Oh wow, so imagine this: Just a couple of weeks after Nintendo dropped the Switch 2, and suddenly, bam! These Chinese resellers are hustling the actual motherboards from the production lines for like, $120 on places like Goofish. If you’re like me, wondering how on earth they got their hands on those, you’re not alone. These boards, they look almost identical to the official versions. They’ve got these marker stamps—really techy stuff. Although, they’re not sporting all those fancy metal shields. Guess that keeps things, uh, somewhat exciting?
And okay, here’s where it gets interesting—or, I don’t know—maybe just a fun fact. So Nintendo in Japan slaps a $175 price tag for fixing or swapping out these PCBs out of warranty. But these resellers? Way cheaper. Of course, the whole thing about Nintendo having some kind of ID check on each component… if they do, well, that could be a bummer for anyone hoping to do some DIY repairs. Love a challenge, anyone?
Oh! Before I forget, I came across this random tweet, like, not even sure what it was really saying. Anyway.
Imagine piecing together a Switch 2 with one of these boards and other bits and bobs. Sounds epic, right? But with parts so scarce, more like a pipe dream. Nvidia shoved their Tegra T239 SoC in there. If you’re into specs, it’s rocking 8 Arm Cortex-A78C cores, plus an Ampere-based GPU with 1,536 CUDA cores. Some techie chatter says it’s built on Samsung’s older 8nm and 10nm tech. Hey, oldies but goodies, maybe?
And get this—a durability test had some hardcore folks smashing a Switch 2 with pliers 50 times! The screen survived that battering but folded when GameStop folks tried stapling receipts to the box. I mean, seriously? Before, iFixit called the original Switch a repair star with an 8/10 score. Torpedoed that to a 4/10 later and now Switch 2’s at 3/10. Yikes, right? Bet most folks will cruise through until warranties die or Nintendo says “nope” to fixing it.
So anyhow, you might wanna keep tabs on Tom’s Hardware on Google News if it’s your jam. They seem to have all the juicy stuff, the reviews, the works. You can hit Follow if that’s your thing—if not, hey, thanks for sticking around!