The authors present a performance study of the Gauss asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) switch with respect to cell loss. The Gauss switch is a recently proposed, high-performance, output buffered ATM switch that can easily be implemented. In general, if an ATM switch suffers from cell loss, the exact behavior of this cell loss as a function of parameters such as load, traffic business, internal speed, etc., has to be known. The study focuses on cell loss in the Gauss switch due to its reduced internal speed. Analytical results for the cell loss probability are provided and compared to corresponding quantities for the well-known knockout switch. The comparison shows that the Gauss switch yields significantly smaller cell loss probabilities than the knockout switch. >