You can now pre-order Microsoft's Surface RTX Spark Dev Box
What's the story
Microsoft has opened pre-orders for its NVIDIA-powered Surface RTX Spark Dev Box, priced at $5,999. The device will start shipping in November. While the price tag is higher than last year's DGX Spark mini PC by NVIDIA, it can be attributed to the current RAM and component shortages driving up PC prices.
Design details
The design resembles top vents of Xbox Series X console
The Surface RTX Spark Dev Box comes in a flat, 3D-printed anodized aluminum chassis that doubles as a heatsink.
The design is reminiscent of the top vents on an Xbox Series X console.
It launches alongside the new Surface Laptop Ultra and runs on NVIDIA's Arm-based RTX Spark platform with a whopping 128GB of unified memory.
Performance potential
The device is primarily aimed at developers
The Surface RTX Spark Dev Box promises an impressive gaming experience, thanks to its massive memory, 100-watt thermal envelope, and NVIDIA's Tensor cores.
However, as the name suggests, it is primarily aimed at developers.
The device is optimized for running local AI models with over 120 billion parameters for tasks like testing AI models and prototyping AI agents or coding tools on-device.
Developer-friendly features
It comes with a developer-optimized Windows 11 Pro setup
The Surface RTX Spark Dev Box is part of Microsoft's Project Zenith lineup.
It comes with a developer-optimized Windows 11 Pro setup and several preinstalled tools such as Visual Studio Code, GitHub CLI, GitHub Copilot, WSL, Python, and Node.
These features make the device even more appealing for developers looking to work on advanced AI projects.