit that much power is such a small package. One little tiny heat pipe to cool something that powerfull. Look at sony over the year they really tested things before leaving factory quality control was top on sony mind.

Sony always were a hardware company, they just branched out their business. MS and Nintendo are not and never were hardware companies, their business is software, and do hardware as a necessity. Nintendo wants to control it's ecosystem entirely, and MS didn't want to lose ground to Linux.

Nintendo famously created the Playstation by double crossing Sony with the dvd thing.

 

[Prime2515102]

I owned a 3D0 panasonic back in the 90's Not much games but listening to a CD with that color effect was awesome if you were high.

That, and Road Rash were my thing (wasn't my 3DO though).

 

[mikesg]

I want to say dust in the fan but it's more like thin economic margins.

Thin margins on binning an old 8nm node.
Thin margins on turning up the TDP while using a small fan.
Thin margins on airflow by using a small case.

What would $25 more dollars have bought