ASUS ProArt P16 Puts 128GB of RAM on a $7,000 Arm Chip
The laptop's RTX Spark system-on-a-chip delivers strong AI benchmark scores but trails cheaper Arm and x86 machines in standard CPU tests.
By Justin Barnes ·
ASUS's newest creator laptop marks a shift in chip suppliers, and its pricing shows what that shift costs. The ProArt P16, the first ASUS machine built around NVIDIA's RTX Spark, starts at $2,800 and reaches $7,000 in the configuration with 128GB of memory, according to Engadget's October 23, 2026 review.
RTX Spark replaces the Intel or AMD processors used in earlier ProArt models. Microsoft and NVIDIA have marketed the chip as a full reinvention of the PC. The review called the hardware a new branch of design for AI researchers and enthusiasts, built to sit alongside x86 systems and Qualcomm's Snapdragon X chips rather than replace them. The chip combines a 20-core Arm CPU, a Blackwell GPU and up to 128GB of unified memory in one package, an arrangement comparable to Apple's M-series designs.
The machine's build drew positive marks. Its aluminum chassis is rigid, the 16-inch OLED panel reaches 1,600 nits, and the keyboard and haptic touchpad are wide. At 3.9 pounds, it weighs less than Apple's 4.7-pound 16-inch MacBook Pro. Ports include three USB-C, one USB Type A, HDMI, a headphone jack and a full-size SD card slot. There is no Ethernet port, and the black finish picks up fingerprints.
Benchmark results split along lines that track the chip's purpose. The P16 fell about 3,000 points behind ASUS's A16 with a Snapdragon X2 Elite chip in PCMark 10 Applications and trailed slightly in Geekbench 6 single-threaded CPU testing. Graphics and AI tests favored it: it beat a MacBook Pro with an M5 Max by 4,700 points in Geekbench 6 GPU, scored 3,895 against 3,267 in Procyon's AI Computer Vision 2 test, and reached 1,519 in Procyon's AI Image Generation, about 600 points above Apple's result.
The review ran the OpenClaw tool with the Qwen3.8 27B model, which takes 42GB of RAM, and still had memory to spare. The laptop also ran Control: Resonant and Cyberpunk 2077 at high settings, with loud fans. NVIDIA has said the graphics hardware performs roughly on par with the RTX 5070 mobile GPU at lower power draw; the review measured 70 fps in Control: Resonant at 1440p with ultra settings, medium ray tracing and 4x frame generation, rising to 120 fps at reduced settings.
Battery life in the PCMark 10 Applications test came to 10 hours and 51 minutes, below the 15-plus hours many premium laptops reach. Performance held steady when the machine ran on battery. Software support remains uneven: most games rely on Microsoft's Prism emulator for the Arm CPU, which cuts performance and can cause problems, and NVIDIA is working with anti-cheat companies on the issue. Adobe has shipped native versions of its main applications for the platform.
The review placed AI professionals as the buyers who can justify the price. For gamers, it pointed to ASUS's Zephyrus G16 with an RTX 5070 GPU and a 240Hz OLED screen, listed at $2,124 at Best Buy, which delivers better gaming performance and full compatibility. The reviewer said they would wait at least a year before recommending RTX Spark to general users or gamers.
No ship date for the $7,000 configuration appears in the review, and ASUS has not announced wider availability of the RTX Spark platform beyond this model.
Source: Engadget
