Microsoft and Nvidia open preorders for RTX Spark PCs starting at $2,600
On October 7, Microsoft and Nvidia opened preorders for an entire first generation of PCs built around the RTX Spark chip — while Microsoft announced "Windows Hybrid Intelligence," an initiative to run AI models locally on the machine instead of in the cloud. The first wave is expensive: configurations range from roughly $2,600 to $7,000, and shipping begins as soon as October 16.
The San Francisco launch
Microsoft held a Windows and Surface event in San Francisco on October 7, 2026, where company chief Satya Nadella, Nvidia's chief Jensen Huang, and Windows and Surface chief Pavan Davuluri led "a conversation about how local AI will shape the PC's next chapter," as The Verge reported from the event (The Verge).
The same day, Microsoft opened preorders for both the new Surface Laptop Ultra and the Surface RTX Spark Dev Box, as well as RTX Spark laptops from Asus, HP, Dell, and MSI.
The chip: RTX Spark N1X
The centerpiece is Nvidia's RTX Spark N1X, which combines a Grace CPU with a Blackwell RTX GPU, according to TechRepublic's account of Microsoft's announcement (TechRepublic).
Microsoft claims the chip can run AI models with more than 120 billion parameters locally, and cites up to one petaflop of AI compute in select configurations. Both figures are the company's own claims. The petaflop figure moreover refers to theoretical performance in FP4 format with sparsity — not general compute.
The hardware and the prices
Surface Laptop Ultra: Preorders opened October 7, priced from $2,599.99, on sale from October 16 (TechRepublic).
Surface RTX Spark Dev Box: $5,999.99, shipping to customers from November. It has the N1X chip, 128 GB of total memory, a 2 TB SSD, a GPU with 6,144 cores, and Windows 11 Pro with developer tools preinstalled (Engadget). An Engadget reporter who saw the machine on site noted its high weight and extensive ventilation (Engadget).
The partner machines that opened for preorders on October 7, according to PCMag and Digital Trends:
- Asus ProArt P14: from $2,599.99 (Digital Trends)
- Asus ProArt P16: from $4,399; the 128 GB version costs $6,999.99 (PCMag)
- HP OmniBook X 14: from $2,999 (PCMag)
- Dell XPS 16 Creator Edition: $3,799 (PCMag)
- MSI Prestige N16 Flip AI+: from $3,299.99 (32 GB) up to $6,799.99 (128 GB) (Digital Trends)
PCMag describes the prices as "wild" and suggests they are partly due to the memory crunch — but that is the outlet's own characterization, not a confirmed explanation from Microsoft or Nvidia.
The software: Windows Hybrid Intelligence
Alongside the hardware, Microsoft announced "Windows Hybrid Intelligence," a package of features that lets the Copilot assistant read the files on a PC, take actions on the machine, and choose to run AI models locally instead of in the cloud "when it makes sense," as GeekWire reported from the stage (GeekWire via MSN).
The features will roll out "in the coming months" on Copilot+ PCs, according to Microsoft as reported by GeekWire. In addition, an experimental edition for GitHub Copilot is coming later this month.
Nadella explained the logic behind the initiative during the conversation with Huang: "I think agents are going to be the largest users of the file system."
Microsoft's claim of beating the MacBook Pro
Microsoft presented one benchmark that purportedly shows the Surface Laptop Ultra beating Apple's MacBook Pro with the M5 Pro chip, with a performance gain of 2–6x on certain workloads, including image and video generation (PCMag). This is a company statement, not independently verified — no third-party test results were available at launch time.
What remains open
Several questions are unanswered after the launch:
- Real-world performance. The benchmark war against the MacBook Pro is, for now, Microsoft's own numbers. How the N1X performs in independent testing, and how heat, battery life, and noise behave in the laptops, remains to be seen.
- The timing of Hybrid Intelligence. "In the coming months" is precise enough to promise, but vague enough that no one can confirm a date.
- Where pricing goes. The first wave starts at around $2,600 for a laptop — premium territory. Whether prices soften as more configurations and vendors arrive is an open question. PCMag's suggested memory crunch could indicate that prices are being driven by temporary conditions, but this is unresolved.