Microsoft opened preorders for two new Surface devices built around the NVIDIA RTX Spark chipset: the Surface Laptop Ultra and the Surface RTX Spark Dev Box. Both are primarily designed for AI models, so they come with hefty price tags; that said, the laptop does get quite a few unique features going for it.
Microsoft Surface Laptop Ultra
The Surface Laptop Ultra’s RTX Spark chip uses an NVIDIA Blackwell RTX GPU with up to 6,144 cores, a Grace CPU with up to 20 cores, and up to 128GB of unified memory, which is claimed to deliver up to 1 petaflop of AI performance (based on theoretical FP4 with sparsity) and can run AI models exceeding 120B parameters locally. A new thermal architecture provides up to 2.5x more thermal power capacity than current Surface Laptops, in a chassis under 18mm thick and below 2kg.
The 15-inch PixelSense Ultra touchscreen reaches a peak HDR brightness of 2,000 nits, which Microsoft says is up to 25% brighter than the MacBook Pro M5 based on published specifications, though do note that this panel lacks the stylus pen support. The touchpad is 30% larger than that of the Surface Laptop 8th Edition and uses advanced haptics instead of traditional diving board design; storage is user-removable (take that, Apple), and the laptop comes in Platinum and Nightfall color options.
While Apple has MagSafe, Microsoft has Magnetic Connect: the company describes it as the first built-in magnetic USB-C charging on a laptop, attaching to the right-side USB-C port. The laptop also has two more USB-C ports, HDMI, USB-A, an SD card reader and a 3.5mm headphone jack, and can drive up to three 4K displays. For gaming, it supports ray tracing, DLSS and NVIDIA Reflex in supported titles, though be aware that compatibility may be a limitation in some less common games which has not been ported to Arm-based architecture yet (which is what RTX Spark is based on).
Microsoft Surface RTX Spark Dev Box
For the now popular-among-AI-systems mini PC form factor, there’s the Surface RTX Spark Dev Box based on the same RTX Spark chipset, with the exact same capabilities as the aforementioned laptop. Microsoft officially positions it for local inference, evaluation and experimentation for AI developers; as part of the Project Zenith device family, it ships with Visual Studio Code, Git, GitHub CLI, GitHub Copilot, WSL, Python and Node preinstalled in the slightly-modified Windows 11 operating system.
Pricing & Availability
The Surface Laptop Ultra is available for preorder from US$2,599 (MSRP) at Microsoft.com and select retailers worldwide, with availability from 16 October 2026; commercial configurations are also open for preorder. Microsoft is offering up to US$1,000 cash back for trade-ins of an eligible MacBook Pro, valid from 7 October to 23 November 2026 in the United States and Canada through the Microsoft Store online.
The Surface RTX Spark Dev Box is priced at US$5,999 (MSRP) and is available for preorder exclusively on Microsoft.com in the United States, with shipping to begin in November 2026. Malaysian pricing and availability have not been announced.
Pokdepinion: These price will make most people think twice before buying, that’s for sure.
