Microsoft’s Surface RTX Spark dev box costs $6,000
The developer-focused desktop PC is available for pre-order now and shipping will begin in November.
Microsoft has opened pre-orders for the Surface RTX Spark Dev Box and announced that the device will begin shipping to customers in November. The company announced the desktop PC alongside the Surface Laptop Ultra in June, and like that computer, we now know it will cost a lot: $6,000.
The Surface RTX Spark Dev Box is purpose-built for on-premises AI workflows and the developers and engineers who run them, Microsoft says. The PC features a stark anodized aluminum grille on top, with a selection of ports that includes two USB-C, one USB-A, Ethernet, DisplayPort 2.1, and HDMI 2.1b on the back. Inside, the Dev Box uses NVIDIA’s RTX Spark N1X chip and comes with 128GB of unified memory and 2TB of storage. The storage is removable, but based on the company’s product page, nothing else on the Dev Box can be customized. Given the considerable performance promised by the company – including the ability to run AI models “exceeding 120B parameters” – this probably won’t matter.
As one of Microsoft’s Project Zenith devices, the Surface RTX Spark Dev Box also comes with Windows 11 Pro and a selection of pre-installed developer apps and runtimes, including Visual Studio Code, Git, GitHub CLI, GitHub Copilot, and Python.
Even though Microsoft and NVIDIA believe that AI working seamlessly across the cloud and on local hardware is the future of computing, price will likely be a major barrier for all but enterprise customers. The Dev Box is a larger, more expensive version of NVIDIA’s older DGX Spark AI computer, which launched at $3,999 but now sells for almost $7,000 if you want a 128GB model. This change doesn’t bode well for anyone buying a Dev Box a year from now.
