Microsoft’s Surface Laptop Ultra looks like its first true MacBook Pro competitor

微软 Surface Laptop Ultra 看起来像是其首款真正的 MacBook Pro 竞争对手

Dell, Asus, Lenovo, HP, MSI, Acer, and Gigabyte are among the PC makers that are designing systems around Nvidia’s RTX Spark, Nvidia’s new Arm-based chip for Windows PCs. But the flagship RTX Spark PC may be from the same company that makes Windows: the new Microsoft Surface Laptop Ultra is a high-end RTX Spark system that will offer up to 128GB of unified memory for “creators, developers, and AI builders.” Microsoft says the Laptop Ultra will be available “later this year” but didn’t discuss any specific pricing or configuration options. 戴尔、华硕、联想、惠普、微星、宏碁和技嘉等 PC 制造商正在围绕英伟达（Nvidia）的新款 Windows PC Arm 架构芯片——RTX Spark 设计系统。但 RTX Spark 的旗舰级 PC 可能来自 Windows 的缔造者：全新的微软 Surface Laptop Ultra 是一款高端 RTX Spark 系统，将为“创作者、开发者和 AI 构建者”提供高达 128GB 的统一内存。微软表示，Laptop Ultra 将于“今年晚些时候”上市，但并未讨论具体的定价或配置选项。

The Laptop Ultra will slot in above the regular Qualcomm Snapdragon-based Surface Laptops in Microsoft’s lineup. Microsoft has made high-end Surface devices with more powerful CPUs and GPUs before, but to date, they’ve also come with convertible designs that may have limited their appeal. The first was the old Surface Book, with its fully detachable screen and bendy-straw hinge that didn’t close all the way; the second was the Surface Laptop Studio, with its chunky design and sliding screen. The Laptop Ultra is Microsoft’s first attempt to follow the MacBook Pro formula: it’s like the other Surface Laptops, just with more power. 在微软的产品阵容中，Laptop Ultra 的定位将高于常规的骁龙（Qualcomm Snapdragon）版 Surface Laptop。微软此前也曾推出过配备更强 CPU 和 GPU 的高端 Surface 设备，但迄今为止，它们都采用了可能限制其吸引力的变形设计。第一款是老款 Surface Book，其屏幕可完全拆卸，但铰链设计导致合盖时无法完全闭合；第二款是 Surface Laptop Studio，采用了厚重的机身和滑动屏幕设计。Laptop Ultra 是微软首次尝试效仿 MacBook Pro 的模式：它就像其他 Surface Laptop 一样，只是性能更强。

Microsoft says the Laptop Ultra will include USB-A, USB-C, and HDMI ports, as well as an SD card slot and headphone jack. It’s said to include a haptic trackpad that’s “the largest we’ve ever put on a Surface.” A 15-inch PixelSense display offers up to 2,000 nits of peak brightness. Unlike some older Surface Laptops, the Laptop Ultra is just a more powerful laptop, not a more powerful one that also comes with some weird convertible mechanism. 微软表示，Laptop Ultra 将配备 USB-A、USB-C 和 HDMI 接口，以及 SD 卡槽和耳机插孔。据称，它还包含一个“我们有史以来在 Surface 上使用的最大”触控板。15 英寸的 PixelSense 显示屏提供高达 2,000 尼特的峰值亮度。与一些旧款 Surface Laptop 不同，Laptop Ultra 仅仅是一款性能更强的笔记本电脑，而不是那种带有奇怪变形机制的设备。

As for the internal specs, Nvidia’s RTX Spark includes up to 20 Arm CPU cores (10 large high-performance cores, and 10 mid-sized cores with better efficiency) and up to 6,144 Blackwell-based GPU cores. This gives the high-end RTX Spark roughly the same computing resources as a desktop GeForce RTX 5070, though in a lower 80 W power envelope and attached to slower LPDDR5x RAM rather than GDDR7. But the chip’s biggest advantage for AI developers and some gamers may be the system’s pool of unified memory. A typical RTX 5070 can access only 8GB or 12GB of memory; the RTX Spark’s built-in GPU will likely be able to access nearly all of the system’s built-in memory. Even a laptop with 32GB of RAM could devote more of that memory to the GPU than a GeForce RTX 4090 or 5090 could. 在内部规格方面，英伟达的 RTX Spark 包含多达 20 个 Arm CPU 核心（10 个高性能大核和 10 个效率更高的中核）以及多达 6,144 个基于 Blackwell 架构的 GPU 核心。这使得高端 RTX Spark 拥有与桌面级 GeForce RTX 5070 大致相当的计算资源，尽管其功耗更低（80W），且搭配的是较慢的 LPDDR5x 内存而非 GDDR7。但对于 AI 开发者和部分游戏玩家来说，该芯片最大的优势可能是系统的统一内存池。典型的 RTX 5070 只能访问 8GB 或 12GB 显存；而 RTX Spark 的内置 GPU 很可能能够访问系统几乎所有的内置内存。即使是配备 32GB 内存的笔记本电脑，其分配给 GPU 的内存也可能比 GeForce RTX 4090 或 5090 更多。

Gaming is still a relatively weak point for the Arm version of Windows, but Nvidia and Microsoft have said that they’re working with the developers of popular online games that rely on kernel-level anti-cheat software to make those titles run on Arm systems. Microsoft’s Prism x86-to-Arm code translation technology and an increasing number of Arm-native third-party apps have made Arm-powered Windows PCs feel a lot more like regular Windows devices than they used to. 游戏仍然是 Arm 版 Windows 的相对弱项，但英伟达和微软表示，他们正在与那些依赖内核级反作弊软件的热门网游开发者合作，以确保这些游戏能在 Arm 系统上运行。微软的 Prism x86 转 Arm 代码翻译技术以及越来越多的 Arm 原生第三方应用程序，使得 Arm 架构的 Windows PC 比以往任何时候都更像常规的 Windows 设备。

Microsoft has used Nvidia’s chips in Surface PCs before, if you count the first Surface RT models. These ran an Arm-native version of Windows 8 that was limited mostly to apps downloaded from the Microsoft Store and offered no x86-to-Arm code translation. While the work done on Windows RT was no doubt the foundation that the Arm versions of Windows 10 and Windows 11 were built on, Windows RT quickly failed and vanished, along with Nvidia Tegra-based PCs. 如果算上最初的 Surface RT 机型，微软此前已经在 Surface PC 中使用过英伟达的芯片。这些设备运行的是 Arm 原生版的 Windows 8，主要局限于从微软商店下载的应用程序，且不提供 x86 转 Arm 的代码翻译功能。虽然在 Windows RT 上所做的工作无疑是 Windows 10 和 Windows 11 的 Arm 版本构建的基础，但 Windows RT 很快就失败并消失了，搭载英伟达 Tegra 芯片的 PC 也随之销声匿迹。