Gaming: Nvidia's Long-awaited N1x Arm Chip For The PC Will Be Released...

It's been an awfully long time coming, but Nvidia's near-mythical Arm chip for the PC, known as N1X, could be just about to launch. Last week it was spotted in a shipping manifest. Now a new report claims it's set to be released by the end of March.

According to Digitimes (via Tomshardware), "Windows on Arm (WoA) platform notebooks using the N1X will debut in the first quarter of 2026." The report claims that after the launch of an initial variant of N1X in Q1 2026, three more versions of the chip will be released in Q2.

What's more, Digitimes further says that Nvidia has a follow up, codenamed N2, lined up for release in the third quarter.

If all this is true it's both exciting and somewhat peculiar. After all, we've just had the CES 2026 show, which surely would have been the perfect opportunity to get the maximum number of eyeballs on what Nvidia presumably plans to be a game changing chip for the PC industry.

To pass that opportunity up only to launch a month or two later? That's a bit odd. Of course, the tech industry is currently in flux thanks to the ongoing RAMpocolypse. So that could be a factor.

What's more, there are reports that critical support from Microsoft in the form of a specific build of Windows on Arm for Nvidia's new chip may be delaying Nvidia's plans. It's worth noting that the current Windows on Arm OS running on PCs with Qualcomm's Snapdragon X chips are specifically optimised for that architecture.

That version on Windows on Arm is more "Windows on Snapdragon". An equivalent version of Windows will be needed for Nvidia's chip.

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All that said, what to make of Nvidia's upcoming chip? We know from no lesser an authority than Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang that it will be based on the GB10 "Superchip" in the DGX Spark. What we don't know is whether "based on" means essentially the same or if the version of GB10 that becomes N1X could have a shared architecture but different specs.

Broadly, GB10 is a tale of two halves. Of the two, GB10's CPU is less impressive. Sure, it has 20 CPU cores, which sounds like a lot. But those cores are off-the-shelf Arm A725 and X925 designs, 10 of each, built into a CPU die by partner company Mediatek. These designs were released back in mid 2024 by Arm.

Source: PC Gamer