Nvidia has just announced its new Arm-based laptop chip at Computex 2026, firing a warning shot across the bow of Apple (who has found great success with its own Arm-based M-series chips), as well as Intel and AMD.
While Nvidia has been mainly associated with graphics cards, and AI, in the past, the announcement of its RTX Spark chip, which will power future Windows 11 laptops, could be a real game-changer. While there are a growing number of Windows 11 laptops running on Arm chips, primarily from Qualcomm, the fact that Nvidia, one of the biggest companies in the world, is throwing its hat into the ring is certainly exciting. As Nvidia claimed ahead of the reveal, alongside Microsoft and Arm, a 'new era of computing' has begun.
Despite working closely with Qualcomm on Arm-based Windows 11 laptops, Microsoft has failed to match the success that Apple has had with its modern Macs, which ditched Intel processors back in 2020 for its incredibly popular M-series chips, including the latest M5 variant.
Nvidia's entry into laptop CPUs could prove to be a major shake-up of the industry - and it couldn't have come at a better time.
Game on?
The Nvidia RTX Spark comes with 20 CPU cores (the CPU has been custom-designed by Nvidia and MediaTek) and 6,144 CUDA cores based on Blackwell architecture. Talking to representatives of MSI, one of the first hardware manufacturers to make an RTX Spark-powered laptop, this means the integrated GPU is roughly equivalent to an Nvidia RTX 5070 GPU.
That's a pretty exciting proposition, and could pave the way for exceptionally thin and light gaming laptops in the future. For the time being, however, it's important to note that RTX Spark laptops won't be aimed at gamers, but rather content creators.
That's because this is still an Arm-based chip, and native compatibility with PC games remains scarce without an emulation layer such as Prism, which might allow PC games designed for traditional Intel and AMD hardware to run on Arm, but has an impact on performance.
Instead, RTX Spark laptops will be aimed more at content creators, and Dell, MSI and Lenovo are major laptop makers that will be making those laptops.
Rumors suggest the Nvidia RTX Spark will have a TDP of 45 - 80W, and because the chip includes both CPU and GPU, I'm a bit concerned that this could mean the N1X struggles in pure gaming performance. A lot will ride on how power-efficient the chip is.
The RTX Spark will also support up to 128GB of LPDDR5X memory, and can use Nvidia's gaming tech, such as DLSS upscaling, ray tracing effects and G-Sync.
What about the rumored Nvidia N1?
Rumors had suggested that Nvidia would also announce a lower-powered chip witheither 12-core (2,560 CUDA cores) and 10-core (2,048 CUDA cores) configurations and supports up to 64GB of LPDDR5X memory, but this wasn't announced at the keynote.
Laptop makers team up
Jensen Huang also showed off RTX Spark-powered laptops on stage from MSI, Lenovo, and other major laptop makers, with a promise of these landing in 'the fall' - so don't expect anything before September, I guess.
These laptops will be thin and light, with some sporting tandem OLED screens with G-Sync.
These will be premium laptops, and this is perhaps my biggest concern: how much will RTX Spark laptops cost? No details have been released, but they could end up being very expensive. This will likely limit their appeal and popularity, and I hope it doesn't mean a return to Windows on Arm laptops that cost a fortune, which is what happened a few years ago.
If these laptops are more expensive than M5 Max-toting MacBooks (which launched at $2,199 / £2,199 / AU$3,499), then they are going to struggle. Time will tell, then, how scared Apple will be by Nvidia's new RTX Spark chip.
These are all the announced RTX Spark laptops so far:
- Asus ProArt P14
- Asus ProArt P16
- Dell XPS 16
- HP OmniBook X 14
- HP OmniBook Ultra 16
- Lenovo Yoga Pro 9n
- Microsoft Surface Laptop Ultra
- MSI Prestige N16 Flip AI+
Jensen Huang will join Microsoft's CEO, Satya Nadella, on stage at Build 2026 tomorrow, June 2, where he'll go into more detail about RTX Spark.
- Check out our Computex 2026 hub for all the latest news out of Taipei.