But when most people think of an “Nvidia laptop,” they probably assume it’s for gaming. And the RTX Spark can make games In fact, there are quite a few games: the pre-release estimate that the integrated graphics run at a “5070 level” is about right. I found initial testing of HP’s $3,199 Omnibook 16 Ultra impressive, especially for integrated graphics.
Unfortunately, the price of these RTX Spark laptops, which range from $2,600 to $7,000 at launch, simply makes them a bad proposition for anyone primarily interested in gaming. You’re paying a huge premium for the level of gaming performance you get, starting at about a thousand dollars more than an equivalent laptop with a discrete graphics card, and only going up from there.
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The RTX Spark is amazing. We didn’t need proof that integrated graphics could handle impressive games, not with the last few years of laptops proving it. But Nvidia may have shown that it can do it on Arm as well, possibly better, than the X64 chips. But you won’t do it on a budget, at least not with early laptop chips and designs.
Compatibility issues or lack thereof
One of the potential issues that arose with Qualcomm’s first Arm-based chips in Windows laptops was basic app compatibility. Windows users remember the problems with Windows RT… or perhaps I should say, one of problems with Windows RT. But since then, and with the rise of smartphones and other devices based on Arm chips, these seem to have been largely fixed. I would have no problem recommending an Arm laptop to anyone, especially if they value battery life over power.
The big exception is the players. Snapdragon laptops are clearly a bit bad at PC gaming, only handling older 2D titles with any proficiency. So I was interested to see how Nvidia would handle this, since as a brand it is closely associated with PC gaming. In the run-up to the launch of RTX Spark, the company promised powerful games and “hundreds” of titles supported from the start, prepared in cooperation with some of the industry’s biggest publishers and developers.
Michael Crider/Casting
And not much else. If anything, Nvidia is being a bit reticent when talking about gaming for these laptops, preferring to talk about core power and AI capabilities. It lets you know where the priorities are.
