NVIDIA has spent thirty years selling graphics cards that go inside other companies' PCs. With RTX Spark, it's now supplying the whole processor. The first RTX Spark laptops went on sale in October, and the compact desktop versions are due this month, with GIGABYTE and MSI announcing models in the past few days.
This is a news explainer, not a review. Forge PC hasn't tested any RTX Spark system, and the performance claims below are the manufacturers' own unless we say otherwise. UK prices are given where a UK retailer or manufacturer has published one, and are approximate as of 12 November 2026.
What RTX Spark is
NVIDIA announced RTX Spark on 31 May 2026. It's a "superchip" that combines three things in one package:
A Blackwell RTX graphics processor with up to 6,144 CUDA cores, from the same generation as the RTX 50-series graphics cards.
An NVIDIA Grace CPU with up to 20 Arm cores. NVIDIA says MediaTek collaborated on the CPU design.
Unified memory of up to 128GB of LPDDR5X, shared between the CPU and GPU, rather than separate system RAM and video memory.
NVIDIA quotes up to 1 petaflop of FP4 AI performance. Its product page lists two desktop configurations: a 6,144-core GPU with a 20-core CPU and up to 128GB of memory, and a 5,120-core GPU with an 18-core CPU and up to 64GB. Both have a stated power range of 45 to 80W.
The Verge reported that the flagship chip appears to be spec-for-spec the same as the GB10 chip in NVIDIA's DGX Spark developer box, now sold as a family of Windows PC chips.
The desktops announced so far
NVIDIA's blog said compact desktops would go on sale in November, after laptops shipped on 16 October. Two makers have now shown theirs:
System | What's confirmed | UK price |
|---|
GIGABYTE AI TOP AERO | Announced 10 November. RTX Spark N1X (20-core CPU), up to 128GB LPDDR5X, up to 4TB PCIe 5.0 SSD, 10GbE and Wi-Fi 7, in a chassis of about one litre (VideoCardz) | Not announced. VideoCardz says regional configurations and pricing have yet to be confirmed |
MSI EdgeMesa N AI+ | RTX Spark N1X with 6,144-core GPU and 20-core CPU, up to 128GB LPDDR5X, up to 4TB NVMe SSD, four 20Gbps USB-C ports, HDMI 2.1, 10G LAN and Wi-Fi 7, with a vapour-chamber cooler MSI rates for 140W (MSI product page) | Not published on MSI's page |
Microsoft has also announced a Surface RTX Spark Dev Box with 128GB of memory. Box.co.uk's RTX Spark guide said in October that Microsoft had listed US pre-orders but hadn't confirmed a UK release date or price.
For a sense of where UK pricing sits, the only RTX Spark machine with a confirmed UK price that we found is a laptop. Box reported on 9 October that Microsoft's UK store listed the Surface Laptop Ultra from £2,599 (18-core CPU, 5,120-core GPU, 24GB, 512GB SSD), with a 20-core, 32GB, 1TB configuration at £3,699. The Verge said the first wave of RTX Spark machines targets "the more premium price points in the market."
Why AI developers are interested
The selling point is memory. A graphics card can only run an AI model quickly if the model fits in its video memory, and the largest consumer card, the RTX 5090, has 32GB. On 12 November SpecPrice's UK tracker listed the cheapest RTX 5090 at about £7,000.
An RTX Spark system with 128GB of shared memory can hold much larger models. NVIDIA says RTX Spark can run 120-billion-parameter language models locally. The trade-off is speed per gigabyte: unified LPDDR5X isn't as fast as the GDDR7 on a high-end graphics card. VideoCardz notes that GIGABYTE hasn't specified memory bandwidth for the AI TOP AERO. For reference, VideoCardz lists 273GB/s for the related GB10-based AI TOP ATOM, compared with 1,792GB/s that NVIDIA quotes for the RTX 5090.
What it means for gamers and PC builders
It isn't an upgrade path for a tower PC. You can't buy an RTX Spark chip on its own, and The Verge reported NVIDIA confirming that RTX Spark won't be paired with additional discrete graphics cards. These are sealed small systems.
Gaming performance is unproven. NVIDIA claims AAA games at 1440p and over 100 frames per second. The Verge reported NVIDIA describing graphics performance as roughly that of an RTX 5070 laptop GPU, depending on the application. Neither claim had been independently verified in the coverage we read, and GIGABYTE hasn't published gaming benchmarks.
It's Windows on Arm. Software built for Intel and AMD processors runs through Microsoft's Prism emulation layer, which The Verge notes can mean lower performance. Many creative apps already run natively on Arm, and The Verge reported that Riot Games is bringing League of Legends and Valorant to Windows on Arm, and Krafton is bringing PUBG. Before buying, check that the games and anti-cheat systems you rely on support Arm.
It isn't on Microsoft's Copilot+ list. As of 12 November, Microsoft's Windows 11 specifications page lists AMD Ryzen AI 300 and 400, Intel Core Ultra 200V and 300V, and Snapdragon X series chips as the processors that currently meet its Copilot+ PC requirements. RTX Spark isn't named. That may change, but don't assume Copilot+ features such as Recall are included.
Should you wait for one?
For a gaming PC, no. A conventional desktop still gives you a choice of graphics card and the option to upgrade it later. Our best graphics card guide covers what that money buys today. If you want to run AI models locally on a normal PC, the amount of video memory matters most, and in the current UK hardware market that is expensive.
RTX Spark desktops make the most sense for developers who need more memory than any affordable graphics card offers, and who are happy to work on Windows on Arm. We'll update this story when UK prices are confirmed.
Our verdict
RTX Spark is the most significant change to Windows PC hardware this year: NVIDIA is now making the whole chip, and the new compact desktops bring up to 128GB of shared memory to a box of about one litre. For local AI work that needs more memory than a 32GB graphics card, that's genuinely new. For gamers and PC builders, it's not a replacement for a tower. Gaming performance hasn't been independently tested, it runs Windows on Arm, there's no upgrade path, and UK desktop prices haven't been published. Wait for independent reviews and confirmed UK pricing before you consider one.
