N1X and N1 Configurations. The small die will be a 12 core CPU (8P+4E) + RTX 5050 config iGPU
Posted by DerpSenpai@reddit | hardware | View on Reddit | 88 comments
From other leaks, the N1 will be in normal priced laptops like the ideapad slim 5, on the price range of the Snapdragon X2 Elite and Panther Lake SKUs. 18-45W TDP for that performance is insane. CPU performance just looks competitive vs Panther lake and not much more. It's a very old CPU die (for ARM standards)
CMBDSP@reddit
Do we know if the these chips will only arrive in Notebooks/compact desktops, or will there be versions with unlocked TDP and beefy cooling as well? I think a monster APU with a large AIO cooler sounds pretty cool as a desktop machine.
eivittunyt@reddit
That is what the DGX Spark is.
SoulCrusher2018@reddit
can you catch me up to speed what's e difference between N1, N1X, and Spark? thanks
eivittunyt@reddit
try reading the article you are replying to
DollarBreadEater@reddit
The article doesn't say anything about DGX Spark except that it has something called GB10 which has the same configuration as N1X.
eivittunyt@reddit
You can try looking up another article on that site or do what I like to do, use a search engine to look up information about a product I am not familiar with.
DollarBreadEater@reddit
Sure I can. Just try to read the article you're replying to next time, okay?
eivittunyt@reddit
My bad, that article doesn't explain the history of computing and you might have to have some prior understanding to grasp what the products mentioned in it are
theunspillablebeans@reddit
Keep digging that hole lol
stryakr@reddit
Really? They asked for more information that wasn't in the article they read.
You could've just not replied or said something less toxic.
MC_chrome@reddit
If other ARM devices are anything to go by, I wouldn't count on the latter coming anytime soon
Earthborn92@reddit
They should make a handheld with this
MrZoraman@reddit
Since the nintendo switch is a handheld powered by nvidia hardware, I wonder if there's any non-competes in their contract that would complicate nvidia shipping their own handheld chips.
Hour_Firefighter_707@reddit
I don't mind the N1, actually, price permitting, of course. The 2028 successor bit is more concerning. PC hardware vendors need to realise that incremental updates every 2-3 years is exactly how they'll lose market share to Apple
Malygos_Spellweaver@reddit
But why, do Apple people really update their laptops every year? Sounds like a waste of resources.
willis936@reddit
Now you're thinking like a 2015 Intel exec. Things are going great right now, so it'll all be fine later.
wtallis@reddit
I think of it two ways: first, it's like compound interest, where small but frequent incremental improvements add up over several years to a big overall improvement, even if the individual steps were all small. Second, Intel showed us how waiting several years to deliver a bunch of improvements at once is incredibly risky, and has consequences throughout the business.
talia_se@reddit
They’ve release M series CPUs annually, with solid gains YoY, and in one case thus far 9 months apart?
TheCh0rt@reddit
Apple continues to crush it. Their gains are undeniably legendary. Can't wait to see what they do with their next form factors
From-UoM@reddit
Rtx Spark N2 with Vera Rubin and Rtx Spark N3 with Rosa Feynman have been confirmed for 2028 and 2030
So a 2 year cycle.
sn2006gy@reddit
evidence?
From-UoM@reddit
It was on the GTC keynote.
The slide can be found here
https://videocardz.com/newz/nvidia-confirms-rtx-spark-roadmap-with-rubin-in-2027-and-rosa-feynman-in-2029
sn2006gy@reddit
Thanks! That's new information. I'll be sending my Spark back, no reason to keep it if the "real" one will be out in 2028.
I wonder if they will be making Windows downloads available as they're calling these spark desktops now - such a weird pivot. (or at least send it back until market is saturated and i can buy one cheaper used)
SaltDeception@reddit
You can already download the Win11 Arm iso directly from Microsoft.
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows11arm64
sn2006gy@reddit
yeah but no one has loaded all the spark assemblies so that's what i mean by making it available
jhenryscott@reddit
Windows on ARM is generally not been good
sn2006gy@reddit
i don't care about that, it's not windows on arm being good or bad that matters, it's about what this ecosystem looks like if game devs actually embrace it where prior arm generaion has clearly been business/office.
Alive_Wedding@reddit
The CPU is X925, which makes sense since it is “Grace”. But this was an architecture debuted in 2024. Vera Rubin Spark comes in 2028.
At this rate RTX Spark is going to fall short of SOTA CPU architecture by 1.5 years in its existing roadmap (unless Vera is somehow magically ahead by 2 generations). This is not very inspiring news, since creators, which this product seems to target, do depend on CPU performance in their workflow.
trololololo2137@reddit
the mediatek x925 cpu part has nothing to do with grace (neoverse, made by nvidia).
still you can see the issue with 2 year cycles when phone chips have been shipping C1 ultra already
Wings-Of-Gracemeria@reddit
N1 could make some sense as long as pricing don't go absolute haywire.....but that's not a given.
I'm more interested in how Vera Rubin Spark does; isn't Vera supposed to be in house NV cores with significant performance improvements? N1/X ultimately is still just stock ARM x925s and WoA is....iffy at best. Microsoft really needs to get their shit together on WoA.
GenericUser1983@reddit
From the early benchmarks Vera does not look too exciting; Phoronix got a chance to benchmark a Vera server machines, and even with Nvidia getting to pick the benchmarks the 88 core Vera was only \~11% ahead of the 64 core Zen 5 Epyc it was compared too.
hsien88@reddit
it was comparing to 2 sockets Epyc, so 88 cores beating 128 cores.
GenericUser1983@reddit
It had both 1 and 2 socket Epyc; for the stuff Nvidia decided could be tested the 2 socket Epyc was basically the same speed as the 1 socket, so obviously did not pick any super multi-threaded workloads.
ComplexEntertainer13@reddit
Ye a lot of workloads have trouble to scale past 1 socket even if they scale well with more cores. Treating it as 2 different systems via virtualisation and running 2 instances of whatever you are running, is often the answer to get best utilisation and total performance.
Sevastous-of-Caria@reddit
Being nvidia and unified memory being 8-64gb buffer from the spec sheet. I dont have my hopes any up
albinose@reddit
Why people cling to windows so much? We're finally getting our chance to drop it now when it loses it's main value of legacy compatibility
Hot-Software-9396@reddit
Why are you so desperate to get rid of Windows? Why do people like you react to Windows improvements with hostility?
MC_chrome@reddit
Microsoft is barely getting their shit together for the regular x86 version of Windows....I wouldn't hold out much hope that Microsoft will pay WoA much attention anytime soon unless there is a major culture shift at Microsoft
Tight_Inflation3153@reddit
Yes exactly.
Microsoft should have all the money and talent in the world to at least make windows a decent operating system, yet here we are. Expecting WoA to be anything but a mess for the foreseeable future is based on hopes and dreams.
I would have lowkey been more enthusiastic about these Nvidia chips if they also announced their own Linux based OS. If Steam can already move the needle so much for Linux gaming, imagine what Nvidia could do and not just for gaming but also productivity as a whole.
Wings-Of-Gracemeria@reddit
100% but I guess having Hunag throw his weight behind it have some sway. And hopefully Qualcomm (as low my opinion on Elite as it is) isn't going anywhere either.
whispous@reddit
If this thing doesn't provide as slick and fast an experience as a MacBook Air, then it's going to be niche at best.
Microsoft has a lot to answer for in terms of both Windows 11 functionality AND on top of that, ARM invisibility.
YOUFUCKINGFUCKERS@reddit
The Windows ARM devices in my office can’t even connect to the printer.
whispous@reddit
And this is why it is impossible to take Windows on ARM seriously. Multi trillion dollar corporation cannot be bothered to inject real talent into the process and GET IT RIGHT.
Why do we even still have specific printer drivers for general regular office printing anyway? Apple already stuck this in the grave years ago with Airprint. It's embarrassing.
sn2006gy@reddit
because it’s not true
QueueWho@reddit
It's true, it's just that their office needs to ditch those legacy printers
sn2006gy@reddit
i call bullshit, any org deploying these would have set up print servers for them and that shit has been industry standard supported for decades.
viper1255@reddit
Someone has clearly never worked in IT 😂
sn2006gy@reddit
I’ve been in IT since 1988
viper1255@reddit
And you've never worked for a company that rolled out new hardware without considering how it will affect the print servers and other devices?
Because I wouldn't put that past any of the companies I've worked for, regardless of size.
sn2006gy@reddit
I've seen it all and print servers just isn't one of them. Odd hill to die on.
Obscure business software that won't work? sure.. but places often put that on citrix to make their apple users happy.
I solve problems instead of making things up.
viper1255@reddit
Clearly you've worked for companies with big budgets and competent management.
That's rare.
sn2006gy@reddit
i mean, i started at small companies back in windows 3.11 and OS/2 and NT and Windows 2000 and Linux... people buy windows on arm to run web based apps and have GPO policy management and device control and the printers just work... why are we debating this?
viper1255@reddit
Dude, at this point, I don't even know what your point is. My point is that most companies don't have their shit together on the IT side, and finding hardware incompatibilities is not uncommon at all.
sn2006gy@reddit
I really don't know why this thread went down this absurd rabbit hole and people are still pushingt his concept. of course there are shitty places to work, but those shitty places aren't buying people 3k dollar laptops either are they? the entire discussion was contrived and made up.
viper1255@reddit
Honestly, that last statement just doesn't make any sense to me, as someone who has spent as long in IT as you seem to have.
If I had a nickel for every time some VP or manager decided we "needed to buy exactly X" and didn't care about silly things like "is it compatible with all of our existing hardware/software", I'd have a whole pile of nickels.
The point is that compatibility is king. If your hardware can't talk to a printer from 4 years ago (that's where this thread started, I believe) then that's a huuuuuge issue.
sn2006gy@reddit
ok. you are weird.
QueueWho@reddit
Depends on how 'mom and pop' the office in question is. I've seen some really messed up orgs in my travels.
sn2006gy@reddit
yeah, but those places aren't buying Windows on ARM Surface Pro X devices and Developer kits and even those office printers are all standardized
QueueWho@reddit
well, I'm with you on the original comment was just to shit on ARM unnecessarily. Hardly anyone needs to print anymore, if that's the biggest issue (it is like the only thing I have ever faced in 2 years on an ARM surface) then who cares?
VenditatioDelendaEst@reddit
Any printer that needs Windows kernel drivers can't work with phones either, and probably isn't supported very well by Mac or Linux.
Corporate environments should probably have modern network printers.
whispous@reddit
that's not true.
Look at any midrange home printer, or any modern office HP printer:
It requires a driver be installed for Windows, but if it supports airprint, all apple devices can print to it without any software setup over the network.
VenditatioDelendaEst@reddit
I'm pretty sure Airprint is just apple-certified IPP. Windows should support this.
whispous@reddit
Windows does - any my experience with it is endlessly broken and non-functional. So I have to go back to actual drivers.
YOUFUCKINGFUCKERS@reddit
It’s a £2500 Toshiba printer from late 2022. It works perfectly with every other setup.
We have a password feature setup on the printer as we print confidential documents. This feature seems to be break the ability to print at all on Windows ARM machines.
VenditatioDelendaEst@reddit
Can you print from your phone?
DerpSenpai@reddit (OP)
Thats because your office sucks if you are usinf printers from the 2000s
YOUFUCKINGFUCKERS@reddit
It is a modern network printer from 2022 that is worth £2500. MacOS works perfectly and any x86 windows device works perfectly.
Windows ARM devices shit the bed and cannot speak to it 🤷
whalesareverycool@reddit
Can someone more knowledgeable that me say whether this will be good for handhelds though? Just between Steam working towards ARM compatibility, combined with Nvidia software stack, all kind of seems like it would be a dream scenario?
Idkwatnam@reddit
You can try looking at the small DGX Spark content that covers gaming to see what it's like on the biggest SKU but I don't think it'll be a fantastic option for handhelds yet until game publishers start releasing ARM64 builds or use ARM64EC to minimize emulation. Either that or x86 emulation gets significantly more efficient.
Valve told news outlets they expect to see a 20-30% performance penalty from FEX, and Geekbench shows about a 50% performance penalty compared to native (The GB10 scores around 3000 / 18000, so half of that puts it at like Zen 3 performance levels). The GPU could carry though.
The Switch 2 is an example of the performance and efficiency you can get out of a smaller Nvidia SoC if your games are fully optimized for it. Given that's on Cortex A78C + Ampere on Samsung 8nm, Cortex X925/A725 + Blackwell on TSMC 3nm should be quite a bit more efficient at the same power range in the best-case scenario.
Kekeripo@reddit
I doubt jensen wants his shiny new product to suck ass and will have some of his lads work with MS to make it good. That's atleast what I'd like to think.
GalvenMin@reddit
Given the state of Nvidia drivers over the last 18 months or so, a collaboration between some of the most egregious vibe coders out there would be hilarious.
theholylancer@reddit
the only hope, if any, at this point is this thing is part of a pivot for nvidia to get better support for linux drivers
we all know that because of steam deck, if you wanted to seriously game on linux, a lot of the headaches goes away if you just brought AMD for that, if this is part of the plan to invade the handheld (hell they got the switch iGPU) world with some real stronk chips with proper drivers...
but that is more of a dream and I dont think I see any evidence of that, not to mention how tiny the market would be relatively speaking
Idkwatnam@reddit
I was actually a bit surprised that they're using this CPU core layout instead of the 5P+5E one I found on Geekbench. You would think it'd be easier for them to just disable one cluster (5P+5E) from the full GB10 but are they actually mixing two clusters at all times? (Since there are more than 5P cores in all the N1 configs). Or is the N1 just a completely different die altogether?
DerpSenpai@reddit (OP)
There are 2 dies for CPU and GPU
Idkwatnam@reddit
Is this confirmed? So does the full N1 really only have four A725 and up to eight Cortex X925?
EuroHamster@reddit
That's shit honestly. It's also sad actually. It's sad that a company like nvidia can only do an average new tech. Their only goal is hardware and can't even beat Apple with their ARM M series APU, while apple focuses on 100 more things than a CPU. I expected first Nvidia APU to shred Apple's APU.
HulksInvinciblePants@reddit
I’m not sure why. Apple’s been doing this for 15 years now. Nividia’s entry into the market is a positive thing, but expecting them to leapfrog Apple is incredibly optimistic. That’s before you even consider software support and optimization.
GenericUser1983@reddit
This isn't exactly Nvidia's first rodeo with consumer SOCs - see Tegra chips in various Android tablets, Windows RT machines, Switch 1&2, Nvidia Shield, etc.
HulksInvinciblePants@reddit
That’s fair, but they’ve always been low-power, low-fidelity products. The Switch using excess Shield chips always felt like an opportunistic decision. It was mainly intended for media streaming and personal/car tablets.
Pretty-Emphasis8160@reddit
Apple was also working on low power designs until the M series
DerpSenpai@reddit (OP)
Apple actually focuses mainly on the CPU. Nvidia judt started their custom Cores again. This CPU isn't even theirs. It's Mediatek
KeyboardG@reddit
Subjecting the agents to Windows is what makes them turn on us.
DerpSenpai@reddit (OP)
You don't need to care about AI to like this hardware. That stuff is entirely optional. It's just 1 use case and they need to advertise it
colonelc4@reddit
Looks like a lot of hype for a very intrusive tech, people might not accept it straight forward, the agentic stuff is truly scary.
alabasterskim@reddit
N1 looks like the real exciting one
siazdghw@reddit
Let's assume that is true. These laptops launch in fall and realistically show up in more designs at CES 2027.
The N1 model having similar to a bit better performance and efficiency to Panther Lake a year later isn't going to sell these. Especially when it's Windows on Arm, and Nvidia is awfully marketing these as AI first devices.
These will go up against Panther Lake on sale for like $600 (since it will be a year), and Nova Lake mobile.
When Qualcomm tried to enter the market, they had a node advantage, were up against Meteor Lake for half a year, so they came out swinging and yet Qualcomm's laptops still sold horribly.
I just don't see the hype for the N1.
From-UoM@reddit
The slides showed two chips. The 1 Pflops Fp4 N1X And a 400 Tflops FP4 version.
40% of 6144 = 2457.8
That almost matches the 2560 cores for the N1. Also tdp is rated 18-45w. This will directly against Panther Lake amd Strix Point.
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