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Nvidia Challenges Apple Silicon With New RTX Spark PC Chip

NVIDIA knows the general consumer PC market is done, so they're going to resell their binned AI processors as "premium" products to get some extra money off rich gullible vibecoders and "content creators".

Actual hardware will turn into a luxury fashion item and the rest of us will have to sign up for Cloud PC subscriptions.
 
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I think NVIDIA’s new AI-focused hardware could create an opportunity for Microsoft to introduce an entirely new consumer operating system rather than continuing to evolve Windows. Windows remains deeply entrenched in the enterprise, where backward compatibility and stability are critical, but a new platform could focus on personal computing and be designed from the ground up for modern hardware architectures that combine CPUs, GPUs, and AI accelerators. It could support existing Windows applications through a compatibility layer while encouraging developers to build native applications optimized for the new platform over time.

The key would be positioning. I wouldn’t market it as an “AI Operating System” because many consumers still associate AI with privacy concerns, surveillance, and job displacement. Instead, market it as a faster, simpler, and more secure computing experience. Let AI work quietly in the background to improve productivity, search, automation, and personalization while keeping most processing local to the device. If done correctly, the platform could gain traction in the consumer market first and eventually mature into a viable enterprise alternative, much like other successful operating systems have done in the past.
 
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Who cares… They are late to the party. Compared to Apple and MacBooks, Surface laptops are overpriced toys, NVIDIA better go cater to gamers, miners, AI data centers and whoever else. Majority of customers who need a computer won’t look at those two, unless they get it at their workplace as a “free item”. NVIDIA and Microslop are out of touch
 
pgolik said:
Given the track record of Nvidia Linux support I wouldn't hope for much. Their drivers are famous for being a nightmare on Linux.
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Considerable progress has been made over the past 2 years. NVIDIA has shifted entirely toward open source kernel modules its modern architectures. They aren't quite as good as AMD's plug and play, but they are perfectly usable for daily driving or gaming and work very well for AI/machine learning.
 
Chet-NYC said:
That will always be the Achilles Heel for any personal computer outside of a Mac (or Linux).
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these are not personal computers although they disguise as such, these are enterprise all-mighty-dollar time-is-money philosophy compute boxes that you "get the job done" with while they drag your spirit and joy to the ground while doing so.
 
Interesting. I feel like Nvidia is one of those companies that slowly became more evil than anything, not sure I would want to support them in anyway at this point, even if l needed a Windows machine, and the performance looks good. Also, even though Windows ARM has come a long way, it’s still very much behind macOS. Microsoft really needs to get it in gear.
 
pgolik said:
Given the track record of Nvidia Linux support I wouldn't hope for much. Their drivers are famous for being a nightmare on Linux.
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Huh? Nvidia's linux drivers have been great, on par if not better than on windows. The only issues I've really seen are people using distros with a long release cycle or otherwise LTS focused complaining they dont have latest drivers. Saner distros have been great, and the move to nvidia-open (open as in kernel modules, not as in userspace) has been a welcome improvement.

Now the unofficial 100% open source ones on the other hand... they're functional but you arent really getting cuda or the other types of features you probably have an nvidia GPU for.


I'm not in the market to buy one of these but I'd certainly imagine linux on them would be leagues better than the horrific situation still that is arm based windows and really modern windows in general.
 
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MacRumors said:
Microsoft's new 15-inch Surface Laptop Ultra will be among the first machines to ship with the integrated silicon. The machine features a mini-LED touchscreen, the largest haptic touchpad Microsoft has fitted to a Surface, and a selection of ports covering HDMI, USB-C, USB-A, SD cards, and headphones.
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Oh man, I really hope the Linux people get cracking on this because it sounds fantastic.
 
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pgolik said:
Given the track record of Nvidia Linux support I wouldn't hope for much. Their drivers are famous for being a nightmare on Linux.
Click to expand...

They've actually improved quite a bit lately, at least on the wayland side of things. Still not perfect, but not noticeably bad.
 
Strange video. My initial impression was that it was about the fans and cooling features of the new surface. Unsuccessfully looked for thermal stats (very briefly) of the new chip. I mean we've got an M5 in an MBA that has no fans or vents, and have yet to run into throttling issues (although they do exist). Competition is good though. Apple's Silicon team has been the best in the consumer bizness for quite some time. JohnyS has been promoted. Hopefully this leads to JohnyS and JohnT to open the floodgates of innovation for that team. Go guys. HTH, NSC
 
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