1 week Ago By Rob Thubron
Rumor mill: There have been several reports about Nvidia making an Arm-based processor for PCs since last year, so another one isn't too much of a surprise. However, this rumor focuses on the chip's gaming prowess, and it sounds pretty impressive. It's also claimed the APU will appear in a gaming laptop made by Alienware.
The long-running rumor is that Nvidia will be working with MediaTek to produce these Arm-based chips. The latter's rival, Qualcomm, has been busy in the PC space with its Snapdragon X-series processors. They've not really set the world on fire, especially when it comes to gaming performance, though they are praised for their battery life.
Nvidia's chip, however, sounds like it could be a great choice for gamers. According to YouTube channel Moore's Law is Dead ( MLID ), Nvidia is comparing the APU to an RTX 4070 laptop GPU running at around 65 W in gaming performance. The chip is also said to be "targeting up to 80W.
" Further illustrating that this is a gaming-first chip, Nvidia is rumored to be "at least" partnering with Dell under the Alienware brand for the new APU. Alienware, of course, is known for its powerful and usually expensive gaming laptops. We picked the m18 as the joint Best Desktop Replacement in our Best Gaming Laptops feature .
A low-powered, all-Nvidia, Alienware-branded laptop with the performance of a RTX 4070 mobile GPU sounds like a pretty exciting prospect, especially as it would likely be thin, light, and offer excellent battery life. According to MLID's source, Nvidia is hoping to launch the product by late 2025 or 2026 at the latest. That aligns with other reports claiming Nvidia's Arm-based chip will land in 2025.
Another APU launching next year is AMD's Strix Halo series, or AMD Ryzen AI Max 300, one of the many exciting new products expected to be unveiled at CES. The most powerful of these chips, the 120W Ryzen AI Max+ 395, is said to have some serious gaming credentials, offering 40 RDNA 3.5 compute units alongside 16 Zen 5 cores.
Being Arm-based means the Nvidia/Alienware laptop will run Windows on Arm, which still has problems such as compatibility and performance issues with some games, something AMD's x86 Strix Halo chips won't encounter. But MLID's source says "there's a HUGE effort underway to make it work," meaning Windows on Arm may undergo more improvements before Nvidia's chip arrives. MLID's reputation is hit and miss when it comes to rumors, so take this one with a dose of salt.
But plenty of other reports have pointed to Nvidia's Arm-based APU, so it's only the channel's details that might be questionable..
