Surface Laptop Ultra with RTX Spark starts at $2,599

Microsoft has opened preorders for the Surface Laptop Ultra, a 15-inch laptop built around Nvidia's new RTX Spark chip. It starts at $2,599.99, Microsoft's product page says, and ServeTheHome reports it ships on October 16, 2026. Microsoft calls it "our most powerful Surface laptop ever, built for local AI and 3D graphics." The pitch is that a thin laptop can run large AI models on its own memory, without a cloud service.

What is inside

RTX Spark is a "superchip" that puts an Nvidia Grace processor and a Blackwell RTX graphics chip in one package. ServeTheHome calls the chip the N1X and says it runs Windows on Arm, a version of Windows built for Arm-based processors.

The two sources agree on the headline numbers:

Spec	Detail
Processor	Up to 20 Nvidia Grace cores; ServeTheHome lists 18- and 20-core versions
Graphics	Blackwell RTX; 5,120 or 6,144 cores, per ServeTheHome
Memory	Up to 128 GB, shared between CPU and GPU
Storage	Up to 2 TB, user-upgradeable
Display	15-inch touchscreen, 120 Hz, 100% DCI-P3, 2,000 nits peak HDR
Weight and size	Under 4.5 lbs, under 18 mm thick
Colors	Platinum and Nightfall

Shared memory, also called unified memory, means the GPU can use the same pool as the CPU. A discrete graphics card has a fixed amount of its own memory. Microsoft notes that the GPU can address less than the full total.

Prices and configurations

ServeTheHome lists three configurations and the dev box:

• 18-core, 24 GB memory, 512 GB storage: about $2,600
• 20-core, 32 GB, 1 TB: about $3,700
• 20-core, 128 GB, 1 TB: about $5,900
• Surface RTX Spark Dev Box, a mini-PC with 128 GB and 2 TB: about $6,000

Microsoft's page lists a promotion of up to $1,000 cash back with a trade-in. It runs from October 7 to November 23, 2026, in the US and Canada, through the Microsoft Store online only.

ServeTheHome says Dell, Asus and other makers announced RTX Spark systems the same day, without models or ship dates. The same launch also brought a dev box that opened for preorder at $5,999.

The local AI pitch

Microsoft says the laptop can run agent workflows with models up to 120 billion parameters. Its footnote says this is "based on theoretical FP4 TOPS using the sparsity feature," so it is a peak figure, not a measured result. FP4 is a compact number format that lets large models fit in less memory.

ServeTheHome describes two example models. One is Nvidia's Nemotron, planned at 70 billion parameters and squeezed to 2-bit precision, about 20 GB. The other is MAI Code 1.1 Flash at 3-bit, for which Microsoft recommends 128 GB or more.

Display, battery and ports

ServeTheHome lists a 92 Wh battery, with Microsoft's claims of 15 hours of video playback and 12 hours of web use. Microsoft's page says battery results vary by test. Ports include HDMI 2.1b, three USB-C at 40 Gbps, a USB-A port, an SD card reader and a headphone jack. A magnetic USB-C port handles charging.

For gaming, Microsoft says ray tracing, DLSS and Reflex give "smooth gameplay" on the 120 Hz screen. A footnote warns that performance varies by game and configuration.

What this means for developers

• Check the memory, not only the chip. Microsoft recommends 128 GB or more for one of its example models. The 24 GB model is a much smaller machine, so match the memory to the model you plan to run.
• Test your software on Windows on Arm. The chip is Arm-based, so tools built for x86 may run through translation. Check your compilers, drivers and containers first.
• Wait for independent benchmarks. Microsoft tested a preproduction unit with 64 GB and a 6,144-core GPU. Real speeds, heat and battery life will show up in reviews after October 16.
• Compare against a desktop. The $5,900 laptop costs about the same as the dev box. If you do not need to travel, the mini-PC may be the better value.

The first independent reviews will show how far the 120-billion-parameter claim holds up outside Microsoft's own tests.