Nvidia is planning to launch an ARM-based APU for thin and light laptops. The chip is said to offer a similar performance to the mobile GeForce RTX 4070 GPU while being more efficient.
It seems that Nvidia’s in-house CPU/APU is not far away, and we’re not talking about the Grace chip found alongside the Blackwell AI GPUs. This time, Team Green wants its share of the PC market, putting it against Qualcomm, in addition to Intel, AMD, and even Apple with its M Series chips. Great news for consumers.
According to MLID sources, Nvidia is comparing this APU’s gaming performance to an RTX 4070 mobile GPU running at around 65W. For reference, the RTX 4070 mobile is rated for 115W by default. In other words, this APU gaming performance should be slightly lower than that of a well-fed RTX 4070 mobile.
To get an idea about this reduction, we can refer to Notebookcheck’s test, which showed this GPU dropping from 124fps to 103fps in Witcher 3 when lowering the power target to 65W down from 115W. Same in Cyberpunk 2077, where performance fell from 91fps to 73fps. That’s around a 16% to 19% performance loss for a 43% power reduction. Not bad for an 80W APU.
These sources also talk about a powerful NPU. It’s not surprising since Nvidia is near single-handedly fuelling the AI boom. However, it seems that the ARM-based CPU portion is still behind the competition. That said, with Nvidia’s deep pockets and experienced team, these issues should be fixed in no time. Nvidia is taking this project seriously and is already working with brands such as Dell and Alienware.
In fact, Team Green expects to launch this APU within a couple of years – by late 2025 or 2026 – before AMD unleashes its Sound Wave chips. The latter is AMD’s take on the ARM design scheduled for 2026 and features a much more powerful NPU for the growing AI demands. Thus, Nvidia’s APU is expected to be a direct competitor to AMD’s Strix Halo processors instead, targeting gamers and content creators.
All that’s left is for Microsoft to focus on optimising its Windows operating system for ARM chips. The Redmond giant has just released a Windows ARM build for those wanting to try it out. The idea is to have native support and higher performance than emulation. Its development should further accelerate since Nvidia is a big enough fish to push Microsoft to react. Great times ahead.
