Nvidia N1X far behind Apple M5 Max: comparable chips show expected performance

CPU far behind ARM competition

While Nvidia has not published any benchmarks, the company is advertising the chip not only for AI applications, but also for gaming and creative professionals. The performance of the chip can already be estimated based on benchmarks of technically comparable products before the first laptops with N1X are expected to be launched on the market in fall 2026.

As the comparison of the Nvidia GB10 with the current laptop processors of the competition shows, the single-core performance falls almost 30 percent behind the Apple M5 Max and almost 20 percent behind the Snapdragon X2 Elite, and is roughly on a par with the current chips from Intel and AMD. The multi-threaded benchmark shows a similar picture: the Nvidia N1X is almost a third slower than the Apple M5 Pro and Apple M5 Max, but is almost on a par with the Intel Ultra 9 290HX Plus.
 

GPU outperforms Snapdragon X2 Elite and Ryzen Strix Halo

The performance of the graphics chip should be between the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070 laptop GPU and the GeForce RTX 5070 Ti laptop GPU. Although the GPU of the N1X has slightly more compute units than the GeForce RTX 5070 Ti laptop GPU, it is operated with a significantly lower TDP and should therefore achieve lower GPU clocks.

As our benchmarks show, the GPU should sit between the Apple M5 Pro and M5 Max in synthetic benchmarks and creative apps, while Nvidia should have the edge in games thanks to better drivers. After all, the Nvidia RTX Spark should far outperform both AMD Ryzen Strix Halo and the Snapdragon X2 Elite in terms of GPU performance.

However, whether the chip will be worthwhile for gaming enthusiasts depends not least on how expensive it is compared to laptops with GeForce RTX 5070 Ti or RTX 5080 laptop GPUs. This preview only serves as a rough classification, as no laptops or mini PCs with Nvidia RTX Spark are yet available for testing.