00:00Computex may be over, but the ripples are only just beginning to wave, and that's largely
00:04thanks to some of the big news from the show.
00:06None feels quite so large or divisive as the arrival of the Nvidia RTX Spark ARM-based
00:12chip.
00:12No, not this kind of ARM, the kind that combines both the CPU and GPU, much like Apple's M-series
00:18ARM-based chips.
00:19Apple's not the only one with skin in the game, Intel, AMD and Qualcomm also all have
00:24their own ARM-based chips, but Nvidia's arrival onto the scene causes quite the stir.
00:28So the news that Nvidia ARM-based chips could power the next generation of Windows 11 laptops
00:33is nothing to sleep on.
00:35As Nvidia claimed ahead of the announcement alongside Microsoft and ARM, this heralds a
00:40new era of computing.
00:42It probably couldn't have come at a better time, if it works out well for consumers.
00:46The Nvidia RTX Spark comes with 20 CPU cores, the CPU has been custom-designed by Nvidia and
00:52MediaTek, as well as 6,144 CUDA cores based on the Blackwell architecture.
00:56Talking to representatives at MSI, which is one of the first hardware manufacturers to
01:01adopt the Nvidia RTX Spark, this means the integrated GPU is roughly equivalent to an Nvidia RTX 5070.
01:07This could pave the way for exceptionally thin and light gaming laptops in the future, but
01:12hold your horses for now, as everything we've heard and seen suggests this is more aimed towards
01:17content creators and programmers than gamers for now, at least.
01:21Being an ARM-based chip means that PC gaming compatibility is a scarcity, unless of course
01:27you use an emulation layer like Prism, but that can then lead to performance drops.
01:31We did see Alan Wake 2 running natively on an Nvidia RTX Spark-powered laptop, however,
01:37and it looked beautiful.
01:39The RTX Spark will also support up to 128GB of LPDDR5X memory, and can make use of Nvidia's
01:46gaming tech such as DLSS upscaling, ray tracing effects, and G-Sync.
01:50Jensen Huang showed off RTX Spark-powered laptops on stage from MSI, Lenovo, and other major laptop
01:55makers, with a promise of these landing before the fall, so we wouldn't expect to see anything
01:59before, say, September.
02:01These laptops will be thin and light, with some even supporting tandem OLED with G-Sync.
02:06Now what all this should tell you is that these devices will be premium, and therefore
02:10will come with a premium price tag.
02:12That could prove to be incredibly prohibitive, especially with everything going on at the
02:17moment in the computing market.
02:18And given we've already seen how Windows on ARM-based laptops can come with hugely high
02:22prices based on a few years ago's experience, we're not quite as confident as we'd like
02:27to be about the future of these laptops.
02:29That being said, these are all the laptops we know that are coming so far.
02:33The Asus ProArt P14, Asus ProArt P16, Dell XPS 16, HP Omnibook X14, HP Omnibook Ultra 16,
02:41Lenovo Yoga Pro 9n, Microsoft Surface Laptop Ultra, and the MSI Prestige N16 Flip AI+.
02:47Are you excited for any of these upcoming NVIDIA RTX Spark-powered laptops?
02:52Let us know in the comments down below.
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