Revelation of Nvidia's N1X System on Chip unveiling similar CUDA core count to RTX 5070 graphics card, implying congruence with GB10 Superchip specifications.
Nvidia's upcoming ARM-based N1X SoC, set to launch in Q1 2026, promises to make a significant impact on the laptop market. With its ambitious goal to redefine performance expectations for integrated GPUs, the N1X SoC could potentially challenge the dominance of x86 architectures and Apple's premium AI laptops.
The N1X SoC boasts a 20-core CPU setup, split into two 10-core clusters, built on Nvidia's Grace architecture. Its GPU performance is impressive, outpacing every modern integrated GPU, including Apple's M3 Max and AMD's 890M. However, early testing results suggest that the N1X SoC's performance is currently modest, roughly equivalent to an RTX 2060 or RTX 3050 laptop GPU.
In FurMark testing, the N1X scored about 4,286 points and 71 FPS at 720p, which is similar to or slightly lower than an RTX 2060 mobile GPU, despite having more CUDA cores than a desktop RTX 5070 GPU. Geekbench OpenCL benchmarks place its GPU performance around an RTX 2050 or RTX 3050 laptop GPU level. This underperformance is likely due to immature drivers, power/frequency throttling, and the use of shared LPDDR5X memory rather than dedicated GDDR memory.
Despite these initial limitations, the N1X SoC's hardware specs are promising. It features 48 Streaming Multiprocessors (SMs), translating to 6,144 CUDA cores, the same as the desktop GeForce RTX 5070. Nvidia is signaling a hybrid approach with the N1X SoC, pairing a Blackwell GPU core array with an ARM-based CPU cluster.
In comparison, AMD and Intel’s high-performance laptop offerings generally feature mature, highly optimized architectures with higher clock speeds and stronger driver support, leading to better out-of-the-box GPU performance at similar or lower power budgets. Thus, at this stage, the N1X SoC should be seen as an early engineering platform with promising hardware specs but performance that currently trails AMD and Intel high-performance laptops in GPU workloads.
The N1X SoC's potential impact extends beyond the laptop market, as it could challenge the dominance of x86 giants in high-performance computing. If successful, it might take a bite out of Apple's lead in the premium AI laptop segment. However, it remains to be seen how the N1X SoC will perform after driver maturity and optimizations ahead of its 2026 launch.
[1] TechPowerUp [2] Wccftech [3] Tom's Hardware [4] AnandTech
The N1X SoC's hardware specs, boasting a hybrid approach of Blackwell GPU core array and ARM-based CPU cluster, indicate a potential shift in the laptop market, leveraging advanced technology such as artificial-intelligence. With its impressive GPU performance, outpacing modern integrated GPUs like Apple's M3 Max and AMD's 890M, the N1X SoC gadgets may challenge the dominance of x86 architectures and even Apple's premium AI laptops.
