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I recently bought a few sparks from Micro Center for the exact same price and it comes with ConnectX-7 200Gbps inter-connectivity. Not sure how AMD feels it can charge exactly the same for less.
it's 2026.07 and 128 GB of VRAM costs a firstborn.
32 Gb DDR4 RAM module has a bandwidth of 25 Gb/s and costs $160. If you buy 8 of these, you get 256 Gb RAM with 200 Gb/s bandwidth at $1280. And if you buy 16 x 16 Gb modules (each at $60) then you can get 400 Gb/s of bandwidth for $960. The only problem, you need 8 or 16 memory controllers. Memory controllers are not that expensive: Intel Core i3-14100F has 2 channel controller and costs $110, so we can estimate tha…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Are you sure about that? High memory speed is great for dense models, or when serving at high concurrency. However for local single-user setups, it's often better to have access to more capable/bigger MoE models at reasonable speeds and lower concurrences, which is enabled by these platforms.
If you're using a MoE model, then why do you care about the larger RAM offered by these devices? That's the main problem with low bandwidth devices: they limit the effective ram you can make use. I do (and have historically done) quite a work with both local LLMs and local diffusion models. I have an M3 Max MBP at 400 GB/s and also a desktop with a RTX 4090 with 1,008 GB/s While the M3 Max MBP can serve up MoE reason…
Why do all similar products have a hard limit on the 128 GB VRAM part? For that price, I hoped to get at least 224 GB VRAM
I really want a 128gb+ machine but it's brutal to be at only 256 GB/s for $4k (especially with the drawbacks of both ARM and AMD). I fear that by the time the RTX Spark comes out it'd have to be $6k, and by the time a 128gb or more machine with 700+ GB/s comes out it'd be at $10k, way out of most consumers' hands. Edit: capitalized gb/s to GB/s.
A Mac Studio is a much better buy in terms of memory bandwidth, but impossible to buy in a 128 GB configuration. Honestly there aren’t great options right now and it’s probably better to wait for the market to be less insane.
I really want a 128gb+ machine but it's brutal to be at only 256 GB/s for $4k (especially with the drawbacks of both ARM and AMD). I fear that by the time the RTX Spark comes out it'd have to be $6k, and by the time a 128gb or more machine with 700+ GB/s comes out it'd be at $10k, way out of most consumers' hands. Edit: capitalized gb/s to GB/s.
To be clear though that's GB/s. Which is 2 terabits/sec
Earlier quoted context omitted.
it's 2026.07 and 128 GB of VRAM costs a firstborn.
Please note that 8 x 16 Gb DDR4 modules cost $480, and have a bandwidth of 200 Gb/s, the only problem you need 8 DRAM controllers.
Which is a huge problem? Even using 2x memory controllers in typical consumer motherboard can make system very unstable.
256gbs memory bandwidth is about 1/4 that of a 3090. It would be a better buy with half the memory at 4x the speed.
And if your jobs do fit onto a 24GB card, then you are not the target user for the "AI mini PC" niche that these guys are trying to carve out
Satire if you can’t tell…