Asus ProArt P16 RTX Spark review: Nvidias next-gen SoC yields stellar gaming, creative and AI power

Date:
Wed, 28 Oct 2026 11:22:10 +0000

Description:
With its innovative Nvidia SoC, the Asus ProArt P16 RTX Spark is perfect for vibecoding, Photoshopping or gaming on the go but that price might give you pause.

FULL STORY ======================================================================Asus ProArt P16 RTX Spark: two-minute review The Asus ProArt P16 RTX Spark is one of the new generation of laptops powered by Nvidia s RTX Spark chip. This all-in-one system-on-a-chip is packing 20 ARM CPU cores, 6144 CUDA GPU backed up by 64GB of RAM and promises to offer fantastic AI, creative and gaming performance in a lightweight, portable form factor. So how does this new SoC version of the Asus ProArt P16 laptop fare?

When powering up the Asus ProArt P16 RTX Spark for the first time, perhaps
the first thing I noticed is its huge, vibrant 16-inch OLED screen. With a peak brightness of 1,100 nits and a 100% DCI-P3 color gamut, it looked gorgeous whether I was loading up my digital artworks or watching movies. And its 120Hz VRR makes it perfect for playing games on. Thats not the only part of the ProArt P16s design that feels premium. Its overall build quality feels suitably luxe, with the smooth metal of its upper casing feeling wonderfully tactile. Inside, its keyboard is well designed and feels pleasant to type on, while its haptic trackpad is precise and gives snappy feedback, even if I did find it too easy to trigger the right click at first. I will say its lid has
a little bit too much wobble for my liking though: if Im honest, Id expect a laptop at this price to have a slightly more stable hinge. Latest Videos From TechRadar Watch full video here:

But lets not just focus on the superficial here: the ProArt P16 RTX Spark has a lot going on under the surface. Thats predominantly thanks to that Nvidia SoC, which enables it to tackle a wider range of tasks than even many of the best laptops .

Perhaps the most attention grabbing feature is its AI capabilities. Designed for hybrid workflows, the RTX Spark makes it easy to use a combination of local and cloud models to run your AI agents. Testing it out with the Qwen 3 8B open-source local model, I certainly found it had pretty snappy
performance for basic workflows, with a basic data analysis only taking about 12 minutes. (Image credit: Future) More involved tasks took much more
refining and prompting over multiple sessions though attempting to automate 3DMark benchmarks took many 75 minute runs before the completion time reduced significantly. Still, being able to run these workflows on such a
lightweight, portable machine was pretty impressive

Another area the Asus ProArt P16 RTX Spark delivers potent performance is during creative tasks. Running multiple PugetBench benchmarks for automating Photoshop and Premier Pro workflows, the ProArt P16 was only a little behind Apple s M5 chip when running image-based tasks and beat it when it came to video tasks. And this was borne out by my own testing: even my largest 4K 300dpi Photoshop file crammed full of clipping masks didnt make it wince,
with filters and generative fills executing smoothly. Even downscaling the whole image to 2K only took around five seconds, which isnt bad for a nigh-on 2GB file. Are you a pro? Subscribe to our newsletter Sign up to the TechRadar Pro newsletter to get all the top news, opinion, features and guidance your business needs to succeed! Contact me with news and offers from other Future brands Receive email from us on behalf of our trusted partners or sponsors By submitting your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy and are aged 16 or over.

Few SoCs to date have been designed with gaming performance in mind. But
given Nvidias heritage in this space, its hardly surprising that the ProArt P16 RTX Spark is capable of some serious gaming power. While its not quite able to deliver at the same level as RTX 5080 and 5090 GPUs, I enjoyed a very smooth 60fps on Cyberpunk 2077 on Raytracing Medium settings, while Gears of War: E-day ran at more solid than bedrock at over 110fps. So this laptop can achieve some stunning results, even if the performance youll get isnt 100%
the top of the range.

Given it can handle all of these tasks on the go, youd hope it has a pretty capacious battery to back up that powerful chip. And its relatively good news on this front. While it only managed 11 hours of continuous video playback during my testing, during productivity based work it lasted well over 14 hours. Thats nowhere near as long-lasting as the Methuselah-like MacBook Pro M5 Pro , which clocked over 21 hours in our testing, but its certainly enough to get you through a standard days work.

Honestly, the Asus ProArt P16 RTX Spark is pretty adept at everything it
tries to do: its a talented all-rounder. The only caveat really is its price: like many of the RTX Spark laptops, it isnt cheap. Starting from $4,399.99 / 3,899.99 / AU$7,999, it costs just as much as a high-end gaming laptop or a pro-level creative workhorse so, honestly, if you care more about getting
the best performance you can in a specific niche, you may be better off investing in one of those instead.

However, if you need a single bow that can handle every single one of your strings, the Asus ProArt P16 RTX Spark is a good shout. Itll handle running your own AI agents, whipping up creative work and even gaming for your downtime, all in a single, portable package. (Image credit: Future) Asus ProArt P16 RTX Spark review: price & availability Having launched on October 9, the Asus ProArt P16 RTX Spark is available now. Unlike its smaller
sibling, it ships with the higher-end Nvidia RTX Spark N1X with 6144-core GPU and 20-core CPU.

As a result, its a pricey meatball: its list price starts from $4,399.99 / 3,899.99 / AU$7,999 for the spec with 64GB RAM, 3K screen and 1TB SSD. That increases to $6,999.99 / 5,999.99 / AU$10,999 if you want the version with 128GB RAM, a 4K screen and a 2TB SSD.

Even with its impressive specs, theres no getting away from the fact that
this is a premium-priced laptop. Both in terms of price and spec, the ProArt P16 RTX Spark is pretty similar to the Samsung Galaxy Book6 Ultra with Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070, which will set you back $3,799.99 / 3,649 (around
AU$5,410).

Alternatively, this kind of spend could net you the MacBook Pro M5 Pro
16-inch with 64GB for $2,999 / 3,999 / AU$6,299, which should give you a lot of performance and creative power but I wouldnt expect to get quite as much gaming power for your buck. (Image credit: Future) Asus ProArt P16 RTX Spark review: Specs Swipe to scroll horizontally Header Cell - Column 0

Asus ProArt P16 RTX Spark Base Config

Asus ProArt P16 RTX Spark High end Config

Price

$4,399.99 / 3,899.99 / AU$7,999

$6,999.99 / 5,999.99 / AU$10,999

CPU

NVIDIA RTX Spark N1X 20-core

NVIDIA RTX Spark N1X 20-core CPU

GPU

NVIDIA Blackwell RTX 6144-core

NVIDIA Blackwell RTX 6144-core GPU

RAM

64GB

128GB

Storage

1TB SSD

2TB SSD

Display

16.0-inch, 2880 x 1800, 120Hz, 1100 nits OLED

16.0-inch, 3840 x 2400, 120Hz, 1600 nits OLED

Ports and Connectivity

3x USB-C, USB, HDMI 2.1, 3.5mm Combo Audio Jack, SD Express 7.0 card reader

3x USB-C, USB, HDMI 2.1, 3.5mm Combo Audio Jack, SD Express 7.0 card reader

Battery

99.9Wh

99.9Wh

Dimensions

13.94 x 9.57 x 0.63 inches / 354.1 x 243 x 15.9mm

13.94 x 9.57 x 0.63 inches / 354.1 x 243 x 15.9mm

Weight

3.9 lbs / 1.77kg

3.9 lbs / 1.77kg (Image credit: Future) Asus ProArt P16 RTX Spark review: design Gorgeous 3K OLED display Slim, sleek design Slightly flimsy hinge Like all of the initial lineup RTX Spark laptops Ive seen, the new Asus ProArt P16 is a sleek-looking unit. While its 16-inch span is pretty expansive, its
still light in terms of weight, clocking in at 1.77 kg compared to my 16-inch MacBook Pro M4s 2.14kg. Its also got a pretty sleek silhouette unlike some
of the RTX Spark laptop models Ive seen, its not concealing a much chonkier base with the help of gradually sloping bevels. And its nano black and neo white colorways feel suitably premium, although I marginally prefer the black version I tested here.

Its not all about style though: the ProArt P16 RTX Spark has plenty of substance too. Manufactured from smooth metal, its external and internal surfaces feel wonderfully tactile, although Id say the inner ones feel a tiny bit less sturdy than the solid bodywork of the outside. On top of this,
theres a tiny bit of wobble to its screen when you touch it Id expect a slightly firmer hinge on a premium laptop like this.

Speaking of that screen, I found Asuss 3K touchscreen Lumina Pro OLED to be pretty impressive on the whole. Not only can my unit hit a peak brightness of 1,100 nits and a max 120Hz VRR but comparing it to my MacBook Pro M4 s Liquid Retina XDR display while watching Pixars Elemental was sorry for this
pretty illuminating. While the latter can go slightly brighter at 1,600 nits peak, I didnt find the difference all that pronounced. And the colors of the P16 RTX Sparks OLED panel were noticeably more vibrant, with the reds, blues and greens of the fire, water and earth elements really popping. (Image credit: Future) To say laptop keyboards can be hit or miss might be the understatement of the century but, fortunately, the ProArt P16 RTX Sparks keyboard falls more in the former category than the latter. Although the keys dont have a huge amount of travel, I still found the typing experience to be pretty fluid. I rarely ever struggled to find my chosen key when touch typing
although I did occasionally knock both parts of the dual enter key, accidentally sticking random #s at the end of sentences. Still, it felt nice to use, whether I was prompting an AI agent or rapidly splatting demons in Doom: The Dark Ages .

For the most part, the P16 RTX Sparks trackpad is also well designed. Its
very accurate, gives you a huge area for controlling your cursor and the haptic feedback is spot on, feeling exactly like a mechanical click. Really the only issue I found with it is the right click triggers far too far to the left, meaning Id sometimes accidentally right click on certain elements.
Still though, its a decent trackpad for the most part.

As youd expect from a laptop this premium, the P16 RTX Spark comes with
access to a wide range of connectivity options as well. On top of offering Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4 connectivity, it rocks a pretty decent selection of ports for such a slim laptop. These include three USB-C and one standard USB port, an HDMI 2.1 port, a 3.5mm headphone jack and an SD Express card reader. So even for most creative workflows, you should find youre able to plug in plenty of devices to get things done. Design score: 4 / 5 (Image credit: Future) Asus ProArt P16 RTX Spark review: performance Strong all-round performance Local AI workflows impressive but require some patience
Specialist laptops can give better gaming or creative performance Ill be honest: by far the most exciting part about getting my hands on the Asus ProArt P16 RTX Spark is that eponymous chip. Similar to Apples M-series silicon, Nvidias RTX Spark is the companys first attempt at a full system-on-a-chip architecture. And given Nvidias involvement in both the AI and gaming spaces, its safe to say I was looking forward to putting the
Nvidia Spark RTX through its paces .

Combining CPU, GPU and RAM all in one compact package, the version of the RTX Spark included with the Asus ProArt P16 I tested here rocks 20 ARM CPU cores backed up by 64GB of RAM. Meanwhile, on the graphics side, it wields 6144
CUDA GPU cores with 30GB integrated memory. In terms of raw hardware, it's less cooked and more meaty than steak tartare.

While this is the equivalent of using a steam hammer to obliterate a nut, general productivity tasks ran perfectly smoothly on the ProArt P16 RTX
Spark. Whether I was browsing the web, tinkering with spreadsheets or leafing through huge PDFs, I never experienced any awkward hanging or slowdowns. Even on the odd occasion when I had to look something up online while the laptop worked on an AI task, there wasnt any unpleasant gear-crunching, showing the ProArt P16 is plenty fast enough for general use.

But youre unlikely to be buying an RTX Spark laptop just for doing a bit of Googling or filing your taxes. Instead, the most obvious use case for the RTX Spark chip in the ProArt P16 is its hybrid agentic AI functionality. Put simply, rather than being forced to choose between using cloud models that potentially jeopardize the security of your data and less powerful local models, this blended approach means you can pick and choose which parts of your workflow youre going to outsource to the cloud and which youll keep
under strict local control.

With its integrated fifth-generation Tensor cores, the RTX Spark should be perfectly placed to support this. To see how fast it could run some of these models locally, I used the MLPerf Client benchmarking tool to mimic data analyst and SWE agentic workflows using the Qwen 3 8B local model. And the results felt pretty rapid, with the pipelines completing after an average duration of 63.7 and 50.8 seconds and processing up to 14,005 and 10,238 tokens respectively.

But I wanted to see for myself what it could do. So I fired up Hermes, the open-source AI agent tool, and set it up to run the local open-source model Qwen3.8 27B to see what having my own personal AI version of Alfred could
help me achieve. (Image credit: Future) Some of the basic tasks I threw its way, the RTX Spark practically scoffed at. When I asked Hermes to organize a spreadsheet full of web analytics for me and pull out actionable highlights, it whipped the file up into a pivot table and gave me six bullet points
within about 12 minutes. Asking it to convert this info into a presentation with slides and prompts took a little longer at 23 minutes, but it helped highlight the best information to pitch even if the slides themselves needed a considerable glow up before Id ever call them up in a Zoom call.

In theory though, these hybrid agentic AI tools can go much further than
this. Not only can you convert your prompts into skills or schedule them to run as daily tasks but you can even set them to target your apps and control your screen directly.

Some of my experiments paid off here: after one abortive run, I eventually managed to get Hermes to access my emails and create a daily digest in 70 minutes. But trying to automate some of my 3DMark benchmarking process ended up being a real rabbit hole even with judicious prompts throughout the process and prompting Hermes to find ways to boost the skills efficiency, it took around eight runs to significantly improve its workflow. So its
important to recognize that while some agentic pipelines may save you time in the long run, without utilizing some cloud models, training them may take a decent investment.

Agentic AI isnt the only use you can put all of that processing power to though. While Im not a massive fan of generative AI, I can definitely see how fast the RTX Spark is at whipping up new images and videos. Automating some imagery and video pipelines using ComfyUI, the laptop completed tests of Flux2.Dev - NVFP4 and Flux2.Klein 4B Base - NVFP4 models in just 46.5 and
16.2 seconds, while the LTX 2.5 - Distilled - NVFP4 video model took 88 seconds. Those are pretty swift run times for local generative models.

And if, like me, you prefer creating your own stuff from scratch, my testing showed the ProArt P16 RTX Spark can help here too. Using PugetBench to automate a range of creative workflows, I found Asuss laptop was capable of some lightning fast processing.

Our standard Photoshop workflow completed in 10.83 minutes and achieved a score of 11,801 thats not far short of Apples M5 chip at 13,755. And the RTX Spark offered even speedier performance for video work, securing a score in our Premier Pro benchmark of 76,234 in 8.12 minutes, giving the M5 chip a bit of a drubbing at 69,887. Unfortunately, it cant keep up with the similarly priced Apple MacBook Pro M5 Pro though, which managed to best it for both still imagery and video with scores of 15,204 and 105,580 respectively.
(Image credit: Future) Naturally, Im not just going to take these numbers on trust though, so I dug out one of my most demanding Photoshop files a 4K, 300dpi PSD with dozens of clipping masks and adjustment layers and checked how the ProArt P16 RTX Spark handled it.

Manipulating layers and applying filters caused scarcely any slowdown, in spite of the fact Id tripled the number of layers in the file. Even downscaling the image to 2K no small task given the total file size was now in excess of 2GB only took around five seconds, which is pleasingly swift. And thanks to the optimization work that Adobe has been doing behind the scenes to allow its apps to take advantage of the RTX Sparks AI capabilities, even generative fills and neural filters didnt take long to generate.

When it comes to gaming performance, Id say the ProArt P16 RTX Spark hovers somewhere between mid-range laptops with RTX 5060 and RTX 5070 GPUs. For example, when playing Cyberpunk 2077 on Raytracing Ultra settings at 1080p, I found the Asus hovered around 30.16fps but, by contrast, the Acer Predator Helios Neo 16S AI with an RTX 5060 only reached a marginally smoother 34.47fps. Other games told a similar story. For example, Doom: The Dark Ages on Ultra settings sat at a pretty decent 48fps on the ProArt P16. In comparison, with its slightly beefier RTX 5070, the Samsung Galaxy Book 6 Ultra whipped the game like meringue into a much smoother 63.98fps.

But thats running things on max settings. In practice, when actually playing games on more moderate settings, they ran plenty smoothly enough, especially those that are already well optimized for the RTX Spark. As I explored
Dogtown in Cyberpunk 2077 at Raytracing Medium settings, it chugged along at
a perfect stable 60fps. And playing Dogs of War: E-day on Ultra settings, I never saw it drop below 110fps, which shows what wonderfully smooth experiences you should still be able to expect from native gaming on the RTX Spark.

Honestly, Id say that if you put the Asus ProArt P16 RTX Spark up against any similarly priced, specialist laptop focused on AI, creative workflows or gaming, youll likely find its performance cant quite keep up. But thats the point RTX Spark laptops are a triple threat: theyre designed to be a swiss army knife that can handle every task you might throw at them. So if you want a lightweight laptop that combines the agentic AI hosting of a compact desktop, the creative power of the Apple M5 and the gaming oomph of the
Nvidia Geforce RTX 5060, all in one handy package, the Asus ProArt P16 RTX Spark should have your back. Performance score: 4.5 / 5 (Image credit:
Future) Asus ProArt P16 RTX Spark review: battery test Battery should last 14 hours of standard use Some similar rivals can outlast it Being able to
achieve all of this on the go is impressive. But for that to be sustainable, it needs a battery that can keep up with these kinds of heavy duty tasks. Fortunately, the Asus ProArt P16 RTX Spark is capable of decent battery life, even if its not quite as exceptional as some of its rivals.

Running it through our standard battery tests, I played a 1080p video at 50% brightness and volume to see how long it took to drain the battery from 100% to 0%. The ProArt P16 RTX Spark ran out of juice after 11h 23m thats not at all bad but its also not quite at the level Id expect for a premium laptop like this.

But a video test doesnt necessarily give you the full picture. One of the big benefits of an SoC is through boosted efficiency during CPU usage, so I
wanted to also run some tests that showed how the laptop fared in action. Running PCMark 10s applications battery test which runs various Microsoft Office based tasks until the battery is drained the ProArt P16 lasted 14h 24m.

Thats definitely a better score, even if it falls a little ways short of some of the best laptops for Windows . For example, the Samsung Galaxy Book6 Ultra managed well over 15 hours in our benchmark tests and that wasnt even the strongest contender. The MacBook Pro M5 Pro 16-inch clocked over 21 hours, which makes the ProArt P16s look pretty short-lived in comparison.

Fortunately, the Asus ProArt P16 RTX Spark does have one extra trick up its sleeve: its charging rate. Thanks to its 140W fast charging, topping your battery up again should be a relatively speedy affair. Sadly, my US unit
didnt come with a UK plug slight oversight there so I wasnt able to test this as I would have liked. Still, my 65W charger topped it up relatively quickly, so youll definitely get pretty speedy charging out that 140W cable.

So Id say that, all in all, the Asus ProArt P16 RTX Spark is capable of competitive battery life. When youre doing standard office work, itll get you through a full day without you having to hunt out a charger. But its still
not quite able to keep pace with the most enduring batteries on the market
and particularly intensive tasks like AI or gaming are going to drain it much faster. Battery score: 4 / 5 (Image credit: Future) Should I buy the Asus ProArt P16 RTX Spark? Swipe to scroll horizontally

Attributes

Notes

Rating

Value

The Asus ProArt P16 RTX Spark has a lot of power behind it, an attractive lightweight design and a gorgeous screen. But that price is going to be a stumbling block for many, particularly when specialist gaming or creative laptops achieve better performance for similar cash.

2.5 / 5

Design

A stunning 3K OLED screen, lightweight design and premium feeling materials, although it loses a few marks here and there for small details like its
wobbly screen and slightly off-balance trackpad.

4 / 5

Performance

While the ProArt P16 RTX Spark doesnt offer top level performance in creative workflows or gaming, its AI tools and how much power it crams into a small frame are very impressive. Additionally, the fact it performs so well across so many categories makes it a great all rounder.

4.5 / 5

Battery Life

At roughly 14.5 hours, this laptops battery is strong but not exactly exceptional. Youll comfortably get more than a days work out of it but it
will definitely tap out sooner than a MacBook Pro during intensive workloads.

4 / 5

Total

The Asus ProArt P16 RTX Spark is a good-looking, lightweight laptop thats perfect for anyone who wants to create, game and use AI agents on a single device. But that high price means that if you care most about performance in
a single area, youll be better off with a specialist laptop.

4 / 5 Buy it if

You want to game, create and use AI on a single device Thanks to Nvidias RTX Spark SoC, the Asus ProArt P16 puts considerable power behind every task you might throw at it. So if youre a bit of a polymath, it may well be the only device you need.

You want a seriously portable 16-inch device Despite that gorgeous and expansive 16-inch display, the laptops wonderfully light at 3.9 lbs /
1.77kg, its svelter than other powerful laptops like the MacBook Pro M5 Pro
or the Samsung Galaxy Book6 Ultra. Dont buy it if

You want top performance in any one category If you only really care about gaming or creative work is your sole priority, there are laptops out there that can give you peak performance for a similar spend.

You dont have loads of money laying around Theres no getting away from it: this laptop aint cheap. Even in its base spec, youll be paying $4,399.99 / 3,899.99 / AU$7,999, so if youre not feeling flush, you might want to look elsewhere. Asus ProArt P16 RTX Spark review: also consider

Apple MacBook Pro M5 Pro If youre wanting a true creative powerhouse, the MacBook Pro M5 Pro will get you there. Despite costing a similar price, this incarnation of Apples laptop will absolutely blitz both image and video workflows, while also offering an absurdly long 21-hour battery life. While youre not going to get top shelf gaming performance out of Apple silicon,
this is still a great choice if your main concern is sheer creative thrust. Read our full Apple MacBook Pro M5 Pro review .

Asus Zephyrus G16 2026 With its discrete Nvidia Geforce RTX 5080 GPU, the Asus Zephyrus G16 2026 offers seriously nippy gaming performance, besting the P16 RTX Spark in both benchmarks and in-game frame rates. Okay, its not going to unlock the same oomph the P16 can for hybrid AI workflows. But if your
main concern is pure gaming punch, the Zephyrus G16 will deliver. (Image credit: Future) How I tested the Asus ProArt P16 RTX Spark Tested over the course of several weeks Ran a huge number of benchmarks for different workflows Conducted experiential AI, gaming and creative testing Testing the Asus ProArt P16 RTX Spark over the course of several weeks, I ran a wide
range of benchmarks. Not only did I run a variety of baseline hardware tests using Geekbench 7.1 and Cinebench R23, but I tested performance across a wide range of tasks as well. I used MLPerf Client to test agentic workflows, ComfyUI to simulate generative workflows, PugetBench to automate creative tasks and 3DMark and gaming benchmarks to test in-game GPU performance.

On top of this, I did a wide range of experiential testing. Not only did I
use the laptop for plenty of daily and productivity-based work but I also extensively tested agentic AI workflows using Hermes and the local
open-source model Qwen3.8 27B. I also tried carrying out creative work using large, hi-resolution Photoshop files and played a range of games including Cyberpunk 2077 , Gears of War: E-day and Planet Zoo 2 .

As TechRadars reviews editor, I have plenty of experience covering laptops.
As well as editing scores of laptop reviews over the last few years, Ive reviewed multiple gaming handhelds and have used a huge variety of laptops over the years, both Windows and MacOS. First reviewed: October 2026 Read
more about how we test



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