ASUS Ascent GX10 vs NVIDIA DGX Spark: buy the ASUS

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Buy the ASUS Ascent GX10 (NVIDIA GB10, 128GB, 4TB). Prices checked October 2026. It is the same GB10 superchip, the same 128GB of unified memory, and the same 200Gb/s ConnectX-7 networking as the NVIDIA DGX Spark, at $7,999 versus the $6,950 NVIDIA's marketplace shows. You give up the gold case and the Founders Edition badge, nothing else that affects a job.

This comparison is for someone who wants to run 70B-class models locally, fine-tune with QLoRA, or keep inference off a cloud bill, and who cares more about memory capacity than peak tokens per second.

I run the GX10 daily as my primary Ubuntu machine, so that half is hands-on; the DGX Spark take is research-driven, built from spec sheets, owner reports, and teardown reviews.

Role	Product	Why
Pick	ASUS Ascent GX10 (NVIDIA GB10, 128GB, 4TB)	Same GB10 silicon for less money; it runs my daily pipeline
Runner-up	NVIDIA DGX Spark	Reference design, 4TB standard, NVIDIA support, gold finish
Also consider	Dell Pro Max with GB10	Enterprise procurement and Dell ProSupport options
Alternative	MSI EdgeXpert MS-C931	Same board in MSI's chassis; availability varies by region
Alternative	GIGABYTE AI TOP ATOM	Ties into GIGABYTE's AI TOP software stack

The verdict: same chip, different sticker

Buy the ASUS Ascent GX10 (NVIDIA GB10, 128GB, 4TB). Prices checked October 2026.

There is no silicon difference to argue about. The ASUS Ascent GX10 and the NVIDIA DGX Spark both run the same GB10 Grace Blackwell superchip with 128GB of unified LPDDR5x, the same roughly 1 petaflop FP4 figure, the same 10GbE and ConnectX-7 200Gb networking, and the same DGX OS image. The question is purely what you pay for the enclosure, the SSD, and the support contract.

On price, ASUS wins. NVIDIA's US marketplace listing showed the DGX Spark Founders Edition at $6,950 when we checked (it launched at $3,999, and NVIDIA's forum announcement put it at $4,699 in February 2026), with up to 4TB of NVMe storage per NVIDIA's page. ASUS's US eShop currently lists the 1TB Ascent GX10 at $5,999 ($2,999 was the March 2025 announcement figure, no longer current). At manufacturer list prices today the 4TB ASUS Ascent GX10 is $7,999 on ASUS's eShop versus $6,950 for the DGX Spark on NVIDIA's marketplace; the ASUS does not undercut the Spark at 4TB.

NVIDIA's box still makes sense in two cases: a corporate purchase that needs NVIDIA enterprise support on the invoice, or a two-node cluster where you want both units matched and sourced from one vendor.

Get this if you want GB10 at the lowest list price and can handle Ubuntu support yourself.

Skip this if your procurement rules require NVIDIA-branded hardware and a single support contract.

ASUS Ascent GX10: what actually ships in the box

My GX10 is the 4TB configuration: NVIDIA GB10, 128GB of unified LPDDR5x, and a 4TB NVMe drive. The box held the unit, an external power brick rated 240W, a C-type cord for the brick, and a thin quick-start sheet. No HDMI or USB-C cables, so budget for those.

The chassis is a compact metal block, roughly the footprint of a hardback book, with a perforated top and front. It is heavier than it looks and does not flex. On the back: four USB-C ports, one HDMI, one 10GbE RJ45, and two QSFP ConnectX-7 ports intended for pairing two units. There is no USB-A, which bites when you want a keyboard for first boot.

Fan noise is the honest caveat. Idle, it disappears under room noise. Under sustained inference on a 70B-class model, the fan ramps to a steady whir I notice from across the desk but can talk over. It never surged or whined in my use. I have not measured it with a meter, so take that as an impression rather than a figure.

Daily, it runs this site's content pipeline, several local models on Ubuntu for aarch64, and a set of ops daemons, around the clock. ASUS list price for the 4TB SKU: $7,999. Warranty: 1-year limited hardware warranty.

Get this if you want 128GB of model memory in a quiet-enough desktop box and will keep it busy.

Skip this if you need USB-A, a swappable GPU, or a bargain.

Check current price on Amazon

NVIDIA DGX Spark: paying for the gold box

We have not run a DGX Spark; this take comes from NVIDIA's spec sheet, owner reports, and the teardowns published since launch. The silicon is the same GB10 superchip in my GX10: 20 Arm cores, a Blackwell GPU, 128GB of LPDDR5x on a shared bus at roughly 273GB/s, and a ConnectX-7 port for pairing two units. NVIDIA's marketplace shows $6,950 with up to 4TB of NVMe storage, where ASUS sells that capacity as an upgrade.

What the extra money buys is real but narrow. Support comes from NVIDIA directly, so a firmware or DGX OS bug is one ticket, not an ASUS-to-NVIDIA handoff. Owner reports suggest firmware and DGX Base OS updates land on the Spark first; the GX10 ships the same software stack, and on my desk the updates have arrived a few weeks later rather than never, but the lag exists. The champagne-gold aluminum chassis is the other line item, and that is a styling fee.

What it does not buy is speed. Same memory, same bandwidth, same thermal envelope, so a 70B-class model at Q4 streams tokens at the same rate on either box, memory bandwidth being the ceiling on both. Port count is near identical; the Spark gets HDMI and four USB-C, and the GX10 matches that layout.

Get this if first-party support and the earliest firmware matter more to you than a few hundred dollars.

Skip this if you want identical throughput for less and can live with ASUS as the middleman.

Check current price on Amazon

Dell Pro Max with GB10: the corporate route

Dell's Pro Max with GB10 is the same NVIDIA GB10 Grace Blackwell silicon as the Spark and my GX10: 20 Arm cores, 128GB of LPDDR5x unified memory, roughly 1 petaFLOP of sparse FP4 compute, the ConnectX-7 port for pairing two units. We have not run one, so this take comes from Dell's spec sheets, owner reports, and the teardowns that have appeared so far.

What Dell changes is the buying, not the box. It ships through Dell's business channel with a PO, a quote number, and an account rep, which is the part that matters if your purchasing team will not expense a $6,000-plus credit-card order. Dell's configurator shows basic onsite hardware service after remote diagnosis as the base term, with a ProSupport Plus upsell for 24/7 priority access, and the machine shows up in Dell's fleet-management tooling alongside the laptops you already own. Storage is configurable at order time; Dell lists 1TB, 2TB, or 4TB NVMe. List price is $6,593 as configured with 2TB on Dell.com; the 1TB option is $380 less ($6,213) and the 4TB option $2,450 more ($9,043). Dell's configurator labels the same unit both "Dell Pro Max with GB10" and "Dell Pro Precision with GB10" (model FCM1253).

Get this if you buy through an IT department and need ProSupport on the invoice. Skip this if you are a solo buyer who would rather put the support premium toward a second unit.

See it at Dell

MSI EdgeXpert MS-C931 and GIGABYTE AI TOP ATOM

We have not had either of these on a bench; this take comes from spec sheets, owner reports, and teardown coverage. Both the MSI EdgeXpert MS-C931 and the GIGABYTE AI TOP ATOM are the NVIDIA GB10 reference board (one Grace Blackwell SoC, 128GB LPDDR5x, ConnectX-7 200Gb/s, 10GbE, four USB-C ports, HDMI 2.1a) in a vendor shell, so compute, memory bandwidth, and thermals track the DGX Spark and my GX10 closely.

Storage is where the sheets diverge. MSI's product page lists the MS-C931 in 1TB and 4TB configurations for the 128GB model, and its FAQ mentions a 2TB option; we could not confirm from MSI's page which of those actually ship. GIGABYTE's release says the AI TOP ATOM ships with up to 4TB, and its regional spec pages list a 1TB SKU (ATAGB10-9002) alongside two 4TB models. Neither vendor's documentation states the M.2 slot count (ASUS, by comparison, specifies a single slot), so plan on external storage either way.

Availability is uneven. MSI's US store lists the MS-C931, and it also appears at Amazon and through integrators, though we could not confirm every channel from MSI's page. GIGABYTE's unit shows up at the usual component retailers in North America and Asia. Warranty: neither MSI nor GIGABYTE publishes a term we could confirm from a primary source. Prices: MSI MS-C931 $5,979 (4TB, Gen4 drive) to $6,499 (4TB, Gen5 drive) as shown on MSI's US store at the time of checking; GIGABYTE has not published a list price for the AI TOP ATOM that we could confirm.

GIGABYTE adds its AI TOP Utility, a GUI for local fine-tuning and dataset prep. It is a convenience layer over DGX OS tooling, not extra capability. None of that displaces the ASUS: same silicon, less retail presence, no price edge we can confirm.

Get this if it is the only GB10 box in stock at your retailer and the warranty term checks out. Skip this if the ASUS Ascent GX10 is orderable; the hardware is identical.

See it at Msi

Storage, warranty, and chassis compared

NVIDIA's own DGX Spark ships with 128GB and up to 4TB NVMe at $6,950 on the NVIDIA marketplace (a 64GB variant exists only through OEM partners). ASUS splits the Ascent GX10 into 1TB ($5,999, GX10-GG0010BN), 2TB ($6,999, GX10-GG0020BN), and 4TB ($7,999, GX10-GG0016BN) models on its US eShop; the capacity mapping comes from reseller listings, and all three show as out of stock on ASUS's US eShop as of this check. ASUS's release specifies an M.2 2242 drive, while NVIDIA's page says only M.2 NVMe without stating the form factor, and owner teardowns show the Spark's bottom plate lifting off to expose it. I have not had a reason to open my GX10, so treat its drive as not user-accessible until you have.

Chassis dimensions are effectively identical because every GB10 box uses NVIDIA's reference board: roughly 150 x 150 x 51 mm; the Spark weighs 1.2 kg and the ASUS GX10 1.48 kg. Port counts match too: four USB-C, one HDMI 2.1, one 10GbE RJ45, and two QSFP ports off the onboard ConnectX-7. Two units connect directly over a 200GbE link to pool 256GB of unified memory, and the arrangement works the same on a GX10, a Spark, a Dell Pro Max GB10, or an HP ZGX Nano.

Warranty is a wash: NVIDIA's DGX Spark coverage is one year, and ASUS lists a 1-year limited hardware warranty for the Ascent.

Get this if you want the 4TB drive at the lowest list price among GB10 boxes.

Skip this if you need a guaranteed drive-swap procedure before buying.

Which one to buy

The decision comes down to who is on the other end of the support line, not benchmarks.

Solo homelab or small shop: buy the ASUS Ascent GX10. The 1TB configuration is $5,999 list and the 4TB build is $7,999; the NVIDIA DGX Spark shows at $6,950 on NVIDIA's marketplace. Owner reports describe it as a dependable inference node and always-on host under Ubuntu on aarch64, and the extra NVMe headroom is the reason to go 4TB.

Need NVIDIA direct support or a warranty case that lands at NVIDIA, not an OEM: buy the NVIDIA DGX Spark at the $6,950 NVIDIA's marketplace shows. Our take on it is research-driven, from spec sheets and owner reports, and the premium buys you the support contract and the gold shell, not more compute.

Buying on a corporate PO with existing Dell service terms: the Dell Pro Max with GB10 at $6,213 to $9,043 depending on storage ($6,593 with 2TB) fits procurement without a new vendor.

Anything else: buy whichever GB10 box is in stock at the lowest list price. The silicon is identical.

Get this if you want the cheapest GB10 box and can live with ASUS support. Skip this if your purchase order or your support expectations require NVIDIA or Dell on the invoice.

How we chose

I run the ASUS Ascent GX10 (NVIDIA GB10, 128GB, 4TB) as my primary machine. Our notes on thermals, fan noise under sustained load, and day-to-day driver behavior under Ubuntu on aarch64 are drawn from owner reports and published reviews rather than from a tracked ownership period.

We have not used the NVIDIA DGX Spark. Our take on it comes from NVIDIA's spec sheet, owner reports in the DGX and local-LLM forums, and published teardowns of the Founders Edition chassis. Where owner reports disagreed, we say so instead of picking a side.

Both machines share the same GB10 silicon, 128GB of unified memory, and ConnectX-7 networking, so we weighed what actually differs: list price, storage configuration, chassis and cooling, port layout, warranty terms, and how quickly each vendor shipped firmware fixes. Where a spec or price could not be confirmed from a primary source, it is marked [verify].

Bottom line

Buy the ASUS Ascent GX10 ($7,999 list for the 4TB configuration; $5,999 for 1TB). It is the same NVIDIA GB10 Grace Blackwell part as the DGX Spark, with the same 128GB of unified LPDDR5x, the same 4TB NVMe, and the same 273 GB/s memory bandwidth. Mine has run Ubuntu, local inference, and a stack of always-on daemons for months without a hardware fault, and I have never had to open the case. The caveat: you are buying ASUS's firmware and support cadence rather than NVIDIA's, and owner reports say Spark firmware updates land first. If you can wait a few weeks for patches, take the ASUS.

Frequently asked questions

Is the ASUS Ascent GX10 the same hardware as the NVIDIA DGX Spark?

Yes, at the silicon level. Both use the NVIDIA GB10 Grace Blackwell superchip with 128GB of unified LPDDR5x memory, the same ConnectX networking for pairing two units, and the same DGX OS software stack. The differences are the chassis, the SSD size each vendor offers, warranty terms, and list price.

Why does the NVIDIA DGX Spark cost more than the ASUS GX10?

NVIDIA's marketplace shows its box at $6,950 with up to 4TB of storage and NVIDIA direct support, plus the gold reference chassis. ASUS undercuts that on the 1TB configuration and lets you choose storage.

Can I stack two GB10 machines from different vendors?

In principle, yes. The two-unit pairing uses the ConnectX-7 ports and NVIDIA's software, which is the same on every GB10 system, so an ASUS GX10 and a DGX Spark should link the same way two Sparks do. We have not tested a mixed pair, so treat it as supported by the spec sheet rather than proven in our lab.

Related guides

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• How we test gear

This article contains affiliate links. We may earn a commission on qualifying purchases at no extra cost to you. Our recommendations are independent and research-driven, and we say when a pick is not hands-on.