NVIDIA Unveils New ARM-Based AI/Graphics Superchip Coming to Windows PCs and Laptops (axios.com)
- Reference: 0183520058
- News link: https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/26/06/01/0528211/nvidia-unveils-new-arm-based-aigraphics-superchip-coming-to-windows-pcs-and-laptops
- Source link: https://www.axios.com/2026/05/30/nvidia-microsoft-pcs-ai-surface-dell
Nvidia's CEO unveiled a new ARM-based "N1X processor made alongside Microsoft," [2]reports CNBC , that "will be incorporated into a new RTX Spark superchip, debuting in the fall on a fresh line of Windows PCs from Microsoft, Dell, HP, ASUS, Lenovo and MSI."
[3]More details from Engadget :
> It was only a matter of time before NVIDIA released a powerful system-on-a-chip (SOC) to take on [4]AMD's Ryzen AI Max and Qualcomm's [5]latest Snapdragon X2 chips . At Computex today, NVIDIA unveiled the RTX Spark, a "superchip" meant to give both laptops and small desktops fast AI and graphics performance...
>
> The company says it offers 1 petaflop of AI computing power, and that it has 6,144 Blackwell RTX cores and 20 Mediatek Arm CPU cores. NVIDIA claims it's similar to the RTX 5070 laptop GPU but with much lower power draw. RTX Spark also has an NPU that's fast enough to be part of Microsoft's Copilot+ initiative, which requires a 40 TOPS NPU, but NVIDIA says it's mainly touting the tensor cores as part of the chip's Blackwell GPU for AI performance. RTX Spark's GPU can directly draw on the chip's large pool of unified memory, which can span from 16GB to 128GB, and the chip itself can use anywhere from single-digit wattage up to 80W...
>
> NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang positions RTX Spark as a complete reinvention of the PC, eventually turning them more into devices meant for AI agents than manual human input... NVIDIA has been working together with Microsoft for "several years" while designing the RTX Spark, according to NVIDIA representatives... In a blog post provided to media, Microsoft head of Windows and devices, Pavan Davuluri, noted that the company optimized Windows 11's workload profile scheduling for the RTX Spark. "Whether you're checking your email or running an agent locally to debug code, the Windows scheduler on RTX Spark will ensure you get the best performance and efficiency out of your CPU," he wrote.
[1] https://www.axios.com/2026/05/30/nvidia-microsoft-pcs-ai-surface-dell
[2] https://www.cnbc.com/2026/05/31/nvidias-new-chip-to-power-fresh-line-of-windows-laptops-by-dell-hp.html
[3] https://www.engadget.com/2184558/nvidia-rtx-spark-chip-windows-pcs/
[4] https://www.engadget.com/computing/amds-new-ryzen-ai-max-chips-and-ryzen-7-9850x3d-court-desktop-enthusiasts-at-ces-2026-033000587.html
[5] https://www.engadget.com/computing/qualcomm-says-its-new-snapdragon-chips-are-the-fastest-and-most-efficient-for-windows-pcs-084535090.html
Is this whatever they were teasing? (Score:4, Insightful)
Seems...underwhelming.
Re:Is this whatever they were teasing? (Score:5, Interesting)
Well nVidia and Microsoft are excited about it which is a good indicator that consumers should not be.
On the other hand, depending on how the real-world non-AI performance shakes out, it's just another nail in the coffin for Intel.
> RTX Spark's GPU can directly draw on the chip's large pool of unified memory, which can span from 16GB to 128GB
Wonder how they're gonna get the RAM (presumably LPDDR5) for their laptops made when virtually every fab has pivoted to making HBM for datacenters.
Re: (Score:3)
By the time this launches into an actual product the rest of the datacentre bullshit will be over too. OpenAI has already cancelled Stargate (which was intending to consume 40% of Sk Hynix's production). Microsoft cancelled project Nova, along with about 2GW (because we measure datacentres in power consumption these days) of projects across the world. As of right now 50% of AI datacentre projects have either been indefinitely delayed or outright cancelled.
Re: (Score:2)
Fine by me. Where I work we just had to spend a down payment on a house to put 512GB of registered ECC DDR5 and 128TB of SSD into a box for virtualizing federated storage chaos testing for edge-cluster products. The same build 6 months ago would have been half the price, if not less.
It's good that our customers have very deep pockets, because we've already had to increase our (thankfully unannounced) list price on our new offering by almost 50% due to RAM and storage cost.
A world where Micron has a $1T ma
Windows? (Score:5, Interesting)
If I'm going to go through the trouble of changing CPU architectures then why in the hell would I stay on Windows?
Re: (Score:3)
Because Nvidia can't write a Linux driver worth a fuck to save their lives.
I have two Zen3 PCs, a desktop with Nvidia graphics and a MiniPC which of course has AMD graphics. The MiniPC is flawless. The desktop has issues resuming from suspend — occasionally gives no graphics, switching to a VT sometimes works, sometimes restarting X will graphics working again but sometimes not, suspend with a graphics-heavy application running and come back and it's usually hung and graphics won't work correctly unti
Re:Windows? (Score:4, Informative)
AMD graphics are stable if you use the open source drivers, but if you need their closed drivers for whatever reason (eg opencl) then they are extremely unstable and much worse than nvidia.
Of course if you're going to arm then apple is currently about the best option.
Re: (Score:3)
> Of course if you're going to arm then apple is currently about the best option.
Not going to ARM is an even better option right now. Let them get that ecosystem sorted out so that every platform doesn't need a special snowflake bootloader first.
Re: (Score:2)
Indeed. And especially not one signed by MicroSlop.
Re: (Score:2)
The core reason why I have only bought AMD graphics cards for a long time now.
Re: (Score:2)
> Because Nvidia can't write a Linux driver worth a fuck to save their lives.
I'll grant that the situation for Linux is worse than with Windows. But, they seem to have a LOT of trouble writing Windows drivers that don't suck donkey dicks. They may be good at hardware, but their software sucks!
Re: (Score:2)
Nobody does AI on Linux so it makes so much more sense to keep playing three legged racing with Microsoft tied to you. NOT.
NVidia has always been tied to MSFT and their Linux software has always looked like it was done by a single NVidia employee after hours in the basement office.
Besides, Windows is sooo 'yesterday' no matter how much Microsoft pays Qualcomm or NVidia to tie themselves up with.
LoB
Re: (Score:2)
Have you checked SC Top 500 lately?
[1]https://top500.org/system/1803... [top500.org]
[1] https://top500.org/system/180307/
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Well, first you have to be stupid. That covers about 80% of the human race in some form. Second, you must be technologically incompetent. And then, you must be in awe of Microsofts dominance, while having no understanding of the abysmal (and getting worse) product quality they deliver. I would say that for the time being, this may be a product they can actually sell.
Re: (Score:2)
> If I'm going to go through the trouble of changing CPU architectures then why in the hell would I stay on Windows?
For the same reason you're currently on Windows. With other OSes available for your CPU architecture clearly the architecture has nothing to do with your choice.
Re: (Score:2)
Because some businesses still require software that only works on Windows, and therefore will require some cooperation from the publisher of Windows?
GB10 rebranding? (Score:2)
These N1x have conspiciously similar specs to the Nvidia GB10 sans networking. Is GB10 selling a lot worse than expected? I understood that Apple's M5 may be better value for money for most use cases - if you don't need high speed networking.
Linux? (Score:1)
Linux?
P as in Personal as in Affordable ? (Score:4, Interesting)
The P in PC means Personal which means affordable for the average man.
I suspect these devices will not be.
Luckily, the open models running on actually affordable hardware are good enough for most uses by now and Nvidia's multi-trillion days are over.
The AI bust can't come soon enough.
Re: (Score:1)
> The P in PC means Personal which means affordable for the average man.
Not exactly. Personal originally meant "not shared with another person". Originally, it meant a computer only you have access to, only you install and run software, and only you store and retrieve data.
Re: (Score:2)
They seem to be positioning these as ubiquious computing devices, i.e. the computing toaster Steve Jobs was questing after, starting way back in the late '70s and early '80s.
These will not be stand alone computing devices but likely tied to a network and corporate control systems.
That the corporation(s) and/or gov't will be monitoring everything done on the system goes without saying.
If anything these will probably be the death of personal computing.
Re: (Score:2)
Forgot to add: you won't buy them but rent them, like a cable box.
Most non-computing folks will see them as Alexa-Plus systems that they don't have to worry about updates and other stupid computer geek chores.
Future failure (Score:2)
Hopefully this is the wakeup call after it sells like garbage. Nobody can afford a new computer. Few people can handle multiple computers of that wattage in their environment, be it home or work. Nobody wants AI garbage holding onto all their data and spying on them. I can't wait to see their stock price after this fails.
Re: (Score:1)
Hmm. Good point. People would be stupid enough to buy this, but they probably cannot afford to. Incidentally, I just got one, but I am in Europe and our economy is not systematically being destroyed.
Re: (Score:2)
> I just got one, but I am in Europe and our economy is not systematically being destroyed.
How did you "just get" something that has yet to be released?
Super? (Score:2)
Is this really a top performing game device, or just a thin client to sell cloud SAAS crap? I'm not always attached to the internet and I'm not interested in renting my compute.
Re: (Score:2)
It's probably going to be pretty credible, though they are thinking more 'openclaw' and less 'gaming'.
Though I despise everyone playing around with nVidia's "Superchip" terminology.
Over Hyped so far (Score:5, Informative)
I have a pair of Nvidia GB10 and much of Nvidia's claims are overblown. More importantly Nvidia has rather poor support for this chip (SM 121) at the moment, so unless you are highly skilled at running vLLM or whatever, you will probably be disappointed. Give it some time to cook.
Why not risc-v? (Score:3)
Nvidia could both contribute to and use risc-v technology!
Re: (Score:3)
Even that architecture is getting sucked into the AI bullshit. This was just released last week and it's the fastest board so far. [1]https://cdn-resource.spacemit.... [spacemit.com]
[1] https://cdn-resource.spacemit.com/file/chip/K3/K3_brief_en.pdf
Re: (Score:2)
Then they wouldn't be cooperating on marketing with Microsoft.
If you have a NVidia GPU that is no older than five years then it already contains a number of RISC-V microcontrollers doing various tasks, and so will this chip.
Re: Why not risc-v? (Score:2)
I think it's more Microsoft needing Nvidia that the other way around.
Re: (Score:2)
To what end (for the consumer)? NVIDIA is targeting a PC so they are targeting the most commonly used OS (Windows) which has a perfectly functioning ARM build + x86 emulation layer already.
There's a LOT more work in doing something with RiscV than ARM right now as the latter has proven itself in software support already.
"Personal Computing Devices" (Score:2)
They want to replace PCs with PCDs (Personal Computing Devices) that will have to be tied to the net (i.e. rented like a cable box) to work and monitors everything you do on them.
Oh yeah, they'll let you plot and goon on the boxes, just so they have dirt on you for control down the line.
I wonder how long it'll be before real computers are restricted to only licensed (gov't / corporate approved) individuals? Maybe we make it to 2040 but pessimist me says they'll try to start controlling PCs before 2035.
Reinvention?? - sick of Jensen Huang's hyperbole (Score:3)
> NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang positions RTX Spark as a complete reinvention of the PC
No, it's not a re-invention. It's a nice upgrade, based on specs alone, but will likely be priced at conventional levels. It honestly just looks like you're catching up to Apple Silicon....which is a very good thing...but no, having a decent GPU at a lower price doesn't fit the definition of "re-invention."...nor revolution...nor do I see any way this will change personal computing. Any updates to how we use computers would have happened regardless. Unless they sell these for less than $100 or some insane price drop, no...this is a modest upgrade for Windows users. If these actually ship in fall...well...computing will be EXACTLY THE SAME a year later. No revolution...No "reinvention"...just an actual spec upgrade for a change, which we haven't even been seeing in chips in the last few years, but used to be the norm, just 10 years ago.
Just the thing to train on your life's work (Score:2)
..and send it onto their servers.
Excellent (Score:3, Funny)
Does this mean we finally get a hardware-supported Clippy?
Re:Excellent (Score:4, Funny)
Not only that, Clippy will now be adjusted with Artificial Insistence to maximize annoyment! So much winning! So much respect for the customer!
Re:Excellent (Score:4, Funny)
"It looks like you're writing a letter. Want me to eat 20% of your battery life churning out some generic slop you could have done yourself in 30 seconds?"
Re: (Score:2)
At least Clippy never stole your data. He was like regular Jar-Jar instead of Sith Lord Jar-Jar.
Re: (Score:2)
Only because you would have noticed your dial-up modem making a call. Clippy really wanted your data though.
Re: Excellent (Score:2)
And wallpapers