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Catloafdevtoday at 3:32 PM6 repliesview on HN

These devices were great when they were cheaper than the DGX Spark.

But when they cost the same price (unless the Spark has shot up too), there's no reason to buy this over a Spark.

The Spark is literally a faster version of this, with better software support.

Edit: And I say that as an owner of a Ryzen AI Max 395 device.


Replies

kcbtoday at 4:00 PM

Ability to run any OS is a pretty nice benefit versus the spark.

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seemazetoday at 3:44 PM

I dropped a Framework mainboard in rack mount case and use it as a speedy low power x86 homelab as well as an inference server.

adrian_btoday at 6:40 PM

Depends on what you use it for.

The CPU of Ryzen is better than that of DGX Spark, especially for modern programs that have been updated to use AVX-512 (i.e. it has a significantly higher multithreaded performance).

Only for GPU applications the NVIDIA system is likely to be better.

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grubbstoday at 3:33 PM

Cheapest I've been able to get a DGX Spark FE is now around $4700 just FYI. This is from multiple vendors in higher-ed.

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icedchaitoday at 3:42 PM

Yep, the only reason I bought mine (in late 2025, before hardware prices went totally crazy) was because it was half the price of a Spark. I spent a while fiddling around with the right Linux kernel, kernel firmware, ROCm installs, etc.

cyanydeeztoday at 4:01 PM

yeah, if only there wasn't some global hegemony that immediately drove up the price of all memory everywhere...

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