ⓘ Microsoft and Apple (edited)
The Microsoft Surface Laptop Ultra with the RTX Spark Superchip is an expensive offering at its top end. At that price point, does it beat out the competition? Tech YouTube channel Hardware Canucks has put it to the test in a variety of workflows.
Nvidia’s RTX Spark “Superchip” grabbed all the attention when it was first announced in June. At the time, it was revealed that RTX Spark-powered laptops will be made by Asus, Dell, HP, Lenovo, MSI, and Microsoft. Earlier this month, Microsoft unveiled the Surface Laptop Ultra with a 20-core Nvidia Grace CPU and up to 128 GB of LPDDR5X unified memory. Now, this machine has been tested against the much cheaper M5 Pro-powered MacBook Pro with some interesting results.
Starting with CPU benchmarks, the Surface Laptop Ultra (20-core CPU, 128 GB RAM) was consistently slower than the MacBook Pro (M5 Pro, 64 GB RAM). The testing included Cinebench 2026, Cinebench 2024, and Blender. In some cases, it was even slower than the Legion Pro 5i (Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX, 130W) and the HP ZBook Ultra (Ryzen AI Max+ Pro 395, 70W). We saw similar results with the Asus ProArt P16, which is even more expensive (as tested) than the Surface Laptop Ultra.
Creative workflows
It may come as no surprise to some, but the M5 Pro-powered MacBook Pro (14-inch) consistently beat the Surface Laptop Ultra with its 20-core N1X chip. Hardware Canucks posted their results showing comparisons in several creativity tools such as Adobe Photoshop, Lightroom, DaVinci Resolve Studio, as well as some AI workflows. Keep in mind that Nvidia has designed and marketed the RTX Spark platform to be an AI workhorse.
In every test, the Surface Laptop Ultra lagged behind the MacBook Pro. With the Adobe suite of applications, both Photoshop and Lightroom had the Surface Laptop Ultra (80W) trailing far behind. Photoshop, in particular, had it at the bottom, performing worse than the Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX (130W) and the Ryzen AI Max+ Pro 395 (70W).
On the GPU side, Premiere Pro and DaVinci Resolve performance was compared, and the Surface Laptop Ultra’s 6,144 CUDA-core GPU was a bit slower than the M5 Pro’s 20-core GPU (15W). Notably, Premiere Pro isn’t yet optimized for the RTX Spark platform, and DaVinci Resolve is heavily optimized for Apple’s M-series chips.
AI workflows
Coming to running LLMs, specifically the GGUF (GPT-Generated Unified Format) ones that support both Mac and Windows, only one test had the N1X (128 GB) beat the M5 Pro (64 GB), and that was Qwen 3.8 Q4. On the heavier Q8 model, the M5 Pro pulls ahead once again, and the gap remains as the loads increase.
The comparison with the M5 Pro MacBook Pro is quite interesting because of the price points. The Surface Laptop Ultra (as tested) is priced at $5,900, while the MacBook Pro (as tested) comes in at $3,700. That’s $2,200 more for worse performance. It should be noted that apps will become more optimized for RTX Spark, and the performance gap will reduce over time. Furthermore, gaming-focused scenarios still favor the RTX Spark, though our testing shows it performs close to the RTX 5060 or RTX 5070 laptop GPUs.
Hardware Canucks on YouTube
Vineet Washington - Tech Writer - 1021 articles published on Notebookcheck since 2025
I have always been passionate about gaming and technology, which drove me towards pursuing a career in the tech writing industry. I have spent over 7 years in the tech space and about a decade in content writing. I hope to continue to use this passion and generate informative, entertaining, and accurate content for readers.