NVIDIA RTX Spark Architecture Specifications and Power Efficiency Details for MediaTek Powered Windows PCs with Blackwell Graphics and AI Performance
NVIDIA revealed the architectural specifications of the new RTX Spark platform intended for Windows PCs. This new piece of hardware is a collaboration with MediaTek, representing an instance where mobile architectures and the principles governing their design have been implemented on an extremely scaled basis. The goal of the design is to attain high power efficiency in tandem with the kind of extreme graphics processing power that can only be obtained from the leading edge of the market.
The RTX Spark is manufactured on TSMCs 3nm process and consists of a 20 core Grace CPU coupled with 6144 CUDA cores, and Blackwell RTX graphics. This arrangement is capable of handling up to 128GB of Unified LPDDR5X memory and features the high speed NVLink C2C interconnect. The interface between the processor and graphics processor allows for the exchange of information at a bandwidth of about 600GB/sec and enables the unified architecture to perform at an estimated 1petaflop for AI applications.
Within the Grace CPU we can find that its configuration is somewhat similar to the arrangement found in many mobile CPUs. The processor has a hybrid arrangement of cores, as it contains a total of 20 cores. The core arrangement contains ten high performance Cortex X925 cores, as well as ten low power Cortex A725 cores. These core types are present in many of the latest mobile architectures, specifically the Cortex X925 in the Dimensity 9400 and the Cortex A725 in the Dimensity 8500. By combining these two core architectures, NVIDIA was able to produce a high performance computer architecture using many concepts previously found in mobile hardware designs, while greatly improving the energy efficiency compared to typical x86 processors.
MediaTek provided engineering and implementation services to NVIDIA, as they designed the custom memory controller for the unified memory architecture, built all the power management circuitry for the platform, as well as created all the wireless transmission circuitry for the CPU. With these aspects integrated into the system design, they allow for a low power architecture even with high computing requirements. Early versions of the hardware can be seen being used at Computex and the platform is expected to be released for retail sale before the end of this year.
