At CES, AMD announces a new mini-machine for the artificial intelligence sector. The aim? To rival the NVIDIA DGX Spark. As a reminder, this is a mini-PC whose role is to run AI models locally, or even to work on their development. The Ryzen AI Halo competes with this NVIDIA offering, while offering greater flexibility in terms of operating system support.
Ryzen AIHalo: a competitor to NVIDIA DGX Spark?
With this machine, AMD is offering us a mini-PC similar to the machines found at Minisforum, for example (in terms of footprint). In terms of configuration, we’re looking at an APU from the Ryzen AI Max 300 series, with a total configuration of 16 cores and 32 threads. The graphics part can go up to the RADEON 8060S, an iGPU with up to 40 compute units in RNDA 3.5 (2560 stream processors). As for memory, we’re talking about 128 GB of LPDDR5X memory, yet to be seen.
In the meantime, the Reds seems to have focused on cooling. The visuals shared by the brand feature active ventilation with two large radial fans blowing over an imposing block of aluminum fins.
But where AMD stands out from NVIDIA is in the versatility of its machine… at least, on the different compatible operating systems. Where the DGX Spark is limited to compatibility with NVIDIA’s DGX OS, the Ryzen AI Halo is compatible with Linux and Windows. What’s more, the device is fully supported by AMD’s ROCm development platform.
Now it remains to be seen whether potential customers will prefer NVIDIA’s well-integrated software (Cuda) or the versatility offered by AMD, particularly in terms of operating system support.
