{
  "id": 12737291,
  "title": "Microsoft N1Xes Intel in favor of Nvidia's shiny new SoCs in Surface Laptop Ultra",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/10/07/microsoft-n1xes-intel-in-favor-of-nvidias-shiny-new-socs-in-surface-12737291",
  "topic": "tech",
  "section": "Tech",
  "published": "2026-10-07T19:57:45.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "The Register",
    "slug": "the-register",
    "url": "https://www.theregister.com/personal-tech/2026/10/07/microsoft-n1xes-intel-in-favor-of-nvidias-shiny-new-socs-in-surface-laptop-ultra/5301722"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "Microsoft unveiled its first Surface Laptop Ultra, featuring Nvidia's RTX Spark system-on-chip (N1X) during a San Francisco event. The notebook is part of a lineup of Copilot+ PCs powered by the N1X chip, available for pre-order and expected to begin shipping next week. The Surface Laptop Ultra, built with an aluminum casing, boasts a high-resolution 15-inch mini-LED display, capable of reaching 2,000 nits in brightness, a 3:2 aspect ratio, standard ten-keyless keyboard, haptic trackpad, and various ports. Its standout feature is the integration of Nvidia's RTX Spark N1X SoC, based on Nvidia's GB10 platform with some CPU/GPU cores removed for lower-end models. The Surface Laptop Ultra is powered by either an 18- or 20-core MediaTek and Arm CPU and an Nvidia Blackwell-based RTX GPU with 5,120 to 6,144 cores. It can be equipped with up to 128 GB of memory, suitable for large language models up to 284 billion parameters in size. Although the GPU has a peak theoretical throughput of 1 petaFLOPS at 4-bit precision, the chip's actual performance is closer to 500 teraFLOPS. Microsoft highlights the GPU's local AI inference capabilities, with the notebook featuring a beefed-up cooling system with 2.5x more capacity than previous Surface notebooks. The Surface Laptop Ultra starts at $2,599 for the entry-level gray variant with the 18-core N1X, 24 GB of unified memory, and a 512 GB SSD. The 20-core chip, 128 GB memory, and 1 TB SSD configuration will cost $5,899. Microsoft also introduced a mini PC development kit based on the N1X priced at $5,999.",
  "summary": "Poverty-spec model starts at $2,599 with 24 GB of RAM and 512GB of storage with 128 GB models topping $5,899",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}