Skip to main content

Nvidia CPUs might be coming to laptops sooner than we thought

Lenovo Yoga 7 14 Gen 9 tent mode showing display and hinge.
Mark Coppock / Digital Trends

Semiconductor manufacturer Nvidia is gearing up to be one of the major chip suppliers for AI PCs in 2025, with an upcoming system on a chip (SoC) set to be featured in a Lenovo laptop that could be announced by the middle of the year.

The company made its first run at the CPU market with Project Digits, a desktop PC that can run ChatGPT locally. But it may be breaking into some more consumer-focused markets soon, too.

Recommended Videos

While there are several chip suppliers, including AMD, Intel, and Qualcomm, readily partnering with hardware brands to develop AI PCs, recent leaks indicate that Nvidia is preparing a chip based on the Blackwell architecture that has the potential to outperform competitors — and it may be coming soon.

Report/Rumor about NVIDIA WoA SoC:
– Architecture: Blackwell, 180-200 TOPS
– Launch/Announcement: Computex 2025
– Collaborate with: MediaTek
– Lineup: N1x (High-end), N1 (Mid-range (?!)
– Production Estimates: Q4 2025: 3 million units
FY 2026: 13 million units https://t.co/zezO8XZRHU

— Hoang Anh Phu (@AnhPhuH) January 13, 2025

Walking Cat discovered amid data mining information, that Lenovo may be using an Nvidia chip with an updated naming scheme for its Yoga 2-in-1 16 2025 laptops. The leak showed a Nvidia N1x chip associated with the device and Lenovo job descriptions. Furthermore, Hoang Anh Phu backed up the claim by detailing that the chip was based on the Blackwell architecture, and could be announced in the time frame of Computex 2025. That equates to about late May.

According to Videocardz, the N naming scheme could come from Lenovo, and how the brand takes the first letter from each of its component partners and incorporates it into its own name sequence. An AMD run Yoga product becomes Yoga a, an Intel run Yoga is Yoga i, a Qualcomm run Yoga is Yoga q. Similarly, an Nvidia-run Yoga would be Yoga n.

Lenovo uses such a "platform code " system to indicate the CPU, like A?? for AMD, I?? for Intel, Q?? for Qualcomm, but Yoga 2in1 16 2025 has this funny platform code "N1X", what could it be? 🥸 https://t.co/AvYchIelVG pic.twitter.com/tU09V4p1lV

— WalkingCat (@_h0x0d_) January 13, 2025

Additionally, there may be tiers of chips, a high-end N1x and a midrange N1, according to Phu. They also noted that the Blackwell Architecture is set to support between 180 and 200 tera operations per second (TOPS) of neural processing unit (NPU) power, which is four times more powerful than the top chips currently on the market. Nvidia is also expected to collaborate with MediaTek and to use TSMC’s 3nm process to develop the SoC.

Despite the leaked information, Videocardz noted that Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang stated at a Q&A session during CES that there was no information about launch timelines.

Fionna Agomuoh
Fionna Agomuoh is a Computing Writer at Digital Trends. She covers a range of topics in the computing space, including…
Nvidia’s graphics drivers are in worse shape than we thought
Jensen Huang addressing an audience.

Nvidia might be one of the world's most valuable companies (less valuable after the recent tariff-inspired drops) but that doesn't mean it doesn't have problems. In the graphics cards space, this once-keystone-component of its business has turned into an absolute quagmire of failures following the launch of the RTX 50 series of GPUs and we're only just starting to see how bad it's gotten.

And we're not even talking about the missing ROPs, the burned out power cables, or the ridiculous pricing. Nvidia's drivers are an absolute mess and they're causing crashes, black screens, and freezes in a number of games and with a wide range of Nvidia GPUs.
Innocent black screens

Read more
New affordable Nvidia-powered gaming laptops could be on the horizon
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang announcing Blackwell laptops.

Nvidia's best graphics cards are now available in laptops, but gamers are still waiting for the more budget-focused options. After all, some laptops with the RTX 5090 cost $5,000 and more. Fortunately, new leaks show us that Nvidia is readying up some more mainstream laptops, and those gaming laptops include GPUs that are yet to be announced.

As spotted by VideoCardz, it seems that several Nvidia partners are getting ready to launch new laptops, this time equipped with the RTX 5060 and the RTX 5050. The fact that this isn't the first time we're hearing about these GPUs definitely lends credibility to the theory, but don't get your hopes up too high just yet -- we have to wait for Nvidia to reveal them.

Read more
Nvidia’s RTX 5080 laptop GPU almost makes the flagship obsolete
Upcoming Nvidia RTX 40-series laptops over a black and green background.

Nvidia makes some of the best graphics cards to be found in laptops, but some of these GPUs might be closer in terms of performance than you'd expect. The laptop version of the RTX 5080 has been benchmarked, and it's shockingly close to the RTX 5090. Are the laptops equipped with the RTX 5090 still worth buying?

Notebookcheck was able to compare the RTX 5090 and the RTX 5080 laptop GPUs under ideal circumstances: In two iterations of the same laptop. The cards were both paired with AMD's Ryzen 9 9955HX CPU, which removes a lot of the usual benchmarking discrepancy you'd run into in laptops. When both are installed in similar systems, we can get a good feel of how each card performs without external factors, and that is the case in these benchmarks.

Read more