The Verge AI · 10/7/2026, 5:46:44 PM

Microsoft Opens Preorders for $5,999 Surface RTX Spark Dev Box with NVIDIA Chip

By Stevie Bonifield

42AI Score

Executive Summary

Microsoft has opened preorders for its high-end AI mini PC, the Surface RTX Spark Dev Box, priced at $5,999 with shipping scheduled for November. Built on the NVIDIA RTX Spark platform, it comes preloaded with Windows 11 Pro and a comprehensive developer toolchain including VS Code and GitHub Copilot to support local AI development.

SOURCE COVERAGEOriginal coverage

Microsoft’s high-end AI mini PC for developers starts shipping in November.

by Oct 7, 2026, 5 PM UTC

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Image: MicrosoftStevie Bonifield is a news writer covering all things consumer tech. Stevie started out at Laptop Mag writing news and reviews on hardware, gaming, and AI.

Microsoft’s Nvidia-powered Surface RTX Spark Dev Box is available for preorder now directly, and slated to ship in November for just about $6,000. It’s pricier than the DGX Spark mini PC Nvidia launched last year, but PC prices have been climbing due to shortages of RAM and other components.

The Dev Box’s flat, 3D-printed anodized aluminum chassis doubles as a heatsink and resembles the top vents on an Xbox Series X. It’s launching alongside the new Surface Laptop Ultra and runs on Nvidia’s Arm-based RTX Spark platform and 128GB of unified memory. With that much memory, along with a 100-watt thermal envelope and Nvidia’s Tensor cores, you could probably get an impressive gaming experience on the Dev Box. But as its name suggests, it’s mainly aimed at developers. It’s optimized for running local AI, including “models exceeding 120B parameters,” for tasks like testing AI models, prototyping AI agents, or running AI coding tools on-device.

The Dev Box is also one of Microsoft’s Project Zenith devices, so it ships with a developer-optimized Windows 11 Pro setup and some preinstalled developer tools, including Visual Studio Code, Git, GitHub CLI, GitHub Copilot, WSL, Python, and Node.

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Stevie Bonifield