Hello,
Recently, I feel like I’ve been seeing a lot of articles about the N1/N1X series. What particularly stood out to me is that they seem to support Windows on ARM.
I think I read somewhere that the N1 series and DGX Spark use almost the same SoC.
If the N1 series supports Windows on ARM, would it be reasonable to expect that DGX Spark might also be able to run Windows on ARM?
Probably, but I wouldn’t ever consider it. Having tried to develop in this space on Windows was pure pain.
I’m sure Microsoft will push their Foundry Local engine, but realize that there’s zero Windows support for vLLM or SGLang or TensorRT-LLM - and none I’m aware of on the horizon.
Official answer for DGX Spark will always be no - if yes they would need to “back” a certain level of support/reliability work on Windows which likely isn’t going to happen - especially since the Mellanox port is on the Spark. The hope is that they don’t blacklist it.
ARM systems are a bit different, the SoC just means the CPU & GPU will likely work (though like with Linux drivers it is easy to blacklist and make it hard as hell to crank it to work). You still want ports & SSDs to be discovered.
The thing going for Windows isn’t really the development space but it as a deployment target.
Though to be fair, I have no clue how they are splitting the power budget considering the GPU is already 100W on the Spark. Something is going to be neutered hard.
RTX Spark
It would be absurd to not offer Windows support on DGX Spark… Not that it needs it, but if people could use it for Gaming and ML then maybe it won’t feel so half-assed in every way.
More likely what’s going to happen is that it will work at least partially unofficially, unsupported. The core CPU/GPU will work, and assuming the USB and graphics output drivers are compatible it’ll install, but everything else may or may not have drivers. Especially the CX-7.
But honestly, Steam with Proton already works pretty well. I wouldn’t ever consider Windows on this thing.
They’re calling the Desktop version the RTX Spark, I doubt it will have CX-7 which is fine, as it’s not really worth for most people. But if you can get an RTX Spark without CX-7 and perhaps a PCI lane for something else, then we have more options. The RTX Spark also appears to run slightly higher timing ram for ~300gb/s bandwidth which for most people means slightly better performance for 99% of the models they’d run anyway.
I just spotted an interesting note in the STH coverage, there will be a Windows version of the DGX Station, so no reason why there couldn’t be a Windows version of the DGX Spark for those in need:
Official announcement: NVIDIA DGX Station for Windows — GB300 Deskside AI Supercomputing
I wonder, is there any particular reason, why anyone needs or want have Windows OS?
I used Windows, for some decades, but banned Windows due to all the Windows problems, issues, disrupted working (MS advertisement and marketing pop-ups everywhere in the operating system), spy software (Windows recall) and therefore, I changed to Linux some years ago. So far I am really happy with the clean Linux, I can do everything (office, communication, gaming, anything else) that I want and I have the extra performance.
I wish there would be more Linux laptops and Linux desktops.
CM
In the enterprise world Windows rules!
Last company who did great deal with Microsoft was Nokia. Still missing their phones…
Most people are more familiar with Windows’ File Explorer and GUI environment than with Linux concepts such as administrative privileges, package managers, and repositories. If people had started using Linux when they first learned to use computers, the situation might have been very different.
Many people on this forum are interested in software development, so they may not notice a significant difference between Linux and Windows. However, the perspective of the average consumer is different. I believe this is also one of the reasons why, even on the same ARM architecture, more games tend to support Windows on ARM.
I think that as AI-focused integrated architectures like the GB10 become more widespread, software requirements will increasingly include not only memory capacity but also AI compute performance. Furthermore, AI computing resources will no longer be concentrated solely in data centers; instead, personal computers will play a much larger role in providing that compute power.
For the same reason, I believe NVIDIA decided to support Windows with RTX Spark. From a mainstream consumer adoption standpoint, Windows remains the more familiar and accessible platform, making it a natural choice for bringing AI computing to a broader audience.
I ultimately hope that Windows support will come to DGX Spark as well, although I don’t think now is the right time.
If Windows support were added today, it could indirectly reveal the software and gaming performance of future products based on similar SoCs, such as RTX Spark systems or upcoming laptop models. In that sense, there is a possibility that embargoed information could be exposed earlier than intended.
However, once the embargoes have been lifted and those products have officially launched, I would like to see Windows on ARM supported on DGX Spark as well. Given the direction the industry is moving, broader Windows compatibility would make these systems much more accessible to mainstream users.
The DGX Spark already has a Microsoft Secure Boot certificate in firmware from what I can see. I tried installing Windows on ARM and got past Secure Boot and TPM checks all the way to the partitioning screen, but there is no driver available for the PCIe Root to NVMe bridge, so the SSD isn’t detected. So long as they don’t change the PnPIDs for the hardware in the RTX Spark, once the RTX ships and Windows installation images are leaked, or if Microsoft published the drivers to the Windows Update Catalog, those drivers should be available. The video drivers are already available on the dev forum. But no chipset drivers for GB10 yet. Probably won’t see them until late Sept. or into Oct.
But you’re right in that ConnectX7 is not part of the RTX Spark so we may never see drivers for that in Windows ARM64. Only X64 drivers exist for it. And no: they aren’t open source. RTX Spark isn’t built as an expandable workstation.
It’s pretty much guaranteed that a ConnectX7 driver will be available on Windows - DGX Station is heading to Windows.
Yeah will have to steal the ISOs to siphon drivers, unfortunate the RTX Spark (Surface Laptop) leak couldn’t create an ISO or backup the drivers for us to replicate.
Regardless, unless NVIDIA changes their stance, Windows is not under official support regardless. It’s up to them how easy it Windows is, they can make it much harder than necessary if they really want to create the segmentation, which would be quite annoying.
I am developing for the outcome that Windows should be good to use, so would be pissed if it isn’t because it would be artificial segmentation, but again, I’m picking a bet that has obvious odds of failure.
I had no idea about the RTX Stations. That’s good news I guess. The only question is whether or not there"s a PnPID change between the GB10 or GB300 components in the RTX vs DGX equivalents making the drivers a nightmare to deal with (manual modding → checksum mismatches and cert issues). That would be maddening if true, but I wouldn’t put it past them. Quite frankly, I’d rather deal with Windows if they keep drivers and platform API’s up to date then have to spend another day writing manual Docker workarounds because DGX OS is supposed to be this iron gate platform while inference innovations outpace it’s library versions. What I’m seeing in the desktop app space is far more attractive, plus you don’t have to relegate the Spark to a headless server. Ubuntu is pretty lackluster as a desktop OS. If Microsoft’s Prism emulation is available on GB10, I could finally ditch my potato PC as my main workhorse.