Will Nvidia's new RTX Spark chip truly dominate the PC market?

At Computex 2026, Nvidia officially declared war on Intel and AMD by launching RTX Spark – a line of super chips designed based on the Arm architecture for Windows personal computers. This move immediately caused a major shock in the financial markets, causing Intel's stock to fall 6% and AMD's to fall 5% in the opening session.

Despite being touted as having superior artificial intelligence (AI) processing power thanks to the integration of 6,144 Blackwell graphics cores, this collaborative product between Nvidia and MediaTek is still facing mixed opinions from technology analysts and the market.

Specifications of the new RTX Spark chip. (Source: Nvidia)

The initial skepticism stems from the market segment and price barrier. Nvidia confirmed that the first devices using RTX Spark this fall will focus solely on the high-end segment. Jason Tsai, an analyst at DigiTimes , warned that RTX Spark risks becoming an "outdated luxury item" if the price of complete PC systems cannot reach $1,500.

The lack of affordable options in the early stages could make the new chip architecture inaccessible to a wider audience, especially given the ongoing pressure of rising global semiconductor prices.

Technically, hardware experts have also pointed out a major limitation in Nvidia's system-on-a-chip (SoC) design. The RTX Spark uses a unified memory architecture, directly integrating the central processing unit (CPU) and the graphics processing unit (GPU). This structure inadvertently creates a physical limitation: the system is completely unsupported by external discrete graphics cards.

This means the device's graphics performance will be "locked" to the power of the integrated Blackwell GPU. For professional users who require flexible hardware upgrades over time, this is a major drawback compared to the traditional modular architecture of Intel and AMD.

A simulation of a computer equipped with the new RTX Spark chip. (Source: Nvidia)

Ultimately, the software compatibility of the Arm platform architecture remains a major question mark. While Nvidia claims to have worked closely with Microsoft to optimize the Windows operating system for the new chip, market history has shown that previous Arm chips (such as Qualcomm Snapdragon) have consistently struggled to run older applications smoothly. Even though graphics software like Adobe Photoshop is being rewritten for compatibility, convincing the entire PC software ecosystem to migrate to the new architecture remains a long-term challenge.

Therefore, the RTX Spark currently resembles a symbolic declaration of war more than a threat that could completely replace the position of traditional x86 architecture in the near future.

Source: https://vtcnews.vn/chip-rtx-spark-moi-cua-nvidia-co-thuc-su-thong-tri-thi-truong-pc-ar1021345.html