The decision to employ older Cortex-X925 and Cortex-A725 cores on the RTX Spark to form a 20-core CPU configuration will probably haunt NVIDIA because a new Cinebench 2026 leak reveals that the chipset produces subpar multi-core results, despite Microsoft’s Surface Laptop Ultra housing the SoC set to the ‘High Performance’ profile. Fortunately, the RTX Spark manages to retain some dignity in the single-core benchmark. High Performance mode on Surface Laptop Ultra isn’t enabled by default, but hidden configuration allows RTX Spark’s Cortex…
Qualcomm has introduced its first-ever CPU designed for Data Centers, the Dragonfly C1000, which leverages the Oryon architecture. Qualcomm Enters The Agentic AI CPU Race With Dragonfly C1000 Chip, Oryon-Based With Over 5 GHz Clocks, Over 250 Cores, & Aims To Achieve Single-Core Leadership One of the biggest announcements by Qualcomm today was its first release of a CPU for the data center segment, called the Dragonfly C1000. This is a chip purpose-built for Agentic AI & General-Purpose workloads, delivering best-in-class power…
By ckasprzak | TkOut | June 17, 2026 | ARM, Hardware
The Hot Take: I question this very much.
Servers employing x86 chips from AMD and Intel now account for little more than half of server revenue, according to the latest figures from IDC. In its Worldwide Quarterly Server Tracker for Q1 2026, the analyst firm says that non-x86 server revenue hit $58.7 billion, representing a startling increase of 107 percent over the same period last year. The results mean that those non-x86 servers make up 47.9 percent of the market revenue, closing in rapidly on the amount of cash spent on x86 boxes. The growth in non-x86 turnover is likely thanks…
The Hot Take: ARM seems to be breaking out from everywhere. Fujitsu, Nvidia, AWS and ARM. Qualcomm seems to be playing catch up in the server market from the looks of it.
AWS has provided a first look at its next-generation Graviton5 processor, a custom server CPU developed by Annapurna Labs for deployment across the company's cloud computing platform and AI inference infrastructure.
The Hot Take: I'm interested in the Surface with this chip to get a decent GPU on an ARM setup and play with ARM Windows more personally. Only professionally worked with it and that was only an inch deep.
Computex 2026 and GTC Taipei will go down in history as the moment NVIDIA used to officially announce its entrance into the PC market. During his keynote at the Taipei Music Center, CEO Jensen Huang announced the RTX Spark – formerly codenamed N1 and N1X – which will power an array of premium laptops and small form factor systems coming this
The Hot Take: Will have to see what the final products show us.
The N1X reportedly comes in two SKUs: a top-end 20-core option with 6,144 CUDA cores matching the desktop RTX 5070, and a cut-down 18-core option with 5,120 CUDA cores. The standard N1 also has two configs, one with a 12-core CPU and 2,560 CUDA cores and a 10-core model with 2,048 CUDA cores.
The Hot Take: Only time will tell on this one. I don't think so but we'll see here soon enough.
A new report from GF Securities (via SeekingAlpha) claims NVIDIA is gearing up to use its June 1st Computex keynote to pitch its upcoming Arm-based Vera CPU as an x86 killer. The financial analysts claim NVIDIA will boast that Vera delivers up to "1.5x faster speeds, 2x the performance, and 4x the density per rack," as compared to traditional
By ckasprzak | TkOut | May 21, 2026 | ARM, CPU, Hardware
The Hot Take: Licensee's mad? I think so.
Arm was notified by the US Federal Trade Commission in early 2026 that it was the subject of an antitrust investigation after the chip designer said it would begin engineering its own processors, according to Bloomberg. The FTC is examining whether Arm used its dominant position in chip licensing to deny or downgrade the quality of CPU blueprints it licenses to others in order to disadvantage rivals. The regulator asked Arm to cooperate and preserve related documents.
The Hot Take: Have they given up in trying to infiltrate the WinTel market to go for them Ai dollars?
The strategic significance of Arm's current transformation lies in its transition from a volume-dependent mobile component provider to a value-driven infrastructure architect. As the global smartphone market faces structural saturation, the organization is pivoting toward Agentic and Physical AI to redefine its commercial relevance. The core of this strategy is to increase the average selling price per chip by packing higher complexity—measured in core density and orchestration capabilities—into each unit, thereby ensuring revenue growth even…
The Hot Take: So was ARM not breaking into the WinTel market so they shifted to Ai market or are they just chasing the highest dollars?
Investment bank UBS reckons agentic AI will send CPU demand soaring, with Arm and AMD best placed to grab the spoils.
UBS analysts believe the growth of agentic AI software will drive strong demand for CPUs in the AI era. The bank said agentic AI increases processor workloads and favours chips with higher core counts and better power efficiency.
That view gives Arm the biggest potential upside, followed by AMD. Intel could benefit too, since a growing total addressable market tends to lift more than one silicon boat.
In fresh coverage of…