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Major laptop manufacturers plan to begin selling laptops powered by the latest Nvidia RTX Spark chips by the end of this year, with Microsoft’s new Surface flagship set to play a leading role in this campaign. However, thanks to an amazing coincidence, a prototype of the upcoming device ended up in the hands of an enthusiast who had enough expertise to conduct a series of comprehensive preliminary tests.
A TechPowerUp forum member with the username Fouquin reported that he discovered a prototype of the Microsoft Surface Laptop Ultra right on the side of the road near Microsoft’s headquarters in Redmond, Washington, back in mid-June. After spending two weeks with the device and testing it thoroughly, he published a detailed report covering performance metrics, energy efficiency, and build quality.
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The unit he tested is equipped with the flagship RTX Spark N1X chipset, which combines 6,144 CUDA cores and a 20-core Arm-based processor. The base model of the device features 24 GB of unified RAM and a 512 GB SSD. A number of indicators suggest that this model is not yet the final version. This is most evident on the display: Fouquin noted issues with local dimming zones, a lack of stable Nvidia G-Sync support, glitches during touchscreen input, and malfunctions in HDR mode.
The software also significantly affected the benchmark results. Fouquin initially tested the laptop using drivers dated November 2025, then repeated all tests with the previous version of the RTX Spark developer drivers, which Nvidia released last week. Although the new drivers had virtually no effect on performance, idle power consumption increased significantly – from 7–8 W to 12–23 W, depending on the selected power profile.
Tests using the Phoronix Test Suite, Blender, and Cinebench demonstrated that the RTX Spark currently outperforms Apple’s M5 Pro chip. At the same time, Nvidia has delivered on its key promise: the device delivers exactly the same level of performance whether powered by the AC outlet or the built-in battery.
Fouquin spoke very highly of the Surface Ultra’s build quality. In his opinion, the laptop’s keyboard is the best he’s used outside of the MacBook series: it features a noticeable key travel, smooth resistance, and absolutely no wobble. Although rubber membranes are still noticeable beneath the mechanisms, the switches themselves operate crisply and with a quick response. A particularly nice touch is the backlighting system, which turns on automatically when the camera detects the user’s presence.
The unibody milled aluminum chassis is, as expected, quite large, since Microsoft positions the Surface Ultra as a direct competitor to the MacBook Pro. The device’s touchpad is also reminiscent of Apple’s design, and the hinge mechanism for opening the lid received high marks from the tester.
Microsoft announced the Surface Laptop Ultra alongside the unveiling of Nvidia’s RTX Spark at Computex in June, calling this 15-inch laptop the most powerful device in the entire Surface lineup. In its top-of-the-line configuration, the laptop can be equipped with 128 GB of unified memory, and its graphics performance matches that of an RTX 5070 graphics card.
Games capable of running on the Windows on Arm platform without using the Microsoft Prism emulator are still rare – a notable exception being Kingdom Come: Deliverance II. However, Nvidia’s recently announced partnership with Sega suggests that the situation is likely to improve in the future. Sega has confirmed that Virtua Fighter Crossroads, scheduled for release in 2027, will have native support for RTX Spark. It is expected that Alien: Isolation 2, Total War: Warhammer 40,000, and other projects from the company will follow suit.
Based on the test results, Fouquin estimates that the starting price for the Microsoft Surface Laptop Ultra will be at least $2,800, while the top-of-the-line configuration will sell for approximately $4,500 to directly compete with Apple’s most expensive MacBook Pro models.
