Rumored Nvidia APU is said to perform on par with the best mid-range GPU — Will gaming handhelds finally get the power they deserve?

The Lenovo Legion Go S handheld gaming PC in white on a desk with headphones and a monitor

(Image credit: Lenovo)

Are we about to see Nvidia’s most innovative chip yet? Or are the rumors all bluster? Because what we just heard about Nvidia’s 120W APU is a hella impressive feat, if true.

Taiwanese media outlet UDN reported that Nvidia and MediaTek will launch a gaming APU together that’s as powerful as an RTX 4070 gaming laptop. Apparently, it’ll launch early 2026 and find itself in… gaming laptops?

That’s not what I expected. But I certainly can see this or another version of Nvidia’s APU finding its way into a handheld gaming PC. I mean, Nvidia has already been jumping into handhelds, like the Nintendo Switch 2.

That’s not all — there are so many more interesting and concerning things about Nvidia’s APU.

What we know about Nvidia’s 120W APU

First things first, the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 is the king of mid-range GPUs. But the best part about Nvidia’s new APU is that it’s based on Blackwell architecture, similar to the RTX 50-series. That means you’ll get access to key DLSS 4 features like Multi-Frame Generation.

However, MediaTek and Nvidia are building this APU with ARM architecture. Sigh. If you’re unaware of what that means, I have tried gaming on an ARM-based laptop before, and it was terrible. Many games do not run on ARM, so Windows needs to emulate the games you play, which can increase latency.

But the worst bit is that games with anti-cheat engines simply won’t boot up — that’s almost all multiplayer games. For me, one of the core pillars of gaming on Windows is access to PC Game Pass, and that app is not compatible with ARM whatsoever.

What's next

So, where does that leave us? Well, as exciting as an Nvidia APU might be, I do not have high hopes for it. Unless manufacturers figure out a way to make it compatible or developers offer ARM support for their games, there’s no way I’d recommend people buy a gaming laptop, or even a handheld, with an ARM-based chipset.

However, it’s possible that Nvidia’s APU could push the gaming and tech industry to finally solve that problem. Selfishly, this would mean that you could game on a MacBook, since Apple Silicon is ARM-based. Additionally, this would put Qualcomm’s renowned Snapdragon chips back in the race. So, a lot of good could come from the industry moving forward. Will it happen? Meh.

Another interesting point is that, apparently, Nvidia’s APU is set to launch alongside a Dell product. I had assumed it’d be a gaming laptop, like an Alienware. But I suppose it’s possible that this could be in the Dell Pro Max lineup, which has yet to receive its Plus and Premium models.

That would track, since those laptops are more like workstations, which are designed for intensive workloads like 8K video-editing, running complex simulations, or rendering 3D graphics. Aka not meant for gaming.

I remain highly skeptical, but we’ve seen Nvidia work some magic before, especially with DLSS 4, so I’m hoping it can make ARM work. We’ll likely see it at CES 2026.

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Rami Tabari is the Reviews Editor for Laptop Mag. He reviews every shape and form of a laptop as well as all sorts of cool tech. You can find him sitting at his desk surrounded by a hoarder's dream of laptops, and when he navigates his way out to civilization, you can catch him watching really bad anime or playing some kind of painfully difficult game. He’s the best at every game and he just doesn’t lose. That’s why you’ll occasionally catch his byline attached to the latest Souls-like challenge.

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