Running Crysis and LLMs: My Experience with the NVIDIA DGX Spark Daily Driver
Nvidia DGX Spark as a daily driver
I bought an NVIDIA DGX Spark as a daily driver and found it surprisingly capable for general computing, gaming, and local LLM inference. The compact ARM-based machine runs Ubuntu smoothly, handles AAA titles like Cyberpunk 2077 via Proton, and delivers impressive token speeds for models like Qwen 3.6 thanks to recent software optimizations. While not a dedicated gaming rig, its power efficiency and versatility make it a compelling choice for developers.
It turns out, it can totally run Crysis.
- jubilee33
This is an interesting review. I have a Chinese strix halo box that's isnt available in the west (favm faex1) I've been able to do some ok graphical gen, or some decent agentic tasks as a fallback for when some of the APIs are overloaded during business hours, but nothing amazing for sure, and also not both at the same time.
But here's the thing...it cost me 1800usd two months ago....and it's runs x86. I am struggling to see why people pay +2x more for the Arm Nvidia version, despite the slightly higher bandwidth it still does basically the same AI tasks and alot fewer high end general computing tasks...
I like my box but I wouldn't find it useful enough to pay more than I did for it or get more of them and cluster for instance.
Can anyone explain the allure of the Nvidia box, other than brand name?
- bullen
I have been running uConsoles with CM5 (2712 and 3588 with 16GB RAM) for 6 months as daily drivers.
They are ~$500* and present the same ARM problems/opportunities.
But they are completely silent (no fan, the case is the heat sink).
My 6600(3050) desktop from 2016(2024) with replaced SSD(2021)/RAM(2025) (they age like milk) now gets little use and M$ will soon sleep with the fishes.
*Hard to get now as the 3588 that has linux for uConsole is out of stock and the Raspberry one is rare and more expensive by the day.
- MrVitaliy
I do appreciate how Nvidia tries to say close to vanilla with Linux and Android (nvidia shield). Instead of trying to build a shitty moat like Samsung with all their garbage software.
If nvidia ever releases Android smartphone, I'd probably stand in line to get one.