With MikroTik CRS804 and MikroTik CRS812 out of stock/ on back order through Dec 2026/ Jan 2027 what other switch options are being considered before jumping into the 5-figure / ‘may be too noisy for home lab’ investment bracket?

Capturing cost-efficient switch scale options for Spark Node Clusters for 4+ Sparks: Up to 3x Sparks Switch-less DAC 4-Spark Cluster Option MikroTik CRS504 4x 100G Ports (switch cost: ~$900) 4-8-Spark Option MikroTik CRS804 4x 400G Port with breakout DACs (switch cost: ~$1200) 8-16-Spark O…

For 4 nodes you can go single or dual CRS504, won’t let you go beyond that though.

CRS504 is the bare min for a capped 4×100G QSFP28 connection but has no room for scale unlike the CRS804’s 4× 400GQSFP-DD at the same price it would lack forward hedging.

There’s no need to connect the two switches since the Sparks have two ports. You can just connect each Spark to each switch. Then you can have an 8x cluster (which at least one user says is better performance using two CRS804) or a 16x cluster at 200Gbps. There’s no equivalent to the CRS804 as far a…

True since the CRS804 can break out 400G x 4 100G a cross switch topology would be cleaner and support a 16 Spark node Cluster I was initially thinking of a maxed out 24 Node (12 + 12) Spark Cluster with a parallel 400G <—> 400G switch connection bridge but that can become a major cross switch bott…

[image] maiia: MikroTik CRS504 4x 100G Ports (switch cost: ~$900) The switchless ring mesh is working really well. Not sure if we still need a switch for 4 sparks. Just make sure one of the cables is 0.5m instead of the 0.4m normally sold (to connect the outer sparks). I am currently waiting…

That’s good to know. The 2nd bundle arrives early next week. I’ll test the ring once it arrives since I have 4 DACs.

It’s hidden away in a little known forum thread here: [image] New Deepseek 4.1 flash recipe DGX Spark / GB10 Here’s my version, if anyone is interested. It’s tuned to my workload and setup on a 3x switchless FE setup.

There is the 4 node switchless option: [image] GitHub - alexellis/glm-5.3-flash-4x-dgx-spark-switchless: GLM-5.3-Flash (NVFP4) at TP4 across 4x DGX Spark... GLM-5.3-Flash (NVFP4) at TP4 across 4x DGX Spark via a switchless RoCE ring + DFlash2 — reproducible recipe …

Don’t stare yourself blind on just the switch prices. The 400G to 2x200G DACs will cost as much as the switch if you get 4. Now if you do the 100G QSFP28 DACs, they are peanuts in comparison. You could get the CRS520 and plug in 2x100G DACs to each of your 8 nodes and still come out on top compared…

I think you mean the CRS520 where you said CRS516? I guess that could support 8x Sparks using 100G DACs or 16x at half speed. I don’t think anyone’s talked about it other than one user doing 4x with it.

DGX Spark 4-8 Cluster Switch Options post MikroTik CRS-804 \ MikroTik CRS-812 Market wipe out

Accelerated Computing DGX Spark / GB10 User Forum DGX Spark / GB10

christopher_owen September 29, 2026, 5:55am 19

It’s hidden away in a little known forum thread here:

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DGX Spark 4-8 Cluster Switch Options post MikroTik CRS-804 \ MikroTik CRS-812 Market wipe out

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