Nvidia is about to challenge 'Intel Inside' with as many as eight Arm laptops

https://www.theverge.com/games/867056/leak-nvidia-n1-n1x-laptops-lenovo-dell

Comments

AlotOfReadingJan 26, 2026, 6:43 AM
Nvidia doesn't have a fantastic record for long term support on their SoCs. It usually ends up stranded on some outdated out-of-tree kernel. If they've shared the support task with Microsoft (and if MS remains institutionally capable of support at this point...), that's a reason for cautious optimism.

I don't think this is likely to truly pan out though. I can't imagine Nvidia making the kind of afffordances that would allow it to develop into a successful market segment. They're inevitably going to gatekeep documentation and aggressively encroach on their partners' margin like they always do.

jsiepkesJan 26, 2026, 6:29 AM
Going to be interesting to see if these machines will be capable of running anything else than Windows. Or if they are either so incompatible (no UEFI, etc.) or so locked down they can't run anything else.
yjftsjthsd-hJan 26, 2026, 6:44 AM
It was my impression that Windows had a requirement on UEFI to boot on ARM? Or is that not true?
altfreddJan 26, 2026, 6:55 AM
I have seen few cases where UEFI was not actually usable on non-OEM configurations.

In fact, my current ASUS laptop did not allow me to install Windows until I have performed a sophisticated dance to update/flash some sort of low-level disk-related Intel bloatware. The laptop was sold without OS and was accompanied by a small paper referencing a website with instruction how to flash the firmware to actually make the laptop usable.

pjmlpJan 26, 2026, 6:18 AM
Remains to be seen, as proven by similar attempts since Windows 8.

Being NVidia, it better deliver an experience that makes gaming worthwhile in performance of AAA titles.

adgjlsfhk1Jan 26, 2026, 6:33 AM
they're going to have a hard time challenging Intel with only 8 laptops...
andrewstuart2Jan 26, 2026, 6:42 AM
Apple does a decent job off challenging Intel with just a few laptops. I suppose it depends on your definition of laptop vs specs. Kinda hard to find out what they mean in TFA with the paywall.
TraubenfuchsJan 26, 2026, 6:43 AM
Apple has billions of laptops though.
jauntywundrkindJan 26, 2026, 6:16 AM
The real question to me is whether they're going to challenge Strix Halo with a high bandwidth GPU.

N1/N1X gpu is rumored to get near 5070-ish speeds! That would be a remarkable feat if true!! 5070 has 670 GB/s (via 192-bit, 1.75GHz GDDR7) memory to do what it does. That's more than twice the bandwidth Strix Halo and DGX Spark offer! That would be very interesting to see in a mobile chip.

Next gen Medusa Halo from AMD is going from quad to hex-channel DDR5: that'll be a bump. But still way short of a 5070's bandwidth, and still likely far more than a year out.

In all likelihood these rumors are probably ridiculously wrong. Nvidia is charging $4000 for DGX spark systems. It's unlikely that this is going to be a vastly more expensive system. It also seems improbable that it's going to be cheaper and vastly more performant. But for a little while longer, i can dream.