Digital Foundry's analysis of Nintendo Switch specs has raised some questions about the console, as well as giving an indication of the performance differences between the docked and undocked versions of the console.
The report works on specs that have been given to developers, and questions were immediately raised regarding HDMI 1.4, since the Tegra X1 is capable of HDMI 2.0. The X1 has 16 ROPs too, so it also raises the question as to why the pixel fill rate is running at 90%.
What is more important, however, is that the leaked specifications don't give exact details on the CPU and GPU speeds, and instead talk about the speeds on Nvidia's Shield. The analysis says that, if the Switch uses the 20nm technology like the Shield does, the clock speeds won't be feasible for a small, handheld, battery-powered console like the Switch. What this means is that, considering the Switch has two performance configurations, and there is no additional hardware in the dock itself, the docked version will allow it to run much faster without having to worry about things like battery power.
CPU power on the Switch, however, looks to be consistent, with the cores running at 1020 MHz in both configurations. The memory controller runs at 1600 MHz when docked, but drops to 1331 when undocked, though.
The analysis says that GPU is the most detrimental factor, however, with clock speeds lowered even when docked, lower even than the Nvidia Shield. What's more is that Nintendo has decreased the GPU clocks to achieve targets in terms of thermal and battery life, meaning that at 307.2 MHz, the console will run at 40% of the clock speed when undocked compared to docked. Developers can, however, reduced clock speed when docked to match this, however.
Is this a deciding factor for you?