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Carmack Slams Nvidia's DGX Spark: Underperformance and Concerns

10/28/2025

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Summary

Story summary

John Carmack, founder of ID Software, criticized Nvidia's DGX Spark AI system for underperforming.
He reports the system draws 100 watts and delivers about 60 TFLOPS, far below the 240 watts advertised.
Other developers echoed concerns, citing thermal issues and spontaneous reboots.
Nvidia says the DGX Spark can reach one petaflop with structured sparsity, but this may not apply to all workloads, and it costs around $4,000 and faces scrutiny.

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Story summary

John Carmack, founder of ID Software, criticized Nvidia's DGX Spark AI system for underperforming.
He reports the system draws 100 watts and delivers about 60 TFLOPS, far below the 240 watts advertised.
Other developers echoed concerns, citing thermal issues and spontaneous reboots.
Nvidia says the DGX Spark can reach one petaflop with structured sparsity, but this may not apply to all workloads, and it costs around $4,000 and faces scrutiny.