Rumours of Nintendo's next console — the one that we are still preliminarily referring to as the 'Switch 2' — have continued to come thick and fast this year and, if they are to be believed, all signs are pointing towards an announcement and release in 2024. Many of these rumours are built on hearsay, but the tech experts over at Digital Foundry have been digging into something more concrete: the chip that it is believed sits at the heart of the Switch successor.

Of course, none of this is official for the moment (the amount of official 'Switch 2' news out there wouldn't fill the back of a postage stamp), but Digital Foundry states that the chip in question, dubbed Nvidia's T239, is almost certainly tied to a Nintendo project due to how it continues to support the "console-specific graphics API" that was used on the original Switch's Tegra chip. In short, it's all rather interesting.

But what can this chip actually do in real-world performance terms when it comes to gaming? In the above video, DF's Richard Leadbetter explains a handful of potential features and even shows what they might look like running on upgraded Switch-style hardware, playing titles like Death Stranding, Cyberpunk 2077 and A Plague Tale Requiem as examples.

We are looking at a chip that can use DLSS which could be used for upscaling image quality to 1080p and possibly even higher, although, as the video explains, there's an important output resolution / DLSS cost payoff to consider. There is also potentially "enough bandwidth for full HDMI 2.1 support, assuming Nintendo uses it."

Digital Foundry's report also notes that the T239 chip "has the hardware to facilitate ultra-fast loading" — which might point towards some legitimacy in the previous rumour about a closed developer demonstration that saw the hardware running Breath of the Wild at 4K 60fps — though even this is going to be reliant on more details that the experts are yet to find.

For those who are interested in the internal goings-on of Nintendo's next console, the latest Digital Foundry video has all of the information that you could possibly need — and the corresponding article over on Eurogamer has all the details in written form, too.

Yes, it's still all rumour talk at the moment, but those rumours are becoming more detailed by the day. Come on, Nintendo, please give us something official soon. Pleaseeee...

What do you make of Digital Foundry's T239 investigation? Can you see the potential of it for the 'Switch 2'? Let us know in the comments.

[source youtube.com, via eurogamer.net]