Microsoft and Nvidia Unveil Surface Laptop Ultra For $2,599 (neowin.net) 94
At a press event today, Microsoft unveiled the new Surface Laptop Ultra featuring an NVIDIA RTX Spark platform with a Blackwell-based GPU capable of up to one petaflop of AI compute. The laptop supports up to 128GB of unified memory for running models as large as 120 billion parameters locally, while also adding a 15-inch mini-LED display, expanded ports, upgraded cooling, and support for hundreds of AAA games. It's available for pre-order today starting at $2,599. Neowin reports: To keep the device's temperature under control, Microsoft has also developed a new cooling system that offers up to 2.5 times the thermal capacity of the 15-inch Surface Laptop 7th Edition. The Surface Laptop Ultra comes with a 15-inch PixelSense Ultra mini-LED touchscreen with a 3:2 aspect ratio, a pixel density of 262 PPI, and peak HDR brightness of up to 2,000 nits.
Despite its beefy specs, the Surface Laptop Ultra measures less than 18mm thick and weighs under 4.5 pounds (around 2kg). The laptop will be available in Platinum and Nightfall finishes. Microsoft has also increased the size of the precision haptic touchpad by more than 30% compared to the Surface Laptop 7th Edition for improved haptic input. The Surface Laptop Ultra includes a broader selection of ports, featuring USB-C, USB-A, HDMI, a 3.5mm headphone jack, and a full-size SD card reader. It also features the world's first built-in USB-C magnetic charging.
Despite its beefy specs, the Surface Laptop Ultra measures less than 18mm thick and weighs under 4.5 pounds (around 2kg). The laptop will be available in Platinum and Nightfall finishes. Microsoft has also increased the size of the precision haptic touchpad by more than 30% compared to the Surface Laptop 7th Edition for improved haptic input. The Surface Laptop Ultra includes a broader selection of ports, featuring USB-C, USB-A, HDMI, a 3.5mm headphone jack, and a full-size SD card reader. It also features the world's first built-in USB-C magnetic charging.
Scant details in the article (Score:4, Insightful)
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Its honestly just fine. I'm actively replying using the MacBook Pro M5 MAX 128GB. When doing "AI" tasks, the bottleneck is memory performance, not compute. So yeah, the fans kick in because the system heats up, but it doesn't get to the point of thermal throttling. I imagine the Nvidia based laptops doing "AI" tasks will work about the same.
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Using an M4 Pro for local AI, and the thermals register regularly at 99-100C under load. It never goes above, which means it's thermal throttling. You can confirm with all-smi installed from Homebrew.
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I cannot speak for your machine, but on my personal M5 MAX, thermals hover around 70c when doing long sessions.
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Can't you just run the following instead of installing something, or did these change with Arm Macs?
pmset -g therm
sudo powermetrics --samplers thermal,cpu_power -n 1
The other clue is the kernel_task process unexpectedly running at high CPU load.
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What's your point? On my desktop workstations with watercooling system my thermals register regularly at 100C under load as well. The question isn't "throttling vs not throttling". Modern CPUs boost to thermal limits as part of their design. The question is, "Is the performance sufficient for what I need?"
And sometimes the need is to be able to move something around i.e. a laptop.
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Most of the issues of running larger models have little to do with processing power and a lot to do with memory. You may be confusing *training* a model with using a model. Training takes a lot of compute. Using focuses a lot on moving data too and from memory. With dedicated AI compute hardware and a shitload of RAM you don't actually need cook with huge amounts of power.
It's one of the reason the MacMini is one of the most popular pieces of AI hardware on the market right now.
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Not sure if you know what this is, but an RTX Spark is at the high end of a low power ARM core. It has a TDP not dissimilar than any other workstation laptop crossover CPU ranging from 45W to 80W depending on which Spark this includes.
Worth nothing literally every laptop CPU is thermally limited. Heck these days most desktop CPUs are as well. 2.5x the thermal performance likely means well above 2.5x performance boost over the previous gen (which wasn't an efficient ARM chip).
Re:Scant details in the article (Score:5, Interesting)
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You can't know that yet. Yes, this obsession with thinness is unhealthy, but you don't know how aggressively the fans are programmed to ramp up and whether a liquid metal thermal interface was used or not. Some OEMs can get surprising thermals out of thin laptops using aggressive fan curves and liquid metal (at the expense of the liquid metal sometimes leaking onto the board and amalgamating with the solder joints).
Also, all modern ch
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Some OEMs can get surprising thermals out of thin laptops using aggressive fan curves and liquid metal (at the expense of the liquid metal sometimes leaking onto the board and amalgamating with the solder joints).
This is like watching McDonalds advertise their fresh hot coffee by showing a copy of the lawsuit they settled after burning the shit out of a customer.
(They got any cool T-800 features to go along with that liquid metal, or is the term "melt down" about to get really explosive being near all that lithium ion.)
Also, all modern chips throttle, it's a feature called "boost", but you can't know whether the promised 1 petaflop is boost or sustained because that wasn't disclosed, you have to wait for someone to test it.
Knowing 21st Century marketing, they did achieve 1 petaflop. Measured for approximately 0.18 seconds. Right before the entire laptop exploded, with performance experts standing on the other side of
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If this happens, you were holding it wrong.
If this happens, you were holding it wrong.
Ok, jokes aside, liquid metal is a popular thermal interface in high-performance yet thin laptops, and it comes with warnings to let the laptop cool down before you put it in a vert
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Ok, jokes aside, liquid metal is a popular thermal interface in high-performance yet thin laptops, and it comes with warnings to let the laptop cool down before you put it in a vertical orientation (for example, in a backpack or briefcase/laptop bag) so the liquid metal has a chance to cool down and become less viscous and to not flex the chassis because that may cause the liquid metal to leak out of the seal covering the heatsink.
Asking people to wait for a device society has normalized slamming shut and tossing in a bag the millisecond a clock reads you're done for the day, is like developing a new car tire that requires drivers to slow down to 10MPH for the last mile of driving to keep the tires from exploding in the garage.
Was there really a point in making that tech mobile, or does it come with a litigation-proof sticker on the front that reads Insmelt Inside? Asking on behalf of the T-800 mini-me threat mitigation.
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Yeah, if it wasn't clear from my previous comments, putting liquid metal on laptops is a crazy thing to do, but if it gives a boost on benchmarks or a slightly thinner laptop or both, manufacturers of gaming laptops will go for it.
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You can suspect whatever you want. Your past experiences do not translate unless you're comparing to another ARM platform. That's the thing with fundamentally different processors, your best example would be Apple's shift to A series CPUs on Macbooks, and that was a huge step in capability increase.
So I'd expect that this is just a terminal into the cloud in reality.
The previous one wasn't a terminal into the cloud and was fine doing some heavier workloads. This one not only apparently has a far better cooling solution but also a far more efficient CPU architecture.
Normally
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You make a good point - it's a very heavy weight terminal to the cloud, which is Microsoft's general direction of travel for the last few years.
I can imagine Microsoft thinking it's wise to let consumers pay for compute as well as software, with Microsoft just hosting the storage and connectivity. But for that to work, they'll have to shed some of their work to the users. That's going to be a tricky undertaking for the next several years because all AI hardware is super expensive, so even if they 'encourage
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24GB RAM for 2599 USD.
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Aaaaand.... (Score:3)
It's already out of stock
Alsoooo... (Score:1)
It's already out of stock
That is sometimes an intentionally engineered situation used to garner more attention and manufacture confidence.
You really need to know how many units were manufactured. If only enough for some fraction of early adopters, its not so meaningful to run out.
finally (Score:5, Funny)
my windows update patching can happen in mere hours.
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That said, if your Windows installation takes hours to Windows Update every month (not just after a clean install), something is wrong with your Windows installation.
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there once was a man from Nantucket
his Windows was stuck so he said fuck it
he moved to a Mac and lived so long
and now you can go and suck it.
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heat your apartment (Score:2)
You are going to be able to heat your house with this, just in time for the next massive heatwave.
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At 80W TDP for a fully loaded RTX Spark (which this may not be, they didn't specify which Spark they are using) you're not going to be heating much more than your lap.
Laptop cooling pad ... (Score:1)
At 80W TDP for a fully loaded RTX Spark (which this may not be, they didn't specify which Spark they are using) you're not going to be heating much more than your lap.
A laptop cooling pad is a great investment for such a machine.
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maybe just a room, unlesss your house is a caardboard box like me.
$2600? (Score:1)
$5900 for 128GB
Windows-only Aarch64 stuff. Nova Lake is almost here anyhow. If I spend that much, I want more than a overheating windows laptop.
apx architecture really needs new binaries (Score:1)
$5900 for 128GB
Windows-only Aarch64 stuff. Nova Lake is almost here anyhow. If I spend that much, I want more than a overheating windows laptop.
Nova Lake needs recompiled software to truly realize its performance. The apx architecture is backwards compatible to x86_64 but software needs to be rebuilt to apx specifically to access new registers, new instructions, etc and get all the performance benefits.
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If I spend that much, I want more than a overheating windows laptop.
If you can get away without having a laptop then this product was never made for you. Also all computers overheat these days. The thermal envelope is very much a limiting factor in most devices including desktops.
Magnetic USB-C charging! (Score:2)
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-I wonder if that charger would work with other USB-C-powered devices.
MOAR POWAH = faster magic smoke production! Efficiency!1!!
Repairability (Score:2)
Microsoft hardware (Score:3)
The only Microsoft hardware I've ever been impressed with was their mouse. Now that Microsoft is a full-on spyware company I can't imagine ever wanting to own one of these laptops.
Z-80 coprocessor card (Score:1)
The only Microsoft hardware I've ever been impressed with was their mouse.
The Z-80 coprocessor card for the Apple II was pretty good. :-)
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Oh yeah, I forgot about those early PC cards.
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Probably made by Philips (or Magnavox) given that the Philips name is on the box and then, like you said, branded by Microsoft. Either way I had no idea these even existed. Cool. Microsoft was known to do this occasionally, like with iRiver making the media player for their Portable Media Center OS.
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Still rocking their beige Natural keyboard (Score:2)
Since 1999. If Redmond built OS and applications as well as their hardware the world would be a better place.
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I'm one of those people that learned how to type 60+ WPM the wrong way (had a computer in the home since 1980 when I was 12). Those natural keyboards only made my typing much worse and slower, but like you I have heard others (that know how to type properly) rave about them.
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I'm one of those people that learned how to type 60+ WPM the wrong way (had a computer in the home since 1980 when I was 12)
Same experience for me. I remember a slow day in the office back in 99 or 2000 (we'd just shipped a release) we got into an argument about typing speeds so set up typing tests for the whole team. My "my fingers never actually sit on the home keys, my hands relocate from time to time, and most of my typing is with three or four fingers and a thumb" ass clocked over 100wpm to the incredulity of the rest of the team.
Natural keyboards feel decidedly unnatural to me, because my hands always want to be somewher
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"One last comment which is as you get faster, the keyboard starts to make a real difference."
Yep, that is why I continue to use Model Ms and Fs as much as I can, or at least clones like Unicomp's. Rubber dome keyboards are the worst.
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Disagree. As someone who is using a Microsoft mouse right now I can tell you their hardware is a mixed bag. Some things are good, other things are buggy, some things are well built, others are cheap. Microsoft's headsets have a tendency to snap, their Surface Pros (as much as I am a fan and love every one I've used) are horrendously unreliable and break very easily (my current one has given up on fast charging, is down to 1 USB port, and is on its second keyboard). The Surface Laptops on the other hand have
I tire of your jokes involving petaflops (Score:2)
How many Beowolf clusters is that?
This is AI in 2026, son. Show your work in gigawatts of compute or GTFO.
Mandelbrot rendering it is (Score:1)
I tire of your jokes involving petaflops
Well then, Mandelbrot rendering it is ... :-)
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Well then, Mandelbrot rendering it is ... :-)
Careful, you'll have terrified mathematicians crying about pathological monsters.
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No mention of battery life (Score:4, Insightful)
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comes with a really long cable
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The other point I make ab
"Portables" may not be battery powered (Score:1)
that's like the most important feature of a portable computer
Portables may not be battery powered, they may use a wall outlet. For example one can get a case for a Mac mini M4 or M6 or an Intel / ASUS NUC and move it from a desk at home to a desk at the office and back again. That too is a portable computer. Its a laptop computer that is battery powered. "Portable" goes back to suitcase sized IBM PCs affectionately referred to as "luggable" by users, and the original 1984 Mac.
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that's like the most important feature of a portable computer
It is not the most important feature. It's the most important feature if your use case is to run it on battery. Some use cases aren't that. Some use cases is simply the requirement to be able to move around between places where power is accessible (like all our work laptops spend 99.9% of their time on different docking stations). Likewise some use cases are for things to be as light as possible (like how I requested a different laptop to my co-workers due to how much time I spend travelling).
There is a LOT
"Magnetic charging'? (Score:2)
Does it have a Thunderbolt 5 port?
Re:"Magnetic charging'? (Score:4, Informative)
Google says that patent expired in September of 2025, as it was filed in 2005. Yes, we are getting old.
Personally, I prefer the old rectangular Thinkpad charging connectors.
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even original surface had magnetic charging.
Fatal flaw (Score:5, Insightful)
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To be fair there is fuck all difference between Home and Pro these days. About the only thing that I miss between my "Home" laptop on my Surface "Pro" (whichever moron at Microsoft decided that was a good combination of software and hardware needs to be lynched by the marketing department) is that the Home models can't remember and store bitlocker passwords for external storage.
Beyond that if you're not on a domain, Pro really doesn't give you much extra, at least nothing that can't be replaced with a simpl
Desktop version? please? (Score:3)
With no battery and no thermal throttling after 30 seconds, it sounds like a no-brainer. Oh wait, but it's 2026...
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And no portability? If you're in the market for a desktop then this product isn't targeted at you. It's okay, not everything is made for Fly Swatter (30498). I know you may not like to hear this but there are ... other people out there. At least for now. God knows the way the world is going you may be the last survivor in your basement.
no thermal throttling after 30 seconds
Literally every desktop computer thermally throttles as well. It's a question of time. CPU / GPU design has dynamically adjusted performance to thermal envelopes for years no
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poor benchmark (Score:3)
I selected NVIDIA RTX Spark N1X (6144-core GPU, 20-core ) and the price with 64 GB + 2 TB went to $4700.
Then I did Apple M5 Max 64 GB + 2 TB. It was $5400
Benchmark: Apple 58000 vs 39000 on cpubenchmark site (multi-core). Even more percentage difference for single core. I would rather pay 17% more and get 50% more performance.
Only Windows lovers will buy this.
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Do you have benchmarks for AI performance? That seems more relevant here.
Also which Apple machine are you comparing to? The M5 performance depends heavily on thermal and power limits. That website is probably using the desktop version with much better cooling and a higher power limit than any of Apple's portable offerings.
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Benchmark: Apple 58000 vs 39000
Benchmarking CPU/GPUs targeted at laptops generically is fucking stupid. The performance of each device is almost exclusively determined by the thermal and power design. You are using benchmarks wildly incorrectly. Please stop.
Now maybe you're right and the performance numbers are as you suggest, but if you are then it's by fluke, not because you're doing anything sensible. Wait until the device is released, tested, and benchmarked in its actual configuration before you draw any conclusions.
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Wait until the device is released, tested, and benchmarked in its actual configuration before you draw any conclusions.
This sounds an awful like like, "Wait until the leopard eats your face before you draw any conclusions." There are well established benchmarks that provide insight into what we can expect, and that's a lot more useful than trusting the marketing and suggesting people wait for it to be released before deciding to buy the competition.
Benchmarking CPU/GPUs targeted at laptops generically is fucking stupid. The performance of each device is almost exclusively determined by the thermal and power design. You are using benchmarks wildly incorrectly. Please stop.
If you can't put two and two together and see what the benchmarks imply, that's on you. If you can, then do so and show where this went wrong (something like what AniMoJo implied
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WTF does this have to do with leopard eating faces for anyone who isn't so incredibly stupid to pre-order untested hardware? Do you make all your purchasing decisions on vibes? Have you already pre-ordered your 2030 Tesla Model S?
There are well established benchmarks that provide insight into what we can expect
The one thing we can expect from CPU benchmarks is that they do not reflect their performance in laptops since in a laptop the performance is almost universally defined by the thermal / power envelope. That's why you can get laptops on the market with Intel i5s that well and truly
1 petaflop of performance (Score:2)
You could have made a graphical powerhouse but nooooo you made a useless fucking waste of AI compute.
Given I almost NEVER see a Surface device in the wild, I'm guessing this is just another shoddy attempt at trying to lock people into AI-only shit.
All sarcasm aside (Score:2)
I'm sure the NFL will buy the excess stock for half off retail.
NVidia CPU (Score:2)
I'm here wondering how much software this will never run since it has an NVidia ARM CPU.
Don't forget to make sure that your printer of choice has ARM 64 drivers. The Windows 11 x64 drivers won't do.
nobody gives a fuck about ai (Score:2)
whats the performance like for actual work?
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whats the performance like for actual work?
The keyboard seems fine. I think I'll be able to type prompts at a sufficient WPM.
Show me tokens (Score:2)
The 128GB option is tempting, depending on what that configuration actually costs. Being able to run a large model locally would give me a reason to consider this, and I'd definately appreciate the 3:2 display and proper ports every day. The petaflop headline needs its footnote attached, though: Microsoft's figure is theoretical FP4 performance with sparsity. I'd like to see someone load one of those 120B models, say what quantization and context length they're using, and show how fast it answers after the
Renamed to "Surace Laptop" in the presentation (Score:2)
Probably thanks to some agentic assist: https://www.reddit.com/r/Surfa... [reddit.com]
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Yeah, it was supposed to say "Sure Ass Laptop"
Nice, but two issues... (Score:1)
I'll Wait (Score:2)
$2599 is for the base model with 24 GB RAM (Score:1)
despite it's beefy hardware - it performs terribly (Score:2)