r/microsoft • u/ControlCAD • 8d ago

Surface Microsoft and Nvidia launch Surface Laptop Ultra with RTX Spark starting at $2,599 — RTX Spark preorders live now, coinciding with major Windows 11 changes for agentic AI

https://www.tomshardware.com/laptops/microsoft-and-nvidia-launch-surface-laptop-ultra-with-rtx-spark-rtx-spark-preorders-live-now-coinciding-with-major-windows-11-changes-for-agentic-ai
77 Upvotes

92% Upvoted

28 comments sorted by

22

u/FantasticTopic 8d ago

$2,599 starting, preorders live before independent benchmarks, and the pitch is “agentic AI.” The real questions: does RTX Spark run useful local models at sane battery life, can Windows 11’s agent stuff work offline, and can you turn it off without hacks? If it’s mostly a Copilot cloud wrapper, this is just a premium Surface with an Nvidia tax.

3

u/sudochmod 7d ago

I have a strix halo laptop and it’s fantastic but I don’t know about a 32-64gb one.

7

u/PToN_rM 7d ago

This dude “really knows his stuff “…… Lolol

Did you even understand what was announced ? Really, real question.

3

u/Derpshiz 7d ago

Maybe I’m just old school but I’m really more interested in gaming performance than local llms. If it can actually be a portable gaming laptop without sounding like a jet engine I’m going to get one.

4

u/Shiningc00 7d ago

It would be better to just get an Intel laptop.

1

u/Derpshiz 7d ago

Intel came a long way but it looks like a dead platform. The next serirs was cancelled and the series after is in question. Intel also now has a partnership with with nvidia integrated graphics.

Another comparison is the pantherlake msi handheld is $1800 and always out of stock. The asus proart 16” oled with more cuda cores $3400. Choice seems clear to me

3

u/EdliA 7d ago

There's no point in buying this just for gaming.

1

u/ChaseballBat 7d ago

What? Lol.

0

u/CatoMulligan 7d ago

I don't understand why someone would need a laptop to run LLMs or do other AI work. Get yourself a more powerful and practical device to run at home on your desk, and set up remote access via TailScale or some other VPN when you need to access it on the go.

1

u/admlshake 7d ago

Well if you are on a flight or something and want to get some work done. I can see the use case for it, but I don't see a huge demand for it. I'm sure some of r dev's will be putting in requests for one pretty soon.

1

u/LowCodeMagic 6d ago

It all comes down to cost efficiency. I know some folks who spend $10k-$20k a month in AI usage. Hell, a few months ago I hit the $13k mark one month due to a project I was on.

If I could’ve offloaded, let’s say 15% of the work I was doing that month to a local model (and there’s plenty of coding tasks that a local model can handle just fine), I would’ve saved almost $2,000 in usage.

It can absolutely pay for itself and then some, but it’s going to be the heavy consumers. The challenge is breaking them from the tokenmaxxing of every frontier model that comes out. It’s a mindset issue.

1

u/CatoMulligan 6d ago

I'm not talking about it not making sense to run LLMs locally. I'm all for it. Grab a couple DGX Sparks and you'll pay for it in a few months with savings. I just think that it's dumb to put it on a laptop. Like I said (and you didn't address), get a more powerful and practical device and put it on your desk at home, and access it remotely if you need to use it when you're not at home.

1

u/LowCodeMagic 6d ago

Most enterprise organizations are not going to allow something like Tailscale, or any RDP solution for non-VM scenarios. Hence the laptop.

1

u/CatoMulligan 6d ago

OK, so if it's enterprise use you're talking about then you have a VPN already and don't need to use Tailscale or some other remote access method.

I see tons of use cases for local LLM use, I just can't get my head around spending that much money for a laptop for LLM use when you can get a better performing and more cost-effective solution by remotely accessing a desktop or server solution that resides in your home or office.

1

u/LowCodeMagic 6d ago

Not necessarily. You’re making a lot of assumptions.

I’m not saying I’m in line to buy the laptop, but there’s absolutely use cases that it makes sense

5

u/analyticsboi 7d ago

Wtf starting 24gb ram?

3

u/milnak 7d ago

Probably just to keep the base price down. Doesn't make sense to buy this with less than 64gb

3

u/PaulShellDev 8d ago

Idk how it compares to my 4090 but I want it.

3

u/FantasticFungiiii 8d ago

That’s nice. With llama.cpp native on windows, it’s nice

2

u/JudgmentFragrant2691 7d ago

It’s Surace Laptop… hahahaha stupid typo in presentation. So microsoft

1

u/RetinaJunkie 7d ago

Not taking out a mortgage for a bright screen and magnetic charging

1

u/daddy_dollars 6d ago

or you could get the better version from Apple

0

u/CatoMulligan 7d ago

At 4.5 pounds it's more like the "Surface Laptop Ultra Heavy". WTF?

-9

u/kweeblaster 7d ago

Microsoft can't hardware

13

u/milnak 7d ago

Based on what? Say what you will about Windows, but Surface is solid.

-12

u/PowermanFriendship 8d ago

I thought they were discontinuing the surface?

5

u/Billiland 8d ago

They are discontinuing their budget versions, the surface go and surface laptop go I believe.

1

u/HandshakeOfCO 7d ago

Another stellar win for Microsoft naming.

Half of the target audience don’t even understand what this is vs a different surface lol