The 1080p webcam isn't particularly impressive. It struggles in low light, and the image is pretty noisy. The MacBook Pro webcam has better image processing, brightening faces without overexposing.

The Nvidia N1X is a first-of-its-kind chip in Windows laptops. Qualcomm broke open the floodgates in 2024 with its Snapdragon X chips, of which the Surface Laptop was an early adopter. These were primarily an answer to the MacBook Air, and later to what would become the MacBook Neo. But Qualcomm's chips never scaled up to the performance needed to match something like the M5 Pro or M5 Max MacBook Pro. That's where the Nvidia N1X steps in.

Both the Snapdragon X and N1X use a System on a Chip (SoC) design, which packages the CPU, GPU, and memory together. It's the same design Apple Silicon chips use, and—importantly—it lets both the CPU and GPU access local memory. This is crucial for enabling the much faster local AI processing, which needs to feed that GPU as much memory as possible. The N1X comes in two configurations: an 18-core system (5,120 GPU cores) and a 20-core system (6,144 GPU cores). Think of these like Apple's M5 Pro and M5 Max, with the main differences being GPU performance and configuration options. For example, if you want 128 GB of memory to hammer home that AI performance, you have to go with the 20-core N1X. In fact, the 18-core model is limited to just 24 GB or 32 GB of RAM (and from what I've seen so far, the Surface Laptop Ultra is the only N1X laptop to be sold with only 24 GB of memory).

I tested the 32 GB model, paired with the higher-end 20-core CPU. In terms of core count, the graphics card in this configuration of the N1X sits right in between the mobile RTX 5070 Ti and RTX 5080. That sounds promising on a laptop this thin, but the core count alone doesn't mean you should expect it to perform at the same level in games. The N1X is capped at 80 watts, which puts a serious limit on in-game frame rates. Gaming as a whole, however, is also handicapped by the nature of this being an Arm-based system. In nearly every game you play, the Surface Laptop Ultra will need to rely on app emulation, which does reduce performance. As Nvidia points out, though, emulation has its biggest impact on the CPU. So, even if applications like games aren't optimized for Arm, they should still run OK. That's exactly what I experienced with the handful of games I tried. You'll need to play most games at medium settings or lower to get decent frame rates, and usually you'll want to play at 1920 x 1200 resolution.

Despite scoring lower than the M5 Max MacBook Pro in 3DMark tests, the Surface Laptop Ultra delivers up to 20 percent faster frame rates in games like Cyberpunk 2077. That's one of the few titles where I could directly compare the two systems. I also tested games like 007: First Light, Marvel Rivals, and Black Myth: Wukong. Seeing so many popular titles run on an Arm system is exciting, and Nvidia is clearly investing heavily in the future of gaming on Arm. However, a list of fairly high-profile multiplayer games aren't compatible yet due to anti-cheat systems, including PUBG, Valorant, and League of Legends. Those are some heavy hitters to be missing at launch, but Nvidia says support is coming. I did run into some glitches, though, such as in 007: First Light, where I couldn't adjust the display resolution in the options menu. That's frustrating as the game otherwise plays well on the system.