It all sounds good on paper. But I have trouble believing Windows can be a good platform for this. Microsoft has lost all trust after inserting ads into windows, slowly removing power user features, and exploiting every dark pattern they can. And for years, the ARM based Windows laptops have been useless due to app compatibility issues. Why would this change now? Is it priced to be a lot cheaper than Apple’s laptops? Or is this a niche product for AI developers basically?
I really like this, but I think the reason Apple Silicon took off was that Apple sort of forced devs to support ARM. Not sure if Microsoft can do the same for Windows…
We'll need to wait for the benchmarks, but this looks great! Windows 11 ARM64 is already amazing, and if these really are an upgrade from the Qualcomm chips we're going to have even better laptops on the market.
I have no idea how powerful or power efficient these guys are, but this seems to be the first step in a bigger push towards Windows on ARM (without loosing gaming).
I think more announcements will follow soon from other companies.
Unified RAM means its soldered to the mainboard, right?
I'm not sure if I like this. Sure for a laptop this might be not a big problem but if this ARM ecosystem is a success it will spread to desktop computers and I fear we could lose the existing modularity.
Looks like the MSI one might be a 2-in-1, if it has good stylus support I might have a good candidate for an upgrade, thought my ~3-4 year old Galaxy Book is holding up alright for now.
This may finally be the chip family ARM on Windows has always needed. Qualcomm's chips have always been dogs with slow off-the-shelf ARM CPU cores that have pathetic single-threaded performance compared to x86 AMD/Intel or ARM Apple Silicon designs.
For reference, this is just a single benchmark, but as an idea of each vendor's top mobile CPU single-threaded performance:
Geekbench Single Thread Score:
- DGX Spark (same CPU as RTX Spark): 3125
- Snapdragon X1 Elite: 2950
- Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme: 4050
- AMD Ryzen 9 9955HX: 3225
- Intel Core Ultra 9 290HX Plus: 3175
- Apple M5 Max: 4350
I'm happy to be wrong about Qualcomm's latest X2 chip performance, even if it is shipping in only a single product so far. Their previous best was the lowest in this list.
For anyone curious to know how this will fare against Macbooks, at least in CPU perf: DGX Spark has the exact same GPU and CPU as the top RTX Spark laptops will, so you can just directly compare from that.
Of course, DGX Spark is a miniPC, so laptops will likely be slower due to power limits/throttling.
After nvidia's many years of neglecting Linux, paired with direct Microsoft's involvement? Are we going to trust them, to allow installing Linux in these easily?
I am wary of those ARM-based Windows machines because I am unsure how good the ongoing driver support for those SoCs will be. Will they even outlive the Windows version they currently ship with?
Looking at devices like the NVIDIA Shield gives me some hope that NVIDIA will be better than Qualcomm here. I just hope this is not a case where the OEM has to purchase X years of driver support from the chip vendor beforehand, and that NVIDIA will provide support directly itself.
> "Our goal is to deliver unmetered intelligence to every home and every desk with Windows," said Satya Nadella, chairman and head of Microsoft.
Then:
> However, Ian Fogg, Research Director at industry analyst firm FDM CCS Insight said the change was "likely to come with a significant price tag" and Nvidia would be targeting "those looking for workstation-class performance".
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[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 74.8 ms ] threadbechmarks with DGX arnt spectacular for NVIDIAs software and CUDA lead.
wouldnt count on this being a price/compute challenger. especially with overpriced VRAM.
NVIDIA and Microsoft Reinvent Windows PCs for the Age of Personal AI
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48352705
NVIDIA DGX Station for Windows Puts a Trillion-Parameter AI Supercomputer on Every Enterprise Desk
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48352691
Introducing Surface Laptop Ultra: Made for world makers
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48352627
Introducing a powerful new chapter for Windows PCs, accelerated by NVIDIA RTX Spark
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48352693
I think more announcements will follow soon from other companies.
I'm not sure if I like this. Sure for a laptop this might be not a big problem but if this ARM ecosystem is a success it will spread to desktop computers and I fear we could lose the existing modularity.
Geekbench Single Thread Score:
- DGX Spark (same CPU as RTX Spark): 3125
- Snapdragon X1 Elite: 2950
- Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme: 4050
- AMD Ryzen 9 9955HX: 3225
- Intel Core Ultra 9 290HX Plus: 3175
- Apple M5 Max: 4350
I'm happy to be wrong about Qualcomm's latest X2 chip performance, even if it is shipping in only a single product so far. Their previous best was the lowest in this list.
Of course, DGX Spark is a miniPC, so laptops will likely be slower due to power limits/throttling.
Around 2-3K USD something with a good GPU + CPU + 128GB of integrated RAM is just going to be an awesome experience.
Considering Mac options are north of 5K+ even on a regular day.
I don't think so.
This most likely be a winmodem situation, again
Looking at devices like the NVIDIA Shield gives me some hope that NVIDIA will be better than Qualcomm here. I just hope this is not a case where the OEM has to purchase X years of driver support from the chip vendor beforehand, and that NVIDIA will provide support directly itself.
> "Our goal is to deliver unmetered intelligence to every home and every desk with Windows," said Satya Nadella, chairman and head of Microsoft.
Then:
> However, Ian Fogg, Research Director at industry analyst firm FDM CCS Insight said the change was "likely to come with a significant price tag" and Nvidia would be targeting "those looking for workstation-class performance".
So... not every desk with Windows.