The inevitable has happened, albeit earlier than expected; there are teardown pictures of the Switch!

A Chinese forum has some interesting information, involving Nintendo's latest console. Another person has gotten their hands on an early Switch, and they've taken the system apart, showcasing what's under the hood of the Nintendo Switch. There's not too much information on it yet, as it's all in Chinese, but here's what's been uncovered right now:

• Date code is "1629" in addition to the A2 stepping.
  
  
• This means 2016 Week 29 which is around July 2016.
  
  
• ODNX02-A2 is another code printed.
  
  • This seems to confirm that this IS a custom chip for Nintendo. Considering the Switch was codenamed Nintendo NX during its development.
• We also see PANN39.C0P?? as the other code above ODNX02-A2.
  

Notably, the Switch shares a very, very similar SoC with the 2017 edition of the Nvidia Shield TV. You can see the photo of that comparison here. More images are below.

Pictures of the a seemingly legit complete teardown of the Nintendo Switch has been leaked on a Chinese forum today. They are all below, for your visual pleasure:

Looks like more than one lucky buyer got his/her order before the scheduled release date!

Special thanks to @Mr Objection for pointing this out to us!

SOURCE

 

[Noctosphere]

do we have the amount of ram yet?
4gb is really hard to believe...
shared vram is even harder

 

[StarTrekVoyager]

do we have the amount of ram yet?
4gb is really hard to believe...
shared vram is even harder

4 GB RAM, with 3.25 GB allocated to games. On the PS4, there is 8 GB of RAM with 3.75 GB allocated to games. The OS&Co eats the rest.

 

[chrisrlink]

this is mostly useful to hb devs/mod chip companies but a good start prior to launch we have a minor head start has there ever been processor based exxploits? (assuming a flaw exist in the chipset itself thus it tmk would be a hardware flaw and unpatchable I hope if there is an early useful exploit devs would release it after the switch is in good supply and not backordered

 

[zoogie]

Some reaction tweets from some of our hacker friends:

Cool stuff: Separate daughterboard for eMMC, 2 big testpoints right next to the CPU (serial?), external CLK, external 2x DRAM

— plutoo (@qlutoo) February 19, 2017

The pics are blurry but to me it looks like it has 1GB external RAM total, the rumors said 4GB.

— plutoo (@qlutoo) February 19, 2017

Nintendo Switch: external DRAM, eMMC flash board can be unplugged... yesssssssssssss

— derrek (@derrekr6) February 19, 2017

Ughhhh, that detachable eMMC on the Switch board. Flashing that will be so much nicer.

— Shiny Quagsire (@ShinyQuagsire) February 19, 2017

 

[osaka35]

Some reaction tweets from some of our hacker friends:

1GB? That seems...unlikely.

 

[zoogie]

1GB? That seems...unlikely.

That's what I'm thinking too. They have to be 2x 2GB modules.

 

[Noctosphere]

4 GB RAM, with 2.35 GB allocated to games. On the PS4, there is 8 GB of RAM with 3.75 GB allocated to games. The OS&Co eats the rest.

well, 4gb is already low for todays specs, but 4gb of RAM AND shared VRAM, that might be awful, thats why its very hard to believbe

 

[Foxi4]

They're talking about external RAM, the rest may very well be on-die for easier GPU access. That, and this is a photo from a Chinese source with no Nintendo markings - for all we know it could be an imitation. I can't imagine Nintendo not plastering their logo all over the PCB - they always do that.

 

[Dr.Hacknik]

Hot damn, whats next; SwitchHaxx?

They're talking about external RAM, the rest may very well be on-die for easier GPU access. That, and this is a photo from a Chinese source with no Nintendo markings - for all we know it could be an imitation. I can't imagine Nintendo not plastering their logo all over the PCB - they always do that.

That's most likely due to Nintendo partnering with Nvidia. Since it had Nvidia written all over it, and there's no way this is fake. If it is, they did an excellent job.

 

[ut2k4master]

4 GB RAM, with 2.35 GB allocated to games. On the PS4, there is 8 GB of RAM with 3.75 GB allocated to games. The OS&Co eats the rest.

wasnt it 3.25gb for the switch? the ps4 number is wrong too, games can use 4.5 - 5gb of the 8gb (and more on ps4 pro)

 

[stanleyopar2000]

I fucking knew it was a highly modified SHIELD but no one in the Nintendo reddit believed me and downvoted

 

[Coto]

if those sources are true, battery can be replaced! pretty cool.

 

[foob]

Juicy stuff at last.
I'd like some LCD & controller pics.

 

[Yil]

I fucking knew it was a highly modified SHIELD but no one in the Nintendo reddit believed me and downvoted

Define heavily modified.

 

[WiiUBricker]

Looks like an X1.5

 

[Deleted User]

Woah that's neat

 

[DarthDub]

I love seeing hardware/electronics being taken apart!

 

[WiiUBricker]

So the eMMC can be detached? Maybe physical NAND swap will be possible with this.

 

[DiscostewSM]

4 GB RAM, with 2.35 GB allocated to games. On the PS4, there is 8 GB of RAM with 3.75 GB allocated to games. The OS&Co eats the rest.

Can't remember where I read it, but someone examining the hi-res images of the RAM chips were under the impression that they could be 3GB each, making it 6GB total.

 

[Pacheko17]

Can't remember where I read it, but someone examining the hi-res images of the RAM chips were under the impression that they could be 3GB each, making it 6GB total.

That would be very damn good.