Nvidia just announced its new Arm-based laptop chip at Computex 2026, firing a warning shot at Apple (which has had great success with its own Arm-based M-series chips) as well as Intel and AMD.
While Nvidia has primarily been associated with graphics cards and artificial intelligence in the past, the announcement of its RTX Spark chip, which will power future Windows 11 laptops, could mark a real game-changer. While there are a growing number of Windows 11 laptops running Arm chips, primarily from Qualcomm, the fact that Nvidia, one of the largest companies in the world, is throwing its hat into the ring is certainly exciting. As Nvidia stated before the reveal, along with 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 Apple has had with its modern Macs, which ditched Intel processors in 2020 for its incredibly popular M-series chips, including the latest M5 variant.
Nvidia's entry into laptop CPUs could be a big change in 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 the Blackwell architecture. Speaking with representatives from 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.
It's a pretty interesting proposition and could pave the way for exceptionally thin and light gaming laptops in the future. For now, however, it's important to note that the RTX Spark laptops won't be aimed at gamers, but rather content creators.
That's because it's still an Arm-based chip, and native PC gaming support remains sparse without an emulation layer like Prism, which could allow PC games designed for traditional Intel and AMD hardware to run on Arm, but has a performance hit.
Instead, the RTX Spark laptops will be aimed more at content creators, and Dell, MSI, and Lenovo are the main laptop manufacturers that will make those laptops.
Rumors suggest that the Nvidia RTX Spark will have a TDP of 45 – 80W, and since the chip includes both CPU and GPU, I'm a little worried that this could mean the N1X struggles in pure gaming performance. Much will depend on the energy efficiency of the chip.
The RTX Spark will also support up to 128GB of LPDDR5X memory and can utilize Nvidia's gaming technology 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-power chip with 12-core (2,560 CUDA cores) and 10-core (2,048 CUDA cores) configurations and support up to 64GB of LPDDR5X memory, but this was not announced at the keynote.
Laptop manufacturers unite
Jensen Huang also showed off RTX Spark-powered laptops from MSI, Lenovo, and other major laptop makers on stage, with the promise that they'll land in “the fall,” so don't expect anything before September, I guess.
These laptops will be thin and light, with some sporting OLED displays in tandem with G-Sync.
They will be premium laptops and this is perhaps my biggest concern: how much will the RTX Spark laptops cost? No details have been revealed, but they could end up being very expensive. This is likely to limit its appeal and popularity, and I hope it doesn't mean a return to Windows on Arm laptops that cost a fortune, as happened a few years ago.
If these laptops are more expensive than the M5 Max-powered MacBooks (which launched at $2,199 / £2,199 / AU$3,499), then they'll struggle. So time will tell how scared Apple will be about Nvidia's new RTX Spark chip.
Jensen Huang will join Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella on stage at Build 2026 tomorrow, June 2, where he will go into more detail about RTX Spark.
- Check out our Computex 2026 hub for the latest news from Taipei.
