RTX Spark laptops are out Oct. 16: models, prices and what Nvidia's new chip can do

Nvidia’s first chip for Windows laptops is in stores. Laptops built around RTX Spark go on sale on Friday, Oct. 16, 2026, with models from Microsoft, Dell, ASUS, HP, Lenovo and MSI. The cheapest confirmed price so far is Microsoft’s Surface Laptop Ultra at $2,599.

When RTX Spark laptops go on sale

Nvidia and Microsoft opened pre-orders on Oct. 7, at a Microsoft event in San Francisco where Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella talked about the platform. Both companies said the laptops would be available on Oct. 16.

Huang tied the launch to Nvidia’s history with Windows: “If not for Windows there would be no GeForce.” Nvidia first unveiled RTX Spark at GTC Taipei in May, and it’s the chip behind the company’s push into slim laptops and compact desktops.

RTX Spark laptops you can buy, and what they cost

Microsoft Surface Laptop Ultra starts at $2,599 on Microsoft.com and at select retailers, with availability from Oct. 16. It has a 15-inch touchscreen that Microsoft says reaches 2,000 nits at peak in HDR, and it’s under 18 mm thin and under 4.5 pounds. It comes in Platinum and Nightfall, has user-removable storage and charges through a magnetic USB-C cable. Microsoft also offers up to $1,000 back when you trade in an eligible MacBook Pro, through Nov. 23, on its online store in the US and Canada.

Dell XPS 16 Creator Edition starts at $3,799.99 for pre-order at Best Buy, and Dell says it’s coming to Dell.com soon. It’s Dell’s first XPS with RTX Spark, with a 3.2K OLED display that peaks at 1,000 nits, a 0.7-inch aluminum body, three USB4 ports, HDMI and a full-size SD card reader.

Nvidia’s RTX Spark page also lists the ASUS ProArt P16, HP OmniBook Ultra 16, Lenovo Pro 9n and MSI Prestige N16 Flip AI+. ASUS has shown a smaller ProArt P14 too, at 1.48 kg, next to the 1.77 kg P16, both with OLED screens. Prices for these models depend on the maker, the store and the memory you pick. Acer has shown RTX Spark designs but says it will announce availability later.

What’s inside the RTX Spark chip

RTX Spark is one chip with three parts. It combines an Nvidia Blackwell RTX graphics processor with up to 6,144 cores, an Nvidia Grace processor with up to 20 cores and up to 128GB of memory shared between them, connected at 600 GB/s. Nvidia rates it at up to 1 petaflop of AI performance.

Nvidia’s spec sheet lists two laptop configurations. The top one has the 6,144-core graphics chip, the 20-core processor and up to 128GB of memory. The other has a 5,120-core graphics chip, an 18-core processor and up to 64GB. Both run at 45 to 80 watts. The desktop version runs at 140 watts.

The pitch is running large models on the laptop itself, without the cloud. Nvidia says RTX Spark can run models of up to 120 billion parameters and handle 3D scenes of up to 90 GB, and Dell pitches its XPS 16 for editing 4K and 8K video.

Can RTX Spark laptops play games?

Yes, with some caveats. RTX Spark uses an Arm-based processor, so games made for regular Windows PCs run through Microsoft’s Prism emulation unless they’ve been built for Arm. Nvidia says hundreds of top games and anti-cheat systems are supported, and Dell says Easy Anti-Cheat and BattlEye work, along with the Xbox app.

Nvidia says RTX Spark runs big games at 1440p above 100 frames per second with DLSS 5, Reflex and G-SYNC. A 2x faster DLSS 5 model arrives on launch day, Oct. 16, and a new Performance Mode for DLSS Frame Generation is already in the Nvidia App beta. For Nvidia’s desktop graphics cards, see our page on the RTX 6090 release date.

RTX Spark desktops and the Surface Dev Box

Compact RTX Spark desktops go on sale in November, Nvidia says. They use the same chip in a small box built to run around the clock. ASUS has shown the ProArt GR1X, a 150 x 150 x 51 mm mini PC, and Acer has shown its own small RTX Spark desktop.

Microsoft’s Surface RTX Spark Dev Box costs $5,999, is sold only on Microsoft.com in the US and starts shipping in November. It’s aimed at developers and comes with their tools preinstalled.

Launch events and what’s next

Nvidia is holding launch events on Oct. 16 in San Francisco, Berlin, Taipei, Beijing, Istanbul and Seoul, with hands-on demos and a livestream. The San Francisco event runs from 10 a.m. to noon PT at the Best Buy on Harrison Street, with free entry and no ticket needed.

The next big date is Jensen Huang’s GTC Berlin keynote on Wednesday, Oct. 21, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. CEST, which is 5 to 7 a.m. ET.

This page is updated as soon as more RTX Spark laptops get US prices or Nvidia announces the date for RTX Spark desktops.