(Credit: John Burek)
TAIPEI—In the wake of Nvidia's huge announcement of RTX Spark laptops, and the subsequent news that Microsoft was leading the charge with the Surface Laptop Ultra—arguably the flagship for this new class of laptops—we've been eager to get our hands on the new Surface and see what these new Nvidia-powered laptops will actually look and feel like. (Hit the preceding link for a rundown of all the partner OEM models.)
Well, at Computex, we finally got our chance, with a first look at the Microsoft Surface Laptop Ultra. No, system makers aren't yet powering on RTX Spark laptops for the press to play with, but here's what we were able to suss out in a short time with the device, and some of what the announcement didn't tell you.
What Is Nvidia's RTX Spark? A Quick Refresher
If you missed the news about Nvidia's new RTX Spark laptop hardware, here are the key bits. Nvidia has announced its own laptop-processor hardware platform, called RTX Spark, with the first chip dubbed the N1X. It combines a 20-core CPU with the equivalent of an Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070 laptop GPU (that's the claim, anyway) into one massive system-on-a-chip (SoC) with up to 128GB of unified memory.
(Credit: John Burek)This superchip mega-SoC is very similar to the "Grace Blackwell" GB10 hardware used in the high-powered AI developer box, the DGX Spark, but optimized for Windows on Arm, complete with an NPU to support all of Microsoft's Copilot+ AI features. Beyond that, Microsoft claims that the RTX Spark-powered Surface Laptop Ultra will deliver up to 1 petaflop of AI compute, drastically outperforming any other AI PC Microsoft offers.
(Credit: John Burek)That combination of power and portability in a thin-and-light laptop sounds like the holy grail of modern laptop technology. Like the DGX Spark, Nvidia says this hardware will allow users to run full 120-billion-parameter AI models locally on the device, giving consumers a level of AI capability that has thus far been limited to professionals with servers and enthusiasts with purpose-built systems that use multiple GPUs for processing muscle and memory.
(Credit: John Burek)To be sure, these machines are being purpose-built for agentic AI tasks run locally on the device. We saw a few demos of games being played, and optimized creative software being run, but that stuff is secondary to the pure AI horsepower.
Surface Laptop Ultra: Design and Hands-On Impressions
The press releases shared the basic dimensions for the new laptop: Less than 18mm thick. Under 4.5 pounds. The all-metal chassis looks just as slick as other Surface laptops, right down to the polished Windows logo on the lid, coming in Platinum and Nightfall finishes. Indeed, at a casual glance, it's almost indistinguishable from the 15-inch Surface Laptops we know.
Look closer, though, and you'll see that the chassis has a raised design so that it looks like the laptop is floating off the desk. Microsoft has outfitted it with a 15-inch mini-LED PixelSense Ultra touch screen and square-ish 3:2 aspect ratio.
(Credit: John Burek)Along the sides are all the expected ports, including a full-size HDMI output, USB Type-C and USB Type-A connections, a 3.5mm headphone jack, and a full-size SD card reader.
(Credit: John Burek)Open the lid, and you'll be greeted by the big, bright mini-LED display, with up to 2,000 nits peak HDR brightness—Microsoft is calling it their brightest laptop display. This is a creator-class panel, with a crisp 262 pixels per inch and vivid color. In the briefing, we quizzed the team. There will be VRR support and 120Hz peak refresh, and while mini-LED may be a slightly larger draw on the battery, Microsoft says it will be manageable to maintain all-day battery.
The keyboard is the same as what we've seen on past Surface Laptops, but that's not a bad thing, since we've loved the typing feel those full-size keyboards offered. The snap is the same, and having relied on 15-Inch Surface machines as daily drivers for years, they're the same experience.
(Credit: John Burek)The keyboard is joined by the largest haptic touchpad Microsoft has ever put on a Surface device. That expansive touchpad gives you room to gesture and tap, and the haptic response gives you feedback for every action. A Microsoft rep also pointed out that the touchpad will be replaceable in the event repairs are needed, and Microsoft is working with various software partners to customize the haptic experience.
(Credit: John Burek)Above the display is a webcam, with Windows Hello facial recognition; the reps would not share further details, such as the native resolution. But it was well masked into very thin bezels, and inobtrusive.
RTX Spark Inside: A Look at the Specs, Internals, and Upgradability
The real story here isn't the chassis, the ports, or even that impressive display—it's the RTX Spark hardware inside.
(Credit: John Burek)Powering 6,144 CUDA cores and wrangling giant AI models requires serious thermal management, and Microsoft had a display set up with the various internals separated out like an exploded diagram. The dual-fan, dual heat-pipe cooling means that the Surface Laptop Ultra will have more than twice the thermal capacity of the earlier 15-inch Surface Laptop 7th Edition from 2024.
The fans are much thinner and more closely packed with fins. The airflow path is from the sides and out the back, funneling air not only over the heat pipes but to surrounding components.
(Credit: John Burek)Indeed, a lot of attention was paid to the thermal design and airflow. Microsoft gave an excellent airflow demo that employed smoke to show the flow of air from the intakes into the fans...
While a lot of noise is being made about the "up to 128GB of memory" spec, the reality is that some of these laptops will ship with significantly less, with configurations as low as 16GB of unified memory—nowhere near enough to handle sprawling conversations locally with an offline AI.
(Credit: John Burek)
(Credit: John Burek)Four screws at the undersize corners allow access to the inside of the unit. Microsoft notes that the SSD will be swappable (it's a Type-2280 M.2) and the battery is accessible for replacement when its lifetime is up. Plus, QR codes inside the body next to components lead you to service instructions, a la Framework Computer. We did not see any SO-DIMM slots on the sample motherboard shown, so the memory is likely to be soldered down.
(Credit: John Burek)Surface Laptop Ultra Availability: Coming This Fall, Pricing a Question Mark
Like the rest of the RTX Spark laptops being announced this week, Microsoft wasn't sharing much in the way of firm details. Indeed, OEMs were not even allowed to power them up in the presence of the press. As for when the Surface Laptop Ultra will actually be a product you can buy, the most we could get out of the PR reps was "this fall." Whether that means early fall for back-to-school season or late fall for the holidays is still undisclosed, though our money is on a launch just in time for Christmas shopping.
(Credit: John Burek)Pricing is even less specific, but one thing is for sure: These aren't low-end laptops by any stretch of the imagination. Seeing as they are being positioned as "Ultra," like the Microsoft entry here, or Lenovo Yoga Pro, Asus ProArt, and MSI Prestige, these are upscale AI-first models for AI early adopters looking to get their agentic game on under Windows.
The bigger questions of performance, user experience, and true AI capability were never going to be answered now: We're still early in the hype cycle. We'll have to wait until we have the laptop in the PC Labs to actually dig into those details, and develop new benchmarks to measure how and whether they do what they say they'll do.