NVIDIA's new RTX Spark system-on-a-chip is now launching in Windows PCs, arriving first in the Surface Laptop Ultra and several other machines this fall. The chip is the first to combine powerful Arm CPU cores with NVIDIA's Blackwell GPU technology and up to 128GB of ultra-fast unified memory on a single piece of silicon.
The launch marks NVIDIA and Microsoft's answer to Apple Silicon, which brought efficient Arm-based chips and fast unified memory to Macs six years ago. With RTX Spark, Windows users can finally get those benefits on high-end PCs, while Qualcomm's recent chips cover the low-end and mid-range.
NVIDIA RTX Spark specs and configurations
According to Engadget, the RTX Spark SoC is powered by up to 20 NVIDIA Grace Arm CPU cores, split into 10 performance cores and 10 efficiency cores. Graphics come from a Blackwell GPU with up to 6,144 CUDA cores, backed by up to 128GB of unified LPDDR5x memory running at 9,400 Mbps.
A slightly less powerful configuration is also available, with 18 CPU cores and 5,120 GPU cores. The chip includes much of what you would find on NVIDIA's latest GPUs, such as fifth-gen tensor cores, fourth-gen ray tracing cores and a Blackwell video engine supporting AV1 UHQ and 4:2:2 encoding and decoding.
- Up to 20 Grace Arm CPU cores (10 performance, 10 efficiency)
- Blackwell GPU with up to 6,144 CUDA cores
- Up to 128GB unified LPDDR5x memory at 9,400 Mbps
- Secondary configuration: 18 CPU cores, 5,120 GPU cores
