MICROSOFT'S OWN RTX SPARK LAPTOP IS $2,599 — 128GB CONFIG RUNS $5,899

Microsoft has opened pre-orders for the Surface Laptop Ultra, its first laptop built on NVIDIA's RTX Spark platform, starting at $2,599 and shipping October 16. The base configuration pairs an 18-core NVIDIA N1X CPU and 5120-core Blackwell GPU with 24GB of unified memory and a 512GB SSD. A fully configured model with a 20-core CPU, 6144-core GPU, 128GB of unified memory, and a 1TB SSD costs $5,899.

The machine has a 15-inch mini-LED HDR touchscreen rated at up to 2,000 nits, weighs about 4.5 pounds, and includes three USB-C ports, USB-A, HDMI, a full-size SD reader, and a headphone jack, plus magnetic USB-C charging in place of the Surface Connect port. Microsoft is pitching the large unified memory pool at local AI workloads and demonstrated gaming at 60 frames per second in Gears of War: E-Day. The starting price undercuts HP's RTX Spark OmniBook X 14, which starts at $2,999.