NVIDIA RTX Spark N1X Laptop Benchmarks: The Results Are In

Although users often keep their laptops and notebooks plugged into AC power, they are designed to be used while mobile, on battery (DC) power. Many laptops, however, offer vastly different performance profiles when running on AC (plugged in) or DC (battery) power. With that in mind, we re-ran a couple of tests to see how much performance our NVIDIA RTX Spark N1X test system lost--if any--while utilizing its battery. NVIDIA claims RTX Spark should maintain much of its performance on battery, but OEMs and ODMs often tweak power profiles to maximize battery life, which can sometimes tank performance.

Benchmarks On Battery (DC) Power With The NVIDIA RTX Spark N1X

We re-ran a lightly-threaded workload (Speedometer) and a heavily-threaded workload (Cinebench 26) on our RTX Spark N1X test system while operating on battery power and saw mixed results. With the browser-based Speedometer test, the Spark system bled off about 18% of its performance, which is better than many systems, but still significant. With the multi-threaded Cinebench rendering workload, however, the system maintained virtually all of its performance. Keep in mind, this is only one test system, from a relatively conservative OEM. We'll have additional results from other systems in the coming days.

How Does The NVIDIA Spark N1X Perform In Terms Of Battery Life?

Battery life is critically important for a mobile PC. Being productive on the go could mean long stretches away from power outlets, so the machine needs to last through hours of work--whether it's for writing e-mails or poring over spreadsheets. Binging on content during long flights is another common use case.

Here we've calibrated the laptop displays to a similar fixed brightness, in an effort to minimize that aspect of power draw, though lots of other variables come into play, like battery capacity, or the number of integrated peripherals in a system, for example.


Our NVIDIA RTX Spark N1X test system put up a somewhat impressive 14 hours and 35 minutes, considering the amount of horsepower on tap. With a 3K OLED display, 128GB of RAM, and a relatively large GPU inside the test system, we weren't expecting it to come close to Microsoft's claim of "15 hours" of video playback battery life, but we landed right in the ballpark.


If we rank the systems based on minutes per watt-hour of battery, to get a better sense of power efficiency, the NVIDIA RTX Spark N1X platform ranks towards the bottom, however. Bear in mind, the top RTX Spark N1X we're testing uses about as much silicon as a typical gaming notebook with a powerful, many-core CPU and discrete RTX 5070 - 5080 class GPU, so expecting efficiency in-line with more mainstream ultralight mobile platforms is unrealistic. The Alienware gaming laptop in the chart above, for example, is much more in line with the RTX Spark's power envelope.

What Do We Think About The NVIDIA RTX Spark N1X?

We’ve got a lot more NVIDIA RTX Spark N1X content coming in the very near future. Full reviews for partner systems can start to go live tomorrow and we’ve got a few on hand, with more on the way. We will be detailing more AI-related workloads and use cases as well, so stay tuned if you’d like to learn more about what NVIDIA and its partners have in store for this platform.

Now that we’ve been able to experience the RTX Spark N1X independently, with a retail-ready system, and run our own tests, however, we’ve got a much clearer idea of what the RTX Spark N1X is, and what it isn’t.

In its most potent form, which is what we’ve tested here, the RTX Spark N1X is a powerful SoC that offers competitive multi-threaded CPU performance versus today’s top mobile platforms, with class-leading GPU performance. The RTX Spark N1X’s AI performance and capabilities are also unmatched, not only because of the powerful hardware on tap and unified memory architecture, but because NVIDIA’s AI software stack is so pervasive and mature. If your use cases require many CPU cores and will benefit from NVIDIA’s GPU and AI leadership, the RTX Spark N1X will be a killer platform.


Where the RTX Spark N1X falters somewhat is in single-threaded CPU performance, which is key for many everyday computing workloads. And if an application is not Arm-native, there will be a performance penalty when running under Windows’ PRISM emulation. There are also still some roadblocks for gaming because some anti-cheat solutions aren’t Arm-compatible just yet, like EA’s for example. Though NVIDIA tells us this is very much in the works. And in general, we expect the software-related growing pains to be sorted out in due time. In the 2+ years since Qualcomm entered the PC market, the number of Arm-native applications has skyrocketed, and compatibility with PRISM has gotten exponentially better. With NVIDIA now in the race, with a roadmap that extends out for two more generations already, we expect things will only get better.

Regarding power and efficiency, the top-end RTX Spark N1X config we tested in the Microsoft Surface Laptop Ultra performed relatively well. Considering the test system’s 3K OLED display, 128GB of memory, 20 CPU cores and relatively large integrated GPU, battery life was decent and our testing was right in line with Microsoft’s 15-hour estimate. We’ll see how other systems fare soon.


In the end, whether or not the RTX Spark N1X is right for you will entirely depend on what you intend to do with it. At this moment in time, gamers will likely be better served by an x86 system with discrete graphics, especially when you consider pricing. Microsoft's Surface Laptop Ultra starts at $2599.99. And road warriors that tool around in browser windows and office applications likely won’t tap the capabilities of the chip.

Creators, developers, or anyone entrenched in AI, agents and models, however, are a different story. The RTX Spark N1X is ideally suited to those use cases and it’s a very strong first showing in the Windows PC market for NVIDIA.