Nvidia N1X CPU: Everything we know so far

Tom's Guide

2 days ago

Nvidia is the undisputed leader of the GPU market (whether you like it or not), with its RTX 50-series graphics cards making waves this year, but Team Green looks to be putting its hat in the ring of another sector, as a new CPU may be on the horizon.
Rumors have been swirling of a Nvidia N1X and N1 Arm-based CPUs that would be made for desktops and laptops, respectively. While Nvidia has already announced a new Arm-based CPU, the N1-series chips are set to be for consumers.
Believed to be made in partnership with MediaTek, not only does this mean Nvidia will have a stake in PCs in a whole new way, but as reports have pointed out, it could lead to slimmer, more powerful gaming laptops, too.
While Nvidia may have GPU and AI markets in its pocket, its N1X and N1 System on Chips (SoC) may prove to shake up the competition in Intel, AMD, Qualcomm and Apple's offerings.
It may be a while before we see Nvidia's N1X and N1 CPUs arrive, and there's still a lot to learn, but the rumor mill has been churning out plenty on these chips. Let's dive into what we know so far.
The rumored launch of Nvidia's N1-series CPU has been all over the place, as not too long ago, many believed the chips would be here by now. However, it's looking like we may have to wait at least a year until we see them arrive.
Initially, Nvidia and MediaTek's Arm-based CPU was rumored to be announced at Computex 2025, with the tech giant expected to be gearing up to show off its smaller GB10 Blackwell chip in the Arm SoC coming to laptops.
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As you can tell, this didn't come to be, as it seems Nvidia wasn't ready to officially announce its chips. Many, including Moore's Law is Dead, believed it would arrive in late 2025 or early 2026, which would be in time for CES 2026, but it may turn out to be later than we thought.
Now, it's been reported that the Nvidia N1X Arm CPU has been delayed until late 2026. As noted by SemiAccurate, Nvidia faced problems that caused a roadblock in the CPU arriving in early 2026. While this was reportedly handled, the new chip is now rumored to be suffering from another hurdle.
While the report doesn't detail the specific problem with Nvidia's chip, sources state that the chip has been hit with problems that require engineers to make design changes to the silicon.
Due to this, the SoC is now believed to be coming later in 2026. With Nvidia's track record of announcements, it could end up being at CES 2027 in January.
For now, of course, this is all up in the air. But with rumors indicated delays, it's likely it will be a while before we see any mention of a new CPU from Nvidia.
So, what kind of performance can we expect the Nvidia's N1-series chips to deliver? According to leaked benchmarks, we could see some big performance gains in ultraportable laptops.
We've heard that the N1-series chip will be based on a GB10 Superchip, found in Nvidia's announced Project DIGITS AI supercomputer (now known as DGX Spark) for desktops. For the laptop version, which is set to be the N1 SoC, it may be a cut-down version of GB10, with some combination of a Blackwell GPU and a MediaTek CPU.
That said, there's reason to believe it could use a GB206 model. Either way, it's looking to leverage the power of an RTX GPU, with these Blackwell-based GPUs being used in RTX 5060 Ti or RTX 5060 graphics cards.
But the real kicker here is that this N1 chip will reportedly deliver the same performance of an RTX 4070-equipped laptop, but with far better energy efficiency, according to Taiwanese outlet UDN. For a CPU that delivers an integrated GPU with that kind of power, along with improvements to power efficiency (so possibly longer battery life), is already a good sign that Team Green's chip will be worth waiting for.
But the rumors continue, as the N1 chip is expected to use 65W power to match the performance of a 120W RTX 4070 gaming laptop, and another source suggesting the chip would offer a TDP (Thermal Design Power) of 80W to 120W.
According to ComputerBase Nvidia and MediaTek's chip may only have 8 or 12 CPU cores instead of 20. Benchmark leaks of the Nvidia's GB10 Arm superchip (via Notebookcheck) suggest single-core performance reaching 2,960 and multicore at 10,682.
Due to the delay, it's only guesswork if these are the benchmarks (or even specs) that will arrive, as for now, these Geekbench results put it behind Apple's M4 Max chips.
While it's believed the N1X chip is for desktop and the N1 is for laptops, it's looking likely that the latter will be primed for gaming laptops. And reports even suggest the first gamer-focused notebooks that will be getting them.
According to the UDN report, Dell's gaming brand Alienware will be among the first to launch new gaming laptops featuring the Nvidia and MediaTek CPU. That means we could see fresh Alienware notebooks that are slimmer and offer better battery life, if rumors about Nvidia and MediaTek's chip are accurate — not unlike the newly designed Alienware 16 Aurora lineup.
If rumors are accurate, Nvidia's Arm-based SoC is set to bolster ultraportable gaming laptops (and possibly PC gaming handhelds) with better power efficiency, which hopefully translates to greater battery life in gaming notebooks.
We've seen Arm chips in action before, with Snapdragon X Elite laptops impressing with their long battery life and fast speeds. We've even tested Snapdragon X Elite PCs for gaming, and while impressive, they aren't quite built for demanding titles.
With Nvidia's own chip sporting its GPU tech, however, gaming on machines with this chip could see major performance gains, especially if it uses some form of DLSS 4 and its Multi Frame Generation tech.
But there's already some competition heating up, and that's from two heavy hitters in the laptop market. For one, the AMD Strix Halo APU already delivers close to RTX 4060 desktop GPU power, and Qualcomm's Snapdragon X2 Series chip is set to arrive soon.
It's still early days for the Nvidia N1X Arm-based CPU, as it isn't even certain it may release. We have an idea of what to expect, especially when it comes to the power the N1-series chip for laptop may deliver, but all this could change if it doesn't arrive until next year.
Only time will tell when we see Nvidia's N1X Arm-based CPU arrive, and whether its the CPU for consumers we've been expecting. But if it comes from Team Green, we should expect to see a boost in ultraportable laptops, at the very least, along with a touch of AI for greater power efficiency management.