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from the how-much-will-they-charge-for-the-RAM-it-comes-with? dept.
Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:
Nvidia's big consumer chips for PCs, the Arm-based N1 and N1X, could finally be about to arrive if a new rumor is correct.
A report from DigiTimes (hat tip to VideoCardz) claims that laptops with Nvidia's N1X chip inside will be launching in the first quarter of 2026. So, within the next two months.
These will target the consumer market, and three other variants will be on sale in Q2, we're told. Presumably, that includes the base N1 chip, which is less powerful, but still intended for producing 'high-end AI computing platforms' – the N1X is the more performant CPU which will be aimed at notebooks for professionals, the report observes.
There's still some confusion around the naming and where exactly the N1 and N1X will fit into the CPU landscape, with some guessing that the N1 will be a desktop chip, and the N1X a mobile (laptop) chip. However, DigiTimes makes it clear that both the N1 and N1X will appear in laptops (add your own seasoning, naturally). That doesn't mean that there couldn't be a desktop variant of one of these chips as well, though, and perhaps that's still planned.
Following the N1 series, the next-gen N2 silicon will take the baton for Nvidia in the third quarter of 2027, the report claims.
Obviously, be skeptical about that timeframe in particular, because even if Nvidia has plans for these N2 chips, this schedule may end up going awry (what with the silicon still being relatively early in development).
The rumor comes from supply chain sources, we're informed, and the delay of the N1 series – which was supposed to arrive late in 2025 as per the original speculation about Nvidia's Arm CPU – is due to Team Green fine-tuning these chips, and "Microsoft OS timelines", the report states.
The latter presumably refers to Windows 11 26H1, which is a new spin on the OS specifically for Snapdragon X2 chips – and seemingly Nvidia's N1 silicon, too, as that's Arm-based and a direct rival for Qualcomm's processors powering Windows 11 laptops. So, the launch of the N1 and N1X being put back to wait for this 26H1 update – which isn't being delivered to non-Arm Windows PCs (AMD and Intel) – makes sense.
Still, we must be cautious because, as already noted. I don't rank DigiTimes as one of the most reliable sources out there, but it can, on occasion, dig up useful and accurate rumors from the supply chain. The purported launch timing seems believable enough given what I've just outlined, and also we've heard rumors suggesting similar plans in the past – such as an Alienware laptop with an Nvidia CPU aiming for a Q1 2026 launch.
[...] A better question is if these laptops are that close, why didn't Nvidia show off the N1X at CES 2026 recently? I haven't got an answer for that one, except that maybe Team Green wants to carry out a standalone launch that gives the spotlight entirely to this new Arm-based silicon to make a big splash for the entrance of these laptops.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday February 02, @03:04PM
It's a strange story because CPU is only a significant cost for gamer-type markets and non-FOSS servers (the server OS/hypervisor/apps that charge per CPU licensing fees). "Generic laptops" put all their money in the (usually too low resolution, and too shiny) screen. I would like to buy a laptop that has a keyboard that had more than twenty five cents spent on it. A "Model M in a laptop" is probably too much to hope for, but it would be nice.
The market segment that puts 90% of the purchase price into the screen isn't going to care if the CPU is an Intel costing $5.00 or an ARM costing $2.50, beyond software hassles anyway (ARM would be nice for a chromebook, maybe)