Microsoft unveils Surface Laptop Ultra with NVIDIA RTX power: is this its MacBook Pro rival?

Microsoft has unveiled its Surface Laptop Ultra, a new 15-inch Windows laptop designed to combine local AI, gaming and professional graphics performance in a relatively thin machine. Developed with NVIDIA, the laptop uses the new RTX Spark N1X platform, pairing an NVIDIA Grace CPU with a Blackwell RTX GPU and up to 128GB of unified memory.

The Surface Laptop Ultra starts at $2,599.99, with the higher-end version priced at $3,699.99. Pre-orders begin on October 16, although Microsoft has not yet announced an India price or launch date.

Surface Laptop Ultra gets serious hardware

Microsoft is offering the laptop with either an 18-core or 20-core NVIDIA Grace CPU, paired with a Blackwell GPU featuring up to 6,144 cores. It can be configured with up to 128GB of LPDDR5X unified memory, giving it considerably more memory capacity than a typical thin-and-light laptop. The 15-inch PixelSense Ultra touchscreen has a 3:2 aspect ratio, 3270 x 2180 resolution, 120Hz dynamic refresh rate and 100 per cent DCI-P3 coverage. Microsoft has also included HDMI 2.1b, an SD card reader, USB-C, USB-A and a headphone jack. The laptop weighs around 2kg and is less than 18mm thick.

Built for AI, gaming and creative work

The hardware is designed for workloads such as AI development, 3D work, video editing and gaming. Microsoft says its redesigned cooling system provides up to 2.5 times the thermal capacity of its 15-inch Surface Laptop. Battery estimates are up to 15 hours of local video playback and up to 12 hours of active web use. NVIDIA says RTX Spark can run AI models with up to 120 billion parameters locally, while supporting its CUDA and TensorRT software ecosystem. The combination is particularly notable for gaming. ARM-based Windows laptops and Apple silicon Macs have made major gains in efficiency, but high-end gaming remains a different challenge. RTX graphics give Microsoft's machine a stronger focus on both gaming and professional GPU workloads.

Is this Microsoft's MacBook Pro rival?

The Surface Laptop Ultra clearly enters the same premium territory as Apple's MacBook Pro. Microsoft's machine combines a premium metal design, high-resolution display and large haptic touchpad with NVIDIA graphics hardware designed for demanding workloads. Apple's MacBook Pro starts at Rs 2,39,900 in India, while the 14-inch M5 Pro model starts at Rs 2,49,900, putting the two product lines in a similar premium segment. The bigger difference is what they prioritise. Microsoft's Surface Laptop Ultra is targeting users who want local AI, professional graphics and gaming in one Windows machine. Alongside the laptop, NVIDIA also previewed the DGX Station for Windows, a deskside AI system using the GB300 Grace Blackwell Ultra Desktop Superchip. It offers 748GB of coherent memory and up to 20 petaflops of FP4 AI performance, aimed at enterprise teams running large AI models locally.