4 Nvidia RTX Spark laptops I'm most excited to try - including Microsoft's new Ultra

Follow ZDNET: Add us as a preferred source on Google. After years of speculation, Nvidia announced a new CPU for consumer laptops, competing with industry giants Intel, AMD, and Qualcomm. Its new RTX Spark chip will be found on laptops and desktops from all the big PC brands: HP, Lenovo, Acer, Asus, Microsoft, MSI, and Dell, with some available as early as this fall. Nvidia, in partnership with Microsoft, says its new Arm-based RTX Spark is a reinvention of the PC to reflect the age of AI agents, offering up to 1 petaflop of AI performance, full-stack graphics technology, and up to 128GB of unified memory to power creative tasks. Also: Dell's new XPS 13 is a MacBook Neo rival that costs $599 and retains premium features Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang announced the partnership on stage at Computex 2026 in Taipei, promising a native Windows experience centered around personal agents, with agentic AI features soon to be accessible directly from the Windows taskbar itself. "We've worked with Microsoft for two and a half years: reinventing the PC and reinventing Windows," Huang said during a press Q&A in Taipei. "We're reinventing the PC." Nvidia has bold claims for its RTX Spark-powered laptops, which it is calling "the most efficient PC chip ever built," but specific details remain a little light, including performance metrics, hardware specs, and, of course, pricing. With premium tandem OLED displays, 128GB of unified memory across the board, and premium builds, however, you can expect all of the new models to be in "high-end creator machine" territory, well over the $2,000 mark. Microsoft Surface Laptop Ultra Microsoft's language surrounding this device is nothing short of dramatic. Designed for "world builders," it says, with a commanding 15-inch mini-LED PixelSense Ultra touchscreen and the largest haptic touchpad on any of its laptops. Also: I tested the Surface Pro with 5G, and it's Microsoft's most complete business 2-in-1 yet As the flagship Windows PC, Microsoft says it's the most powerful Surface laptop ever built, optimized for RTX Spark. It will feature an Nvidia Blackwell RTX GPU and up to 128GB of unified memory that can be dynamically allocated for high performance across creative tasks, such as 3D rendering and multimodal workflows. Dell XPS 16 Creator Edition Dell's new 16-inch XPS with the RTX Spark is designed for creators, AI developers, and gamers, with up to 128GB of unified memory, all-day battery life, and a tandem OLED display with support for True Black HDR 600. It'll also come with an SD card reader and HDMI port. Also: Dell XPS 13 (2026) vs. MacBook Neo: I compared both budget laptops, here's which one I'd buy Although Dell hasn't been very forthcoming on details yet, the XPS 16 is a logical place to house the new RTX Spark CPU as a creator-focused powerhouse in an ultra-premium form factor. With this kind of build and hardware, it's certain to carry a price point to match, and it's a laptop I personally can't wait to go hands-on with. Asus ProArt P14 and P16 Following the theme of high-end creative workstations, Asus' ProArt lineup pairs both the 14- and 16-inch models with the RTX Spark CPU and up to 128GB of unified memory, 2TB of local storage, a haptic touchpad, and a Lumina Pro tandem OLED display at 3840 x 2400 resolution -- surpassing 4K. Asus says it will be swapping out its famous DialPad for haptic features -- an interesting choice as the DialPad is one of the lineup's most unique features and a potential differentiating factor from the other RTX Spark devices. MSI Prestige N16 Flip AI Plus MSI's N16 Flip AI Plus will be a convertible device that pairs with its Nano Pen stylus, but details on hardware configurations remain under wraps. At MSI's Computex booth, it was powered down and positioned away, with gloved staff standing guard next to the device to ensure it wasn't being handled. Also: Finally, an ultraportable Windows laptop for work with some serious horsepower It'll feature an OLED display that will likely match the 1,200-nit brightness for HDR content. If it follows suit with the rest of these devices, we can expect up to 128GB of RAM and a haptic touchpad. While MSI had no comment on cost, I'd expect around the same $2,000-plus price point.