San Francisco Best Buy Line

Dozens of people lined up at San Francisco Best Buy for Nvidia's RTX Spark launch event on Friday morning.

Long Line of 100+

A line of over 100 consumers wrapped around the store and extended down the building's side minutes before the event started at 10 a.m.

RTX Spark Not Graphics Card

The RTX Spark is Nvidia's first Windows laptops built with Arm-based CPUs, not a graphics card, making them new and untested.

High Price Point

RTX Spark laptops start at $2,599, far more than a typical laptop, with many customers saying they are too expensive.

George Gonzalez

George Gonzalez, a college student from San Jose, said he loves Nvidia but can't afford an RTX Spark now, hoping for a more affordable version that runs Linux.

“I got no money”

Kevin Barreto

Kevin Barreto, who lives near the store, said he likes the RTX Spark but won't buy one today due to money, but it's on his radar.

AI Memory Shortage

The AI-driven memory shortage expected to persist over the next two years or longer will keep RTX Spark pricing high in the short term.

First Purchase

Sigil Wen, an AI developer who partnered with Nvidia to create local AI, bought his first RTX Spark laptop at the event.

Sigil Wen's View

Sigil Wen said he would cancel all subscriptions and prefer on-device AI over cloud subscriptions for privacy.

“Why should I pay for my [AI] cloud subscription when I could literally just buy an RTX Spark”

RTX Spark Benefits

RTX Spark laptops have high-capacity memory to run large AI models locally and privately, giving customers an alternative to OpenAI or Anthropic.

George T's View

George T, who owns an Nvidia RTX 5080 GPU, said the high price is fair for the product compared to alternatives.

DLSS 5 Demo

Attendees saw RTX Spark laptops run games with photorealistic graphics from DLSS 5, but many said the price is too high.

Raffle Winners

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang appeared briefly at the event but five raffle winners were announced before many attendees left.