NVIDIA N1x is the Company's Arm Notebook Superchip

[btarunr]

We've known since 2023 that NVIDIA is working on an Arm-based notebook SoC, and now we're seeing the first signs of the chip. A processor labelled "NVIDIA N1x" surfaced on the Geekbench 6.2.2 online database, where it scored 3096 points in the single-threaded benchmark, and 18837 points in the multithreaded benchmark. This chip is shown powering an HP-branded prototype notebook, labelled "HP 8EA3," which is running Geekbench on Ubuntu 24.04.1 LTS. The processor is identified by Geekbench as having 20 logical processors, which means it has a core-count of 20. This could be a multi-tiered big.LITTLE configuration making up those 20 cores. The clock speed being reported is 2.81 GHz. The company could implement reference Arm cores, such as the Cortex-X925 P-cores, and Cortex A725 E-cores. The HP testbed used for the Geekbench run has a whopping 128 GB of RAM.

NVIDIA has been eyeing a specific slice of the PC pie that's addressed by Qualcomm with its Snapdragon Elite line of processors for Windows-on-Arm notebooks, complete with an NPU accelerating Microsoft Copilot+ on device. The N1x could also compete with Apple's M3 or M4 chips powering its iPad Pro and MacBooks. For now, Microsoft has confined Arm-based Copilot+ to Snapdragon processors, but NVIDIA will probably work with Microsoft to open up this platform to its chips. NVIDIA has been an Arm SoC maker for decades, its first rodeo with Arm-based client-segment SoCs has been under the Tegra brand, powering Android smartphones and tablets. The company has been making Arm CPUs all this while, but for the enterprise segment (eg: Grace CPU).



The N1x could target a much broader category of devices, spanning from Windows convertibles and notebooks, to Chromebooks, to Android tablets, to even gaming handhelds. The chip could combine a cutting-edge Arm CPU complex with a iGPU based on one of the company's latest graphics architectures that meet DirectX 12 Ultimate logo requirements, and an NPU or vNPU.

View at TechPowerUp Main Site | Source

 

[Timbaloo]

That would be a mighty single core score if that really was the case

 

[Daven]

If Nvidia were able to buy ARM, they would have quickly yanked all licenses and only allowed chips sold direct from them like Intel and AMD. I for one am happy the world’s governments put their differences aside and came together to block that acquisition.

Let’s hope the other ARM licensees, Intel and AMD can stay ahead of Nvidia in the CPU space so Nvidia doesn’t get a double monopoly. We need less Nvidia not more.

 

[Prima.Vera]

Those results can be right. This means is as fast as the Intel Core i7-14700K CPU... lol

 

[Tek-Check]

If Nvidia were able to buy ARM, they would have quickly yanked all licenses and only allowed chips sold direct from them like Intel and AMD. I for one am happy the world’s governments put their differences aside and came together to block that acquisition.

I agree with this.

Let’s hope the other ARM licensees, Intel and AMD can stay ahead of Nvidia in the CPU space so Nvidia doesn’t get a double monopoly. We need less Nvidia not more.

I don't agree with this. Nvidia's APU will drive better competition. Now that others know that Nvidia is serious about mega-APU on laptops, they will take their own chip development more seriously.

This is especially true for Intel, the company that has been slowly and gradually, but consistently, losing market in all segments in last 7 years.

 

[dgianstefani]

That would be a mighty single core score if that really was the case

This is early engineering sample, likely final version will be faster still. But we'll see.

 

[R0H1T]

This is early engineering sample, likely final version will be faster still. But we'll see.

Geekbench is still trash nonetheless.

I agree with this.

I don't agree with this. Nvidia's APU will drive better competition. Now that others know that Nvidia is serious about mega-APU on laptops, they will take their own chip development more seriously.

This is especially true for Intel, the company that has been slowly and gradually, but consistently, losing market in all segments in last 7 years.

It all started with this ~

 

[Daven]

I agree with this.

I don't agree with this. Nvidia's APU will drive better competition. Now that others know that Nvidia is serious about mega-APU on laptops, they will take their own chip development more seriously.

This is especially true for Intel, the company that has been slowly and gradually, but consistently, losing market in all segments in last 7 years.

I want more competition but I am wary about it coming from Nvidia. But I also want to products to start steering away from Windows and with the horrible state of ARM on Windows, Nvidia could help usher in more Linux so I’m all for that.

 

[Tek-Check]

This is early engineering sample, likely final version will be faster still. But we'll see.

Or slower, on Windows.

It all started with this ~

Simplistic, indeed. Plus, AMD has 3D V-cache on cores.

 

[hsew]

It all started with this ~

These days, I'd argue AMD are stagnating too. Not as bad as Intel, mind you. But they've changed their mobile CPU naming scheme twice in the past 3 years, just to hide the fact that they're shamelessly rebranding most of their lineup. And don't even get me started about how they're pretty much gone from the mobile dGPU space. Strix Halo is cool, sure, but currently way too expensive and/or niche to ever give AMD a realistic chance of capturing laptop market share from nVidia or Apple.

 

[dyonoctis]

Let’s hope the other ARM licensees, Intel and AMD can stay ahead of Nvidia in the CPU space so Nvidia doesn’t get a double monopoly. We need less Nvidia not more.

I don't think that there's a single timeline where hoping for an actor in a market to be uncompetitive is a good thing. At worse the other will just have to slash their price.

 

[Daven]

These days, I'd argue AMD are stagnating too. Not as bad as Intel, mind you. But they've changed their mobile CPU naming scheme twice in the past 3 years, just to hide the fact that they're shamelessly rebranding most of their lineup. And don't even get me started about how they're pretty much gone from the mobile dGPU space. Strix Halo is cool, sure, but currently way too expensive and/or niche to ever give AMD a realistic chance of capturing laptop market share from nVidia or Apple.

Hopefully AMD will change all that with Zen 6. They have been sitting on 16 cores in the client space for a while now. If the rumors about Nova Lake are correct and Nvidia enters the market, AMD will have no choice but to start big improvements again.

 

[hsew]

I want more competition but I am wary about it coming from Nvidia. But I also want to products to start steering away from Windows and with the horrible state of ARM on Windows, Nvidia could help usher in more Linux so I’m all for that.

nVidia does NOT have a great history with Linux, but it is admittedly improving significantly, especially during these past 2-3 years. Personally I hope (in vain) they just forget Windows and go all-in on a SteamOS device (or an even a competing environment? FreeBSD FTW ). Given their success with CUDA, if anyone could topple Windows as the de-facto gaming OS, it's nVidia without a doubt, the only question being do they really want to go that route.

If they did, it would only take them... a decade or so

 

[ncrs]

A bit disappointing it's only ARMv8.

 

[Konomi]

A bit disappointing it's only ARMv8.

Well, it probably wouldn't matter for a while anyway, given ARMs biggest problem currently is on the software side. Until optimisation is done, we don't really need the latest and greatest ARM architecture.

 

[SRB151]

These days, I'd argue AMD are stagnating too. Not as bad as Intel, mind you. But they've changed their mobile CPU naming scheme twice in the past 3 years, just to hide the fact that they're shamelessly rebranding most of their lineup. And don't even get me started about how they're pretty much gone from the mobile dGPU space. Strix Halo is cool, sure, but currently way too expensive and/or niche to ever give AMD a realistic chance of capturing laptop market share from nVidia or Apple.

What makes you think that Nvidia with 20 cores+Blackwell+NPU is going to carry a mainstream or entry level price. If this thing performs anywhere near AI Max or Apple, Nvidia will charge and charge big for the privilege of allowing us to use it.

For that matter, Microsoft isn't doing so hot with Qualcomm-Copilot. Microsoft buckled under and started making Intel Surface Pros again. Funny thing is, they cost more than the Asus Z13, with lower performance, less ram, and less storage (the $179 optional keyboard doesn't help).

 

[ncrs]

Well, it probably wouldn't matter for a while anyway, given ARMs biggest problem currently is on the software side. Until optimisation is done, we don't really need the latest and greatest ARM architecture.

ARMv9 is from 2021, so it's hardly "latest and greatest". The problem is that v8 has a lot of useful non-mandatory extensions which v9 made mandatory. Fragmentation of ARM implementations is one of the detractors of software support. With a common solid base, like ARMv9, it's easier to optimize software.

 

[Darmok N Jalad]

Just my thoughts here, but I’m still not entirely convinced that there’s an actual market for WOA. It surrenders most of the advantages of the PC for maybe better idle power. You can’t upgrade any of the hardware, you don’t get the legacy software support of x86, and not all plug n play hardware works with WOA. Arm worked for Apple because that customer base generally can live without all of the above, and even then, Rosetta2 was very capable translation layer. Still, the AS Mac Pro was a largely useless device, since all those expansion slots were limited to Arm-compatible hardware. Once you get to what nvidia is offering here, you might as well look at Strix Halo, since it’s just as soldered but at least has full legacy capabilities.

 

[hsew]

What makes you think that Nvidia with 20 cores+Blackwell+NPU is going to carry a mainstream or entry level price. If this thing performs anywhere near AI Max or Apple, Nvidia will charge and charge big for the privilege of allowing us to use it.

For that matter, Microsoft isn't doing so hot with Qualcomm-Copilot. Microsoft buckled under and started making Intel Surface Pros again. Funny thing is, they cost more than the Asus Z13, with lower performance, less ram, and less storage (the $179 optional keyboard doesn't help).

I never claimed this rumored nVidia ARM APU would be entry/mid price though?

 

[Pizderko]

Fragmentation of ARM implementations is one of the detractors of software support.

Then why someone mentally sane should invest in this kind of shit if everything is fragmented?
If arm is coming for PC, then in this case - Who is supposed to unite us under the same sky if fragmentation will ruin everything??

Could be that Microsoft is the savior in this case?

 

[AnarchoPrimitiv]

If Nvidia were able to buy ARM, they would have quickly yanked all licenses and only allowed chips sold direct from them like Intel and AMD. I for one am happy the world’s governments put their differences aside and came together to block that acquisition.

Let’s hope the other ARM licensees, Intel and AMD can stay ahead of Nvidia in the CPU space so Nvidia doesn’t get a double monopoly. We need less Nvidia not more.

Exactly, NOBODY should be celebrating Nvidia getting it's tentacles on another market. If it was some brand new start up, that'd be different (this also applies to Intel getting into dGPUs.....), but it's not, it's just the same trend of consolidation we see in every industry.

 

[SRB151]

I never claimed this rumored nVidia ARM APU would be entry/mid price though?

My apologies. Although that does bring up the question "What's the point of Nvidia doing it?" I can't see a high end Windows laptop/tablet that sacrifices comparability with a good portion of Windows programs (and some hardware) in exchange with a few more hours of battery. And much like AI Max+395, the battery life is great for a 16 core cpu, that is until you use the 8060S igpu, then it's no better than trying to run a 4090 laptop on battery. The whole thing just makes no sense. Perhaps as an NUC.....the AI Max NUCs are more numerous than the laptops/tablets. You still have the compatibility issue.

 

[Darmok N Jalad]

My apologies. Although that does bring up the question "What's the point of Nvidia doing it?" I can't see a high end Windows laptop/tablet that sacrifices comparability with a good portion of Windows programs (and some hardware) in exchange with a few more hours of battery. And much like AI Max+395, the battery life is great for a 16 core cpu, that is until you use the 8060S igpu, then it's no better than trying to run a 4090 laptop on battery. The whole thing just makes no sense. Perhaps as an NUC.....the AI Max NUCs are more numerous than the laptops/tablets. You still have the compatibility issue.

I dunno on gaming on battery anyway. I understand the idea in principle, but as ubiquitous as power ports are almost everywhere you go, it just seems like gaming from wall power is ideal, especially since you'll likely be running a high res, high refresh display on high brightness. Often times, you don't even get max performance from mobile CPUs and GPUs unless you're on AC power anyway. If you can accept that limitation, then it's just a matter of everyday use battery life, where most any modern system with a good sized battery can more than satisfy. Our budget Ryzen Lenovo gets 7-8 hours, and it was like a $500 laptop.

 

[Rightness_1]

Just remember that these CPU's will be only $50, and all software just works! Almost free computing for everyone, and they will be handing notebooks and tablets based on these out like candy to kids... So much better than anything we have ever had before!

Nah, I just don't understand this ARM on desktop thing either...

But I can tell you what it will not be...

1.) More performant than AMD or Intel at the high end
2.) Cheaper than AMD or Intel
3.) Upgradeable beyond a SODIMM module
4.) Compatible with all Windows software and games
5.) Windows ARM will be as stable and compatible as x86

But hey, the battery might last a couple of hours longer!

 

[Pizderko]

Exactly, NOBODY should be celebrating Nvidia getting it's tentacles on another market.

But if this helps to kill faster Intel, then why not?