Nvidia is the undisputed leader of the GPU market (whether you like it or not), and its RTX 50 series graphics cards have made a splash this year, but it looks like Team Green is branching out into another realm, as new CPUs may be on the horizon.

Nvidia is rumored to be launching its Arm-based N1X and N1 CPUs for desktops and laptops, respectively. While Nvidia has announced a new CPU based on the Arm architecture, the N1 series of chips will be aimed at the consumer market.

Believed to be produced in partnership with MediaTek, this not only means Nvidia will have a presence in the PC space in a whole new way, but as the report points out, it could also lead to thinner, lighter, and more powerful gaming laptops.

While Nvidia may have the GPU and AI markets all to itself, its N1X and N1 system-on-chips (SoCs) could shake up the competition from Intel, AMD, Qualcomm, and Apple products.

It may be a while before we see Nvidia's N1X and N1 CPUs on the market, and there's still a lot to learn, but rumors about these chips are already swirling. Let's take a deeper look at what we know so far.

Nvidia NX1 CPU: Release date rumored

Rumors about the upcoming release of Nvidia's N1 series CPUs have been rife, and not too long ago, many thought the chip would be available soon. However, it looks like we may have to wait at least another year before we see its official release.

Initially, rumors suggested that Nvidia and MediaTek's Arm-based CPUs would be released at Computex 2025, with the tech giant expected to be ready to show off the smaller GB10 Blackwell chip in its Arm SoC for laptops.

As you can see, that didn't come to pass, as Nvidia doesn't seem ready to officially release its chip just yet. Many, including "Moore's Law is Dead," thought it would arrive in late 2025 or early 2026, just before CES 2026, but it may be later than we thought.

Now, reports are coming out that the Nvidia N1X Arm CPU has been delayed until late 2026. According to SemiAccurate, Nvidia has encountered some issues that have prevented the CPU from being available in early 2026. While that issue has reportedly been resolved, the new chip is rumored to be facing another hurdle.

While the report doesn't detail the specific issues with Nvidia's chip, sources claim that the chip encountered some issues that required engineers to make design changes to the silicon.

As a result, it's now believed that the SoC will launch later in 2026. Based on Nvidia's release track record, it could end up being unveiled at CES 2027 in January.

Of course, everything is still up in the air at the moment. But with rumors suggesting that Nvidia may delay the launch, it may be a while before we see Nvidia announce new CPUs.

Nvidia NX1 CPU: Performance Rumors

So what kind of performance can we expect from Nvidia's N1 series chips? According to leaked benchmark results, we can see a significant performance boost for ultraportable laptops.

The N1 series chips will be based on the GB10 super chip, which is used in Nvidia's announced Project DIGITS AI supercomputer (now renamed DGX Spark), which is aimed at the desktop market. The laptop version (which will be equipped with the N1 SoC) may be a stripped-down version of the GB10, using some combination of Blackwell GPUs and MediaTek CPUs.

That being said, there is reason to believe that it may use the GB206 model. In any case, it will hope to take advantage of the power of RTX GPUs, and these Blackwell-based GPUs are being used in RTX 5060 Ti or RTX 5060 graphics cards.

But the real key is that according to Taiwanese media UDN, the performance of this N1 chip will be comparable to that of a laptop equipped with an RTX 4070, but with much higher energy efficiency. For a CPU with such powerful performance with an integrated GPU, coupled with improved power efficiency (and therefore potentially longer battery life), it's a good sign that Team Green's chip is worth the wait.

But the rumors continue, as the N1 chip is expected to use 65W of power to match the performance of a 120W RTX 4070 gaming laptop, while another source suggests the chip will offer a TDP (thermal design power) of 80W to 120W.

According to ComputerBase, Nvidia and MediaTek's chips may only have 8 or 12 CPU cores instead of 20. Leaked benchmarks of Nvidia's GB10 Arm super chip (via Notebookcheck) show single-core performance of 2,960 and multi-core performance of 10,682.

Whether these benchmarks (or even specs) will eventually be released is anyone's guess due to the delay, and for now, these Geekbench results put it behind Apple's M4 Max chip.

Is it suitable for gaming laptops?

While the N1X chip is widely believed to be for desktops and the N1 chip for laptops, the latter will most likely be aimed at gaming laptops. There are even reports that the first to be equipped with the chip will be gaming laptops.

According to UDN, Dell's gaming brand Alienware will be the first to launch new gaming laptops with Nvidia and MediaTek CPUs. This means that if the rumors about Nvidia and MediaTek chips are true, we may see new Alienware laptops that are thinner and lighter and have longer battery life - similar to the newly designed Alienware 16 Aurora series.

If the rumors are true, Nvidia's Arm-based SoC will provide better power efficiency for ultraportable gaming laptops (and possibly PC gaming handhelds), which will hopefully extend the battery life of gaming laptops.

We have seen Arm chips in action before, with Snapdragon X Elite laptops impressing with their long battery life and extremely fast operating speeds. We have even tested PCs with Snapdragon X Elite for gaming, and while the performance was impressive, they are not built for demanding games.

However, because Nvidia's own chips use its GPU technology, playing games on a machine equipped with that chip can get a significant performance boost, especially if it uses some form of DLSS 4 and its multi-frame generation technology.

But competition is starting to heat up, mainly from the two giants in the laptop market. First, the performance of AMD's Strix Halo APU is approaching that of the RTX 4060 desktop GPU, and Qualcomm's Snapdragon X2 series chips are also coming to market.

Nvidia NX1 CPU: Outlook

It's still too early to even know for sure if the Arm-based Nvidia N1X CPU will be officially released. We have some idea of what to expect from this N1 series laptop chip, especially in terms of performance, but if it doesn't arrive until next year, that could all change.

Only time will tell when Nvidia's Arm-based N1X CPU will be available, and if it's the consumer-facing CPU we've been waiting for. But if it comes from Team Green, we should at least see a performance boost for ultraportable laptops, along with some AI technology thrown in for better energy management.

Source: Content compiled from tomsguide.

Reference link

https://www.tomsguide.com/computing/cpus/nvidia-n1x-cpu-everything-we-know-so-far

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