NVIDIA’s DGX Spark is a micro-desktop system designed to accelerate development of software that will be deployed on NVL72 and NVL144 rack systems featuring hundreds or thousands of NVIDIA GPUs. In essence, it’s a tiny computer that includes the GB10 Superchip, which uses the same CPU and GPU architectures found in the Grace CPUs and Blackwell GPUs of something like GB200 NVL72. This allows for rapid deployment of software developed on the DGX Spark.
Of course, since it’s a full-featured computer with CPU and GPU, you can run games on it, right? Absolutely—with caveats. For starters, this machine is expensive, and buying it for gaming is a ludicrous proposition. There’s also the little catch that …
NVIDIA’s DGX Spark is a micro-desktop system designed to accelerate development of software that will be deployed on NVL72 and NVL144 rack systems featuring hundreds or thousands of NVIDIA GPUs. In essence, it’s a tiny computer that includes the GB10 Superchip, which uses the same CPU and GPU architectures found in the Grace CPUs and Blackwell GPUs of something like GB200 NVL72. This allows for rapid deployment of software developed on the DGX Spark.
Of course, since it’s a full-featured computer with CPU and GPU, you can run games on it, right? Absolutely—with caveats. For starters, this machine is expensive, and buying it for gaming is a ludicrous proposition. There’s also the little catch that it uses an Arm-based processor which isn’t natively compatible with x86 software, including virtually all PC games. And of course, it runs Linux, although that part in itself is a much smaller worry these days.
Image: /u/Retrotom on Reddit
You can still run native Windows PC games on it, though, with some fiddling. Redditor /u/Retrotom managed to get everyone’s favorite benchmark Cyberpunk 2077 running at a playable framerate on the DGX Spark by using an emulation layer called Box64. This allows you to run x86-64 software on Arm processors. After doing that, you’ll have to install Steam through Box64, because there is no Arm version of Steam yet. Once you’ve done that, you can simply install and play the game normally through Steam.
Performance isn’t fantastic; Retrotom reports that he was getting “about 50 FPS” in 1080p resolution with Medium settings. DLSS isn’t available, likely due to the Box64 emulation layer, as it does work under Proton in Linux. He says that he “had a few crashes, but for the most part it’s totally playable.” Some might argue that paying $4,000 to play Cyberpunk 2077 on worse settings than an Xbox Series S is silly, and that “some” includes Retrotom himself, who opens his post by asking “Want to throw $4K down the drain on a pointless exercise? I got you.”
MSI Expert Edge, Image: ETA PRIME
NVIDIA’s DGX Spark is the most visible of the devices based on the GB10 Superchip hardware, but companies like MSI, ASUS, and HP (among many others) are also offering systems sporting the same chip inside. Tech YouTuber ETA PRIME took a look at the MSI Expert Edge, which is a slim-line mini-PC very similar to the DGX Spark. Like NVIDIA’s machine, it is based on the GB10 Superchip, and offers up to 128GB of onboard memory. In fact, it also offers exactly the same connectivity in the same places, which leads us to believe that it’s based on the same motherboard, just with a different chassis and cooling solution that offers superior heat dissipation.
ETA PRIME is a general tech reviewer, but he does have a bit of a personal focus on gaming and emulation, and this is reflected in his content. Despite the MSI Expert Edge being a professional device that certainly isn’t aimed at gamers, he also tested gaming on it through emulation. Many emulators come with native builds for Arm Linux, making this kind of test an easy and fun experiment to run on the DGX Spark-like hardware.
Skate 3 at 60 FPS in 1080p on GB10. Image: ETA PRIME
He tested RPCS3 emulator first, finding that it trivially maintains a smooth 60 FPS in demanding skating simulator Skate 3. This is impressive, as only desktop CPUs from the last few generations have been able to do this. Emulation, if you don’t know, is generally CPU-limited, not GPU-limited, and so the relatively meager GPU and memory bandwidth of the GB10 are just fine for testing game console emulation.
Forza Motorsport at 30 FPS in 1080p on GB10. Image: ETA PRIME
He also tested the original Forza Motorsport on the Xemu Xbox emulator. This is arguably more interesting because he has performance metrics up that show us the actual performance of the GPU. While upscaling the game to 1080p resolution, the GPU takes between 10 and 19 milliseconds to render the frame. That means he has quite a bit of headroom over the 30 FPS cap for the title, if Xemu gets a framerate unlock feature.
You can check out his video above where he talks about the Expert Edge and tests compute and AI workloads on it. The YouTuber also says he’s going to perform more gaming testing on the MSI Expert Edge system in a future video. Of course, if you’re curious about the DGX Spark and the GB10 Superchip, make sure you check out our own review of the DGX Spark right here on HotHardware!