Nintendo Switch 4K Upgrade Still Have Hopes

In the teardown of the USB-C dock of the new Nintendo Switch OLED, an HDMI 2.0 port is revealed, which keeps the hope of 4K suitability and a possible Pro version of the hybrid console alive. However, the Nvidia chip is currently the bottleneck.

While Nintendo denies all rumors about a Nintendo Switch Pro with next-gen characters, the YouTuber Nintendo Prime has found a major change that suggests a new console or an upgrade of existing Switch models. When dismantling the improved switch dock, which is supplied with the new OLED revision, it came across an HDMI 2.0 interface that could theoretically enable 4K resolution at a refresh rate of up to 60 FPS.

It may take some time to enter 4K

The currently used USB-C dock of the first and second Nintendo Switch generation, however, only has the HDMI 1.4 standard. The console could theoretically also play 4K content, but only at a maximum of 30 FPS. Although HDMI 2.0 technology has been some years old since it was specified in September 2013, it is considered the first multimedia interface with official support for High Dynamic Range (HDR), which increases the quality of the game even in the current Full HD resolution could improve. This is also supported by the compatible cable that comes with the Nintendo Switch OLED model.

According to Nintendo Prime, the ARM-based chip inside the dock is unable to produce the power to upscale the image. The Nintendo Switch would have to take over this job itself, which, however, has a bottleneck with a performance of only 512 gigaflops (GFLOP) thanks to the optimized Nvidia Tegra X1 chip. The Nintendo Switch is therefore dependent on new hardware, which, for example, can handle Nvidia’s upscaling technology Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS) with artificial intelligence.

The foundation stone has already been laid by Nintendo in the USB-C dock. But it should be a few more months before the “Switch Pro” is presented.