Microsoft opens preorders for $6,000 Surface RTX Spark Dev Box
Microsoft has opened preorders for its Surface RTX Spark Dev Box, a desktop PC aimed at developers. It costs $6,000 and shipping begins in November.
Microsoft has started taking preorders for the Surface RTX Spark Dev Box, with the first units due to reach customers in November. The company unveiled the desktop in June alongside the Surface Laptop Ultra, and its price is now confirmed at $6,000.
The machine is built for local AI workflows and is aimed at developers and engineers. The back panel offers two USB-C ports, one USB-A port, Ethernet, DisplayPort 2.1 and HDMI 2.1b. The top of the case has an austere anodized aluminum grille.
Specifications
Inside is NVIDIA's RTX Spark N1X chip, paired with 128GB of unified memory and 2TB of storage. The storage is removable, but according to the company's product page nothing else can be customized. Microsoft says the computer can run AI models exceeding 120 billion parameters.
As one of Microsoft's Project Zenith devices, it ships with Windows 11 Pro and developer-focused apps and runtimes, including Visual Studio Code, Git, GitHub CLI, GitHub Copilot and Python.
Price and context
Microsoft and NVIDIA believe AI that moves seamlessly between the cloud and local hardware is the future of computing. Even so, the price is likely to be a major obstacle for everyone except enterprise customers.
The Dev Box is a larger, more expensive version of NVIDIA's earlier DGX Spark AI computer. That model launched at $3,999, but a 128GB version now sells for nearly $7,000. This trend does not bode well for anyone buying a Dev Box a year from now.
