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Tom's Hardware has released an explainer breaking down core terminology behind large language models, covering concepts such as models, tokens, weights, KV cache, quantization and inference. The guide is aimed at readers following the growth of local AI hardware, such as Nvidia's RTX Spark, and is intended to support the publication's ongoing AI coverage.
Lenovo has released the Yoga 9n, a convertible 2-in-1 laptop that emphasizes stylus functionality beyond what most competing tablets or laptops offer. A review of the device notes it comes at a steep price while delivering performance that reviewers found underwhelming relative to its cost.
Tom's Hardware Premium published its weekly roundup covering TP-Link's efforts to satisfy US regulators amid scrutiny over its China ties, including a letter of intent with Key Tronic to assemble Wi-Fi 8 routers in Mississippi and nearly $1 billion pledged toward US R&D and manufacturing. The roundup also details testing of Nvidia's new RTX Spark-based Microsoft Surface Laptop Ultra for gaming performance, plus an examination of whether costly audiophile-grade headsets are worth it for gamers.
The Verge reviewed Lenovo's Yoga 9n, a 16-inch convertible laptop built on Nvidia's Arm-based RTX Spark processor, which pairs an OLED touchscreen with a magnetic stylus that can also be used on its haptic trackpad. The reviewer highlighted this trackpad-stylus functionality as useful for tasks like photo retouching in Lightroom Classic and Photoshop.
A review of the ASUS ProArt P16 laptop equipped with NVIDIA's RTX Spark chip and 128GB of RAM found strong GPU, NPU and AI benchmark performance, outperforming a MacBook Pro with M5 Max in Geekbench 6 GPU tests and UL Procyon AI benchmarks. However, the system scored lower than a Snapdragon X2 Elite-powered ASUS A16 in PCMark 10 and single-threaded CPU tests. The laptop reportedly ran large local AI models like Qwen3.8 27B alongside demanding games such as Cyberpunk 2077 without performance slowdowns.
Tom's Hardware reports that Microsoft's Surface Laptop Ultra with Nvidia's RTX Spark platform struggles with gaming at its native 3270x2180, 3:2 resolution because DLSS upscaling becomes heavy and standard 16:9 or 16:10 content stretches or shrinks awkwardly on the unusual aspect ratio. The outlet found that Microsoft's built-in 1600x1024 scaled mode is too low-resolution, and instead calculated a custom 1764x1176 resolution that better matches the pixel count of 1080p, yielding sharper images with less DLSS strain.
ServiceNow and Nvidia have launched Arc, an AI agent first announced in May, making it generally available for Mac devices, with Windows support still to come. Arc is designed to run on Nvidia's RTX Spark hardware, handle everyday workplace tasks like email and Teams, and build memory over time to improve its performance.
A Hugging Face contributor and Arch Linux package maintainer built a bootable Arch Linux ARM setup for the ASUS ProArt P16 H7607BA-SE033W, a laptop with 128GB of RAM, 6,144 CUDA cores and a 2TB SSD that ships with official Windows-only support. The build incorporates NVIDIA's Ubuntu kernel work, custom ACPI overrides, a patched hid-asus driver for the keyboard, and official NVIDIA and ASUS firmware, with 7-Zip performance matching Windows and the OS correctly reporting the full 116GiB unified memory pool to CUDA.
Nvidia introduced Nemotron 3.5 Super VL, a 120-billion-parameter open-weight model aimed at enterprise agent deployments, alongside two smaller Bolt models built to run locally on new RTX Spark and DGX Spark hardware. Nvidia says Super VL matches the accuracy of its larger Nemotron 3 Ultra model while completing agentic tasks faster than rival models from Anthropic and OpenAI, and lists companies including Skydance, EY, Ramp, Crowdstrike, Perplexity and Salesforce as users.
Nvidia's RTX Spark chip is now shipping in laptops from multiple manufacturers, with prices starting at $2,599 for a 24GB Asus ProArt P14 at Best Buy. Configurations scale up to 128GB of unified memory, with models like the Asus ProArt P16 reaching nearly $7,000 and HP's OmniBook line topping out around $5,300. Microsoft's new Surface Laptop Ultra with 48GB of memory is also among the initial retail offerings.
Microsoft has launched the Surface Laptop Ultra, a new flagship Windows laptop built around Nvidia's new RTX Spark N1X 'superchip,' aimed at handling on-device AI, gaming and content creation in one machine. At 4.4 pounds, it's lighter than the 16-inch MacBook Pro but is the thickest among the new wave of N1X-powered laptops, including HP's OmniBook Ultra.
Tom's Hardware reviewed Microsoft's new Surface Laptop Ultra, which uses Nvidia's RTX Spark mobile SoC instead of a Qualcomm chip, making it one of the first non-Qualcomm Windows on Arm laptops. The reviewer praises its design, display, and port selection, but notes the device is heavy, costly, and offers little extra benefit to users who don't run AI workloads.