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Nvidia Challenges Apple Silicon With New RTX Spark PC Chip
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This won't be competition. It's an AI box that runs Windows.
The CPU is probably about on par with a base model M5. Gaming performance in Windows will likely be on par with an M5 Max running games ported to Metal.
The AI inference throughput is likely on par with M5 Pro for LLMs (due to memory bandwidth), and a theoretical M5 Ultra for ComfyUI (due to Blackwell).
It will likely cost more than the next Mac Studio.
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Happy_John
Suspended
That doesn't mean anything though. "Ultra" is just a marketing term. Coca-Cola could release "Coca-cola Ultra"m but that doesn't mean a caffeinated drink has got a lot of compute power or CPU/GPU cores.
Imagine having a Windows machine that can crash faster than previously thought possible!
I agree completely. Microsoft is obviously furiously working away at it's K2 initiative to make Windows not completely awful and do the sort of things that everyone who has used it knows needed to happen, but Microsoft simply couldn't be bothered to do.
But as you say, that's not enough as Windows has a somewhat bizarre life as being the main consumer edge OS and and main corporate edge OS, which as you eloquently put, prevents it from moving forward i.e. as corporates demand that Windows 11 run that crappy bespoke dot net app from 2005 that they have lost the source code to.
Now that Nvidia has given Windows an incredible - and it is incredible by the looks of it - as you say, Microsoft would be wise to re-imagine Windows for an AI / agent first future.
Call it a new name (but please not 'CoPilot OS' or something), call it 'Windows AI' - but now is a golden opportunity for them to get rid of the cruft and proclaim that this version will break compatibility and have things like USB-A be the oldest hardware interface that they support.
And then keep a (partially) modernised Windows 11 for those who insist that their PC game from 2010 has to work perfectly etc.
At this point, Intel's only valid choice to survive seems to try to become an awesome US and EU foundry and hope to capture some of Apple, AMD, Nvidia and Qualcomm's business.
And spin off x86 as a legacy company iterating on its current chips for cheap commodity Windows 11 PCs, until x86 becomes completely irrelevant.
ThailandToo
macrumors 65816
If like the DGX spark not too bad. Not as good as a Mac Studio, but better than most Nvidia GPUs to run AI.
huge_apple_fangirl
macrumors 6502a
Obviously Apple is going to crush this in CPU perf but the real question is GPU, Apple is good but always a gen behind NVIDIA. The “N2X” should be a lot more interesting since I think it will use NVIDIA’s custom “Olympus” cores.
There’s all this talk about how Apple is blowing AI but NVIDIA is clearly trying to take over some of the “run large-ish models on your device locally” market that Apple is dominating with Apple Silicon and unified memory. AMD too with Strix Halo. Luck for Apple, they have a head start due to pioneering this chip architecture and a much larger install base, so MLX has had time to gain ecosystem support instead of everyone just defaulting to CUDA. Now the question is how Windows on Arm performs, I have more faith in NV than QC but the problem is Microsoft and Windows…
There’s all this talk about how Apple is blowing AI but NVIDIA is clearly trying to take over some of the “run large-ish models on your device locally” market that Apple is dominating with Apple Silicon and unified memory. AMD too with Strix Halo. Luck for Apple, they have a head start due to pioneering this chip architecture and a much larger install base, so MLX has had time to gain ecosystem support instead of everyone just defaulting to CUDA. Now the question is how Windows on Arm performs, I have more faith in NV than QC but the problem is Microsoft and Windows…
Steve Adams
macrumors 68000
Could mean it got more caffine though? who knows. ha ha. Pro was the term for awhile, then it was max. They have to keep thinking of new catch words. s
The Windows fanboys are already starting to say the RTX Spark is a nightmare. NIVIDA is also putting the RTX Spark in desktop machines because AI can use the unified memory. However the RTX Spark Memory is not expandable and you cannot use traditional video cards like NVIDIA 50xx or AMD Graphics cards. I do not know If the SSD disk space is expandable either? Windows users are not used to machines like these RTX Spark machines!
Steve Adams
macrumors 68000
Wow 1998 wants it's joke back. I have multiple windows systems running and exactly one has ever crashed because a motherboard is going bad. Apple NEVER has hardware issues MIRITE?
This laptop isn’t a game changer. They tried the same marketing lines with the Windows ARM tablets and laptops twice already in 15 years. It’s just another PC but decent for language models.
People who want you use macOS do not switch to Windows. If they want to game they either get a console or a supplemental PC alongside their Mac.
As for Linux…same old same old. A new laptop comes out. The holier than thou Linux guys start demanding Linux support but it’s pointless because the serious apps the majority of user need do not live on Linux.
There is very little incentive to port many games annd apps to Linux because the average Linux user has a vile hatred for companies that need to make a lot of money for support, research and development. Until the average Linux user is a mature person who isn’t addicted to torrents and hentai that won’t change.
People who want you use macOS do not switch to Windows. If they want to game they either get a console or a supplemental PC alongside their Mac.
As for Linux…same old same old. A new laptop comes out. The holier than thou Linux guys start demanding Linux support but it’s pointless because the serious apps the majority of user need do not live on Linux.
There is very little incentive to port many games annd apps to Linux because the average Linux user has a vile hatred for companies that need to make a lot of money for support, research and development. Until the average Linux user is a mature person who isn’t addicted to torrents and hentai that won’t change.
VulchR
macrumors 68040
Agreed. Making little AI niche's in hardware distributed across consumer devices, all of which are attached to the internet – what could possibly go wrong?
The idea that AI agents should control devices, even with nominal consent, is naive and dangerous. If local devices can truly run AI with billions of free parameters, the people designing the AI, let alone the consumers, will have no hope of understanding how the agents work.
Haiku_Oezu
macrumors 6502a
Before you’re impressed by those 100 frames per second please remember NVIDIA gives you the performance metrics of their stuff running with aggressive DLSS and Frame Generation at the maximum possible multiplier
That’s how they come up with stuff like “the 5070 has the same performance as a 4090”
That’s how they come up with stuff like “the 5070 has the same performance as a 4090”
I just saw a summery of Nvidia's CEO Jensen Huang's presentation at Computex, he is an obsessed dangerous man! Literally went on about how AI will replace jobs without saying it straight out, and replacing a billion human workers with several billion AI workers he called 'Agents'...
Considering they will be building Apples chips it actually isn't... Also we need Intel and AMD to push competition.
"It also puts the RTX Spark on a collision course with Apple's M5,"
Not really. This is about Windows, not Apple. Normal people choose their OS first, not their chip first...
The real collision course is with x86 and QC. x86 is basically doomed (not today, not tomorrow, but over the next decade or so), we all know that, only of interest to people who demand eternal compatibility.
The more interesting case is QC. QC correctly saw that there was a crown lying in the gutter, but fumbled badly as they reached to pick it up. nV thinks they won't fumble. I suspect nV are right.
How did QC screw up (and continue to do so)?
- They're run by finance people, not engineers.
- They insist on pushing cellular tech everywhere, even when it's not wanted, which just causes friction with partners.- They didn't take seriously the challenges (and importance) of having PERFECT Windows drivers on day one.
nV in contrast
- is run by engineers, and specifically the founder.
- they insist on pushing throughput tech everywhere. Difference is everyone (including the partners) WANTS this very much.
- they've already had a run at this, in 2012. Like Apple learning the intricacies of x86 many years in advance (by porting QuickTime to Windows in the 90s) they've had a chance to learn all the sharp edges and think about how to resolve them.
Not really. This is about Windows, not Apple. Normal people choose their OS first, not their chip first...
The real collision course is with x86 and QC. x86 is basically doomed (not today, not tomorrow, but over the next decade or so), we all know that, only of interest to people who demand eternal compatibility.
The more interesting case is QC. QC correctly saw that there was a crown lying in the gutter, but fumbled badly as they reached to pick it up. nV thinks they won't fumble. I suspect nV are right.
How did QC screw up (and continue to do so)?
- They're run by finance people, not engineers.
- They insist on pushing cellular tech everywhere, even when it's not wanted, which just causes friction with partners.- They didn't take seriously the challenges (and importance) of having PERFECT Windows drivers on day one.
nV in contrast
- is run by engineers, and specifically the founder.
- they insist on pushing throughput tech everywhere. Difference is everyone (including the partners) WANTS this very much.
- they've already had a run at this, in 2012. Like Apple learning the intricacies of x86 many years in advance (by porting QuickTime to Windows in the 90s) they've had a chance to learn all the sharp edges and think about how to resolve them.
nVidia and Apple offer different sorts of challenges. Both are appealing to engineers, just depends on your interests.
nV offers the challenge of raw power - how to build bigger, handle more current, handle more bandwidth, etc.
Apple offers the challenge of being smarter - how to get twice as fast without using more area or more energy.
QC? I got nuttin'. There's a reason GW3 and friends all left the moment they legally could.
groove-agent
macrumors 68020
I wonder who will win the race to get to use the "Ultra" moniker. I personally think the words "pro", "max", "plus", "premium" offers no semantic value and are just marketing "hype" words. In a way I miss the old days when you had Macs that were Pro and not Pro which inherently made sense. I do understand that these days, Mac customers are more complicated so the product line becomes more complicated. Now you have computers that are named after hype words, and also include processors having hype words.
groove-agent
macrumors 68020
I'm VERY interested how things are going to change at Apple, if any.
Happy_John
Suspended
It's a bit of a mess. Moving the OSes to "year" was sensible.
Air, Pro, Ultra, Max etc would be more useful if they were kept only for products, not processors.
Processors could be named simply by generation and CPU / GPU core count.
So, rather than saying the word salad like "I've got a Mini with a Pro and I've got a pro with an Ultra", "you could say something like "An M5 18/40 MacBook Pro running 26".
Much better for quickly giving the needed information, but marketeers would absolutely hate this 😛
Steve Adams
macrumors 68000
Yeah, Just decided to buy a macbook pro M5 14 inch. I am going to bump to 24gb and 1tb and call it a day. It's going to be 1/2 the price of these, it's going to be free of ai Slop and I can still access all our microsoft services through MacOS/iPadOS. I am fine doing that. Too little to late on the hardware side of windows.
groove-agent
macrumors 68020
I agree with most of what you said. To add to that, I feel that ideally you should be able to tell which model is better just by the name. Currently it's hard to tell which is the better model if they're named "ultra", "max", "premium" (Dell). These names have no value other than being hype words.
When I worked retail I found that people loved a product that contained some sort of numerical quantifier. So M1, M2, m3 works; using the year of the OS works, core counts work although I doubt the average person would remember how many cores their processor has. 🙂
groove-agent
macrumors 68020
I feel the linux crowd doesn't change. There is always one or two elitists in a topic that drops a pro linux comment. Usually every couple years I look at the various distributions and come to the same conclusion - it's still far from any kind of mainstream adaptation, nor does it remotely compete with non-open source OSes (MacOS/ Windows) with respect to app selection or reliability of existing apps. The age old axiom "you get what you pay for" applies.
If I'm wrong and there is a polished linux distribution out there let me know. The last ones I tried were Debian and Ubuntu which works OK if you're doing average computer things, but if you want to do anything specialized, the app support isn't really there, or the apps are limited or are buggy AF. Zorin looks interesting and has some perks. It would be nice if there was a viable option between Windows and MacOS.
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