Testing "Volterra" - Microsoft's Windows Dev Kit 2023 ARM PC

[@JeffGeerling]

I mentioned I had trouble getting the Mini DisplayPort connection working with any of my monitors. Apparently, Microsoft's Dev Kit 2023 documentation states: > If connecting an HDMI monitor to the mDP port, an active mini-DP to HDMI adapter is required. All the adapters I have are passive. So I just bought a cheap active miniDP to HDMI adapter and I re-tested with that-I can confirm an *active* mDP to HDMI adapter works! It can be hard to tell if yours is active or not... most are not even marked.

[@bland9876]

Why didn't you just run a display port cable to the DisplayPort on the monitor? Why try converting it to HDMI?

[@dmynerd78]

@@bland9876 It looks like he's routing the output to a capture card at 3:29 (which is basically always HDMI). Still watching the video so I'm not sure if he's done miniDP to DP, but that's probably why he tried to use HDMI at least.

[@JeffGeerling]

@@bland9876 I tried that with a Mini DisplayPort to DisplayPort cable first-and apparently I just didn't leave that cable plugged in long enough. It takes like 3-5 minutes on first boot before any signal comes through! But I also use the DisplayPort input for my main computer, so it was less convenient than my HDMI input :)

[@teg24601]

WTF uses an active mDP to HDMI adapter? There shouldn't be any processing needed to go from mDP to DP to HDMI to DVI-D.

[@Flynn58]

honestly wild that it requires an active adapter, I figured most Displayport chipsets support DP++ now

[@MarcoGPUtuber]

What a weird looking Raspberry Pi!

[@ernstoud]

At least it is available!

[@user-iq2rz3sd8b]

@@ernstoud 🤣🤣🤣🤣

[@quimblyjones9767]

Costs about the same

[@bannanafruitsalad]

More like a pumpkin pi

[@Rajeyshah]

what a weird looking person 🤣🤣🤣🤣

[@minxythemerciless]

For the record, there was Windows on ARM over 20 years ago. That was the Compaq Ipaq and HP equivalent. It actually ran quite fast. The Windows was cut down especially the GDI so I had many happy hours recreating the missing GDI functions such as Bezier curves and all in fixed point arithmetic!

[@RaduTek]

Yes, Windows CE, which was available for many architectures, x86, ARM, MIPS, SH3. Apps can either be compiled to native CPU code and aren't cross architecture compatible, but then .NET Compact Framework came along, with cross architecture apps.

[@sihamhamda47]

From the "less known and less supported architecture" to "most potential architecture to overtake x86" Things are changing really fast in the recent years

[@AndreVanKammen]

Wasn't that running on Windows CE? The version of Windows for PDA's and smartphones and embeded devices. They actualy had a head start in the whole SmartPhone market in the beginning of this century but lost it by sticking to resistive pen input and bad UI for way to long.I owned a HTC HD2 in 2009 which ran on windows mobile 6.5, it had a capacitive screen that worked fine for the HTC apps that HTC added with support for big fingers, but all the other apps where hard to control with fingers. I later installed android on that phone. I worked on some stuff for an embeded terminal on windows CE. Later we tried to make a version of an app for the windows phone, but Microsft kept changing the target from "It's gonna be a Silverlight super/subset" to "universal apps" . We lost so much time developing for Windows Mobile we stopped working on it, Microsoft did to little to late and lost the whole mobile market because of it.

[@poohhappy4548]

i rembered seeing an artical saying imaging a chrome book but more limited app support

[@christophertstone]

Windows CE was not the same kernel as Windows 9x or Windows NT. It was a whole other product, using the "Windows" name. Windows RT was a build of Windows NT 6.3 (Win8.1) for ARM, but that wasn't 20 years ago.

[@infinitytec]

I'm glad Microsoft put this device out. ARM certainly looks to be the future at this time, and this seems like Microsoft is actually getting serious about it this time.

[@fdmillion]

I definitely want one to play with. Might end up being one of my next "geek purchases"! (I am a dev, mostly Python and such but I've done some .NET desktop dev in C#, and I could definitely have fun with WSL and Visual Studio on here.)

[@thisisnotok2100]

@@fdmillion the coding you described is the same on x86, do you just like computers?

[@jothain]

@@thisisnotok2100 Well just think about the performance/power consumption ratio. If one uses computer for extended periods of time, this might actually pay itself in long run on many countries eletric bills.

[@nathanjokeley4102]

​@@jothain performance/power consumption ratio? it gets outperformed at least 5-10 times in power efficiency compared to ryzen laptop cpu. it can't even run youtube videos without dropping frames and it's running 20+ year old games like half life at 20 fps. how high is energy price if you think going lower than 15-25 watts that 6800u is using will make any noticeable difference in energy bills? have you even calculated it?

[@jothain]

@@nathanjokeley4102 dropped YT frames is decoding issue. Just like rpi's. If power costs like 0,6Euro/kWh it's noticeable costs in 24/7 usage. Thing is still, why use something that uses more electricity if you don't need it?

[@wl4dymir]

WAIT YOU ARE geerlingguy who wrote all of those ansible modules ! I used a bunch of your code some time ago for a project it's actually very well written and runs cleanly. Thanks a lot for that work !

[@niklasxl]

i hope that in the future there will be more arm and risc-v systems available, the efficiency seem so good on them :D

[@oggilein1]

For mobile devices absolutely, for desktop I'd love to see IBM's openPOWER architecture become more prevalent Machines like the talos II and blackbird have already shown success in the workstation space and I could imagine if valve gave POWER the same treatment they gave arm in terms of gaming that it could become a popular architecture among enthusiasts The SMT8 function is especially interesting since it essentially means single core applications can be spread out to run on 8 cores which leads to a huge boost in performance with no extra effort on the developer's part

[@hermanwooster8944]

ARM in the next 5 years. RISC-V in the next 30.

[@izzieb]

To me, it's still a good step forward for Windows on ARM irrelevant of how it compares to the ARM Macs. Especially considering it's intended as a development kit and not a commercial product.

[@JasperJanssen]

The Apple devkit with the A12Z was pretty shit as well. Here’s hoping MS makes the same progress.

[@Shotblur]

What do you think devkits are for? Expect comparable performance on whatever device this winds up being a devkit for.

[@GodlyAwesome]

@@Shotblur devkits arent performant, usually just enough to run what they need to get done.

[@JasperJanssen]

@@Shotblur one thing devkits are absolutely not for is giving you an idea of the speed of the finished product. That’s not even true of console devkits for the most part.

[@jnharton]

@@GodlyAwesome That seems a bit harsh. An important element though is that no dev kit should be significantly superior than release hardware. Otherwise developed applications might run worse on actual, retail systems...

[@the_hetman]

I’m pretty sure that Microsoft has an exclusive deal with Qualcomm for Windows on ARM, although I’m not sure that anyone knows for sure or when it will run out. Apple has made it clear that they would be willing to help Microsoft port Windows to M1/M2 but there seems to be no movement there. I’m sure that by the time that there are faster CPUs from Qualcomm, Apple will have pushed the bar even further.

[@divinedemon86]

Hilarious considering how, on the gaming front, M$ is trying get Sony (and Nintendo) to implement Game Pass on their hardware only to be rejected, yet they likely don't want to work with Apple. This is literally the same situation with the shoe being on the other foot 🤣

[@GoogleDoesEvil]

@@divinedemon86 Not really, Microsoft is locked into an exclusive deal with Snapdragon and isn't able to port Windows over to M1/M2 until that contract is over. I think that contract still has a couple years left on it.

[@TomFoolery9001]

@@divinedemon86 Why would microsoft not want their OS also on macs? Seems it is in their best interest to get their OS everywhere.

[@sirgongalong]

@@GoogleDoesEvil They are probably beating themselves for that deal now. Although tbf there probably aren’t any better alternatives out there at the moment that I can think of outside Apple and Apple M series will only ever be available in Apple HW and Intel doesn’t believe in ARM (although the microcores in their CPU are arm)?

[@gatocochino5594]

''I’m pretty sure that Microsoft has an exclusive deal with Qualcomm for Windows on ARM,'' This has been confirmed to be false. There is no exclusivity deal.

[@harshvaragiya8834]

Awesome review! Was interested in this as a random server to run some weird projects. Thanks for the review. I'll wait till i see some really good ARM desktop with native linux support! Cheers

[@JeffGeerling]

I still have a little hope-since this is somewhat an 'official' machine from Microsoft, and seems to be widely available, the community might be able to get at least the basics up and running in Linux. We'll see. If not, it's definitely the best option for *Windows* on ARM. For what that's worth :)

[@australai]

​@@JeffGeerling Hey Jeff, it's worth noting that Lenovo's X13S Snapdragon is essentially a laptop version of this new Microsoft dev kit, and was released earlier this year. Linux is bootable on it, thanks to Lenovo's Linux Technical Lead (see: kzbin.info/www/bejne/j4i1k4GlnLd1itk )

[@JeffGeerling]

@@australai Yeah; I was following along with that development and it is great! A few people have tried applying the same changes to a custom kernel build for the Dev Kit and haven't yet been successful, so it looks like more work will be required. Hopefully someone in the community can knock it out though-this would make a great little ARM desktop for Linux!

[@hassosigbjoernson5738]

This dev kit is about getting more apps and stuff on Windows. And people only talk about and hope for Linux support? So Windows (!) on ARM is already dead? Disappointing.

[@2zz98]

As a Linux nerd I'm hoping fast arm chips will be more obtainable and open in the future. As porting to arm is much less of a problem if you're already in the FOSS ecosystem. And the benefits, especially for portables are huge.

[@antocmartinaemz]

The best I found is the pinebook pro, with an opensource firmware in a 16mB flash spi and a linux os on it

[@2zz98]

@@antocmartinaemz Is it able to do hardware encoding/decoding of video? This is the major downside of most tinker arm solutions if you'd want to use them as a desktop. Also I do own a RockPro64 and while its already faster than RPi3 etc. it's still nothing compared to Qualcomm chips.

[@antocmartinaemz]

@@2zz98 yeah, but they are really expensive and you need to be an enterprise to be allowed to buy their dev board and get access to the tools :/

[@nathanbasset]

With how impressive the M series has been so far, Windows on ARM is a question of when not if. I can’t wait.

[@gokuaravind]

Isn’t M series primarily microcontrollers? I think the efficiency and performance of A cores are the ones that are driving the push for Windows on Arm .

[@ivoszbg589]

@@gokuaravindhe probably meant m1 and m2 macs

[@Jansel_osu]

ngl, this was one of the better informative videos about it. I am looking forward where Windows on ARM will go, especially for potentially gaming.

[@Quast]

Kinda doubt it take a look a notebookcheck and see what Arm machines get what frame rates, it was rather disappointing.

[@Jansel_osu]

@@Quast i think you didn't really understand my comment. I was saying that I like to see what possibilities the future holds, so these compability and framerate issues maybe disappear

[@Quast]

@@Jansel_osu Just saying, give it a look.

[@mannkeithc]

Great video. Microsoft ARM Dev Kit is a step in the right direction. Hopefully, Qualcomm and ARM will resolve their licensing dispute regarding Nuvia, and we will get to see the higher performance ARM laptop and server chips developed by the ex-Apple Silicon engineers who formed Nuvia. Re: Fitting a 2280 SSD to the Dev Kit, I thought you move the pillar from the 2230 position to where the flat torx head screw is?

[@JeffGeerling]

That screw is unfortunately not in the right location for a 2280 standoff.

[@mannkeithc]

@@JeffGeerling OK. So, M.2 2230 SSDs only or fabricate a support bracket that connects to 2230 pillar screw hole and provides a new pillar at the 2280 position, as there looks like there is enough space for a M.2 2280 drive.

[@JeffGeerling]

@@mannkeithc Yep, that's probably the best way. There is definitely room, and I'm not sure why Microsoft didn't thread holes to reposition the standoff... it seems like such a logical addition.

[@clebbington]

That Rosetta VM test made my jaw drop. I thought Rosetta was so fast because it took advantage of the custom silicon; I never would have expected it to work so well on a Snapdragon chip 😮

[@RomaniaOverpowered]

As much as Apple customized their ARM M1 chips, the base lithography is still ARM from Snapdragon. So, it makes sense it would. What scares me the most is that ARM processors on desktop platforms would eventually lead to the cloud computing future I never asked for. The less you can execute code locally, the more you'll be dragged in some more and more cloud options with 0 arhivistic options, always online, DRM to hell and back machines....

[@monad_tcp]

@@RomaniaOverpowered cloud computing is also moving to ARM. your dark future of archivistic options will happen regardless, as long as you have cloud computing like client/server. I wanted more Edge-Computing. You don't really need any cloud. I run everything I ever need computing for in just 2x ThreadRipper servers with 256GB of RAM each in my house. Everything I ever need I have very close to my devices. The only exception is doing machine learning, but then I use pre-trained models, who has $2M for buying GPUs, or spending $35K on Bezos ? $35K buys you one of those massive modern servers. You absolutely don't need cloud computing, unless you don't know anything under your virtual machine, be it the Chrome or NodeJS, as per usual lack of developer knowledge of anything hardware related.

[@RomaniaOverpowered]

@@monad_tcp yeah, but power users as such are becoming less likely to be a thing, as hardware devs and manufacturers change focus.

[@clebbington]

@@RomaniaOverpowered I have good news and bad news. Bad news is, society is already at the point of mostly using thin clients to connect to cloud based services - no miracle device is going to change that trajectory. Good news is, there will always be people who are like us; people who want to see what computers are capable of, people who want to build their own servers, etc. Also, while ARM is used for plenty of low powered devices, I'm hoping advances in the ARM desktop and ARM server markets will give enthusiasts efficient but powerful chips to mess around with

[@BringMayFlowers]

@@RomaniaOverpowered ...how is that supposed to happen? ISA choice shouldn't mean much for local execution. Especially not ARM, which is from the '80s. The main issues I could see would be manufacturers moving toward a chromebook model of design, but that can and has been done on amd64 as well. Nothing about ARM inherently creates that webapp future.

[@GustavoNoronha]

Great video! Given this is a developer-focused platform, how about a couple of development workloads? People seem to have standardized on building Chromium / Firefox / LLVM. That last one may be easier to get going on Windows for Arm, I guess.

[@jamescameron1861]

I like the look of this, but I need that Linux support. Windows is my day job, but I'm slowly taking my first tentative steps on Linux for home use. I'll be following this device to see if anything interesting happens

[@BitCrazed]

Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) lets you run real Linux apps & tools alongside Windows, side-by-side, giving you the entirety of the Linux platform & toolchain.

[@jhohisel]

I have a ThinkPad X13s which is also powered by the Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3. I never booted Windows and ripped out the SSD to bootstrap Ubuntu 22.10. Within 8 hours I was able to get it to boot using the work in development by Linaro developers. Overall it's a nice lightweight Linux laptop and runs it quite well, but no accelerated graphics or suspend support yet. I also have an M1 Mac mini and M1 Max MacBook Pro, and as you found out it's still slower than M1. Also, as a developer who supports apps on Mac/Windows/Linux, I see little value at this point in providing a native arm64 binary for Windows. Despite having poor performance, for simple apps the x86 emulation is good enough.

[@FUZxxl]

As for open source operating systems, both FreeBSD and OpenBSD are in a state where they work well on the Dev Kit!

[@drinkintea1572]

0:59 that made my day, thank you so much

[@marantz1]

It's actually embarrassing that after years and years Microsoft is releasing products that can be described as "a good first step".

[@anon_y_mousse]

Coil whine isn't just annoying, it's also physical damage. Of course the thought occurs to me that if you can run Linux with WSL on that machine that it shouldn't be too difficult to reverse engineer it. Although, for that price and with those specs, probably not worth the hassle. I don't think anyone is going to replace the Pi or any of its clones this way, or make affordable and attractive desktop ARM devices that actually perform.

[@ayanesatomi4250]

Do keep in mind this hardware isn't meant to be a consumer device, so don't expect too much on a reference hardware device. This is meant for developers who want to verify their application's behavior on a new architecture on a real device (since you can only test so much on a virtualized instance). Overall I'm impressed of the build quality of the device and the reviewer being authentic with the review of the device, would love to see more of it soon (I'd buy one but it's not available in SE Asia)

[@ArandomNutter]

It's a dev box, they aren't going to throw out all the stops. Lets see what there production offering looks like

[@RobSnyder]

Loved how Jeff said the fastest ( Certified ) arm system to run windows on arm, as I look over at my windows 11 arm vm on my M1 Ultra

[@NaoRose]

I have a Lenovo X13S, same processor as the Dev Kit and I have gotten both Arch and Debian working on it thanks to community guides!

[@deusexaethera]

I have a Samsung ARM laptop running Windows, and it works great. I wish it had more disk space, but that's a completely different issue. The ARM CPU sips power like nobody's business, and it can even run some games without a dedicated GPU.

[@yourpodcastsidekick-cd]

Much has changed since the days of Acorn computers. Always hopeful for Microsoft; yet, they often disappoint. Great review, Jeff.

[@skinwalker69420]

I can't wait for the day that Windows can run on an M1 Mac, that'll be pretty awesome. You know what would be awesomer? Proper Linux on MacOS

[@keco185]

Apple designed the M1 with X86 emulation in mind. It has hardware to help with that emulation. Qualcomm really needs to do the same. Especially because windows programs are taking way longer than macos programs to get converted over to arm

[@rrsharizam]

ARM design is not "simpler" than x86. Its design is based on "reduced instruction set" but that doesn't mean the design is simple.

[@JeffGeerling]

It is simpler in the sense that it supports a much smaller number of instructions, therefore the actual circuit design can dedicate fewer transistors to instructions, and more to general compute. Even still, companies like Apple put in a lot of separate dedicated cores for specific types of instructions, so there's a tradeoff, not optimizing for certain types of usage over others.

[@jjdawg9918]

Great thorough review Jeff!. I know it's an aside but these little guys and other NUC like PCs always have me wanting for a slick nice looking "modular" PC(preferably on Linux) but they always lack enough I/O. Just think of being able to add a matching 5 bay HDD case, maybe an eGPU, that sits/docks under this. You would have nice portable workstation/nas/server/gaming rig

[@eformance]

Curious point about pricing: The no-warranty repair cost for most Surface Pro tablets is $600.

[@vincelongman3264]

Despite the old X1/A78 cores and Samsung 5nm, this is still the first decent WoA chip. Hopefully next year we get X3/A715 cores (or Nuvia's Pheonix cores) and TSMC 5nm

[@siddestroyer]

It will be Nuvia cores by then. Hopefully they'd be up to the mark

[@sourav7162]

8 gen 2 gonna have the A16 level of multicore score. So, by extrapolating the next pc arm chip from Qualcomm would have M1 pro level performance atleast in multicore

[@rrsharizam]

8cx gen 3 uses Cortex X1 and A78 cores, which dated back to 2020 and 2018 respectively. The reason Microsoft stick with older design is because the newer ARM design doesn't support 32-bit applications. So, Microsoft decided to prioritize compatibility over raw performance.

[@sourav7162]

And that with shitty samsung fab

[@tjmichael]

I believe M1 and M2 have some hardware emulation to help with Rosetta's excellent x86 emulation, and I fear that without something similar we'll just never see the same result on Windows machines.

[@haraberu]

On the other hand, Apple is going to drop Rosetta support by the time M4 comes out, while Microsoft is going to keep x86 emulation support indefinitely. For reference, support for the last 32-bit-compatible MacOS ended in October 2021 (old 32-bit apps can no longer be used), support for the last 16-bit-compatible Windows will end in October 2025 (old 16-bit apps require WineVDM, a community project not officially supported by Microsoft).

[@tjmichael]

@@haraberu were windows on ARM anything but an almost exclusive cooperation between Microsoft and Qualcomm, I'd agree with you, but given it looks like all these SKUs are Windows specific, I think it'd be a fair tradeoff for them to carry x86 hardware emulation for a significant amount of time, until software emulation becomes enough to handle the older software that can't be ported.

[@BrVendan]

Windows 10 still supported 16-bit apps. Let’s put that into perspective

[@tjmichael]

@@BrVendan sure, but notably all these versions of windows ran on CPUs with hardware level support for "x86 real mode" (16 bit operation), and this was never exclusively a software level emulation, and might even be a proof case that hardware level support is needed to push the PC market towards new instruction sets.

[@_DJ_Mikey]

In regards to your point about the nvme slot not having a 2280 stand off. Is that other small torx screw in the correct position? Maybe it's designed to take out that flush screw and swap the posistions of the stand off with the flush screw? Just a thought..

[@toerti9589]

They had Windows on ARM with the old Windows Mobile/CE and later Windows RT, they were ahead of the pack, but they fumbled it. Should have just allowed native win32 development and compilation for Windows RT instead of forcing everyone to use WinRT.

[@billmccaffrey1977]

Thanks for the review Jeff. You make it easy for guys like me to stay on top of these developments.

[@matter7180]

Apple said they would be open to Bootcamp Windows on ARM? Why didn't Microsoft just make that possible? Apparently a Mac Mini is faster and also production/consumer ready + makes software development for both platforms really viable.

[@simply6162]

Cause that would destroy Microsoft . The apple chips would run windows better than windows themselves and that’s not good for windows

[@JeffGeerling]

I'd love to see Microsoft support Apple Silicon; I mean, it's a better dev experience for Windows on ARM than any of the official Windows on ARM devices!

[@simply6162]

@@JeffGeerling that’s exactly why Microsoft won’t make it happen.

[@WackyFolf]

It’s because Microsoft has an exclusivity deal with Qualcomm. They legally can’t until it expires.

[@jonisin5498]

You believe every Apple say?

[@usefulrandom1855]

Ive always run a pretty power hungry gaming pc 12600k 2080ti at the minute. Hardly ever game and with electric prices in the UK its uses far too much power for the task I use it for. So I bought an M2 Pro Mac mini. One because I have never played around with Mac OS for more than 5 minutes and two due to the power consumption (I know the cost of the Mini offsets this but whatever). I just thought though, if we use ARM chips will Moors law be able to continue? Like what would happen if we had a say 125w ARM chip the size of a x86 desktop chip? Would it be massively powerful or is that too simplistic? Enjoying Mac OS so far but still getting used to it, only been a few days!

[@JasonsLabVideos]

Awesome Video Jeff, this is so good! I think the New release unit they should have a 2.5gig port and USB c ports on the back, along with a 1tb ssd & 64gigs ram.

[@BitCrazed]

The SSD in the DevKit is end-user replaceable so you can replace with 1TB storage if you like :)

[@JasonsLabVideos]

@@BitCrazed or a 2tb :) but my point was if they roll them out they could start at 1tb.

[@TypeScriptTV]

I was hoping the Windows ARM PC would be silent (as silent as the M1 MacBook Airs are) but looks like (5:08) it's not. 😢

[@fram1111]

Great job Jeff, I'm rotting for a powerful ARM Windows/Linux machine. I think this may be a good first step.

[@cnex101]

Jeff, how does the Windows Dev kit run media apps? Such as Plex, Jellyfin? Does it encode or decode H264 / H265 media very well?

[@dgsprysoup]

Exact question in my mind!

[@jakeparkinson8929]

I think it would be attractive as a basic office computer/thin client pc, if microsoft offered it at the third of the price with 8gb ram, 128gb storage and cut back on some other features. It would be awesome for hobbyists as Windows on Arm can run android apps, which means this thing can very solidly run everything up to wii/3ds/ps2 in terms of emulation where some laptops at that price point struggle. Remember the Surface Go line of computers, or the Surface RT, bring it back. Windows isnt locked down like it used to be in 2012 on Windows 8RT. You can install programs and benefit from a long battery life. Literally, I don't think the average "professional" that sits in board room all day sipping coffee while being lectured needs a powerhouse of hardware for basic office work and emails. Its good stuff.

[@xPandamon]

8 GB of RAM and a 128 GB SSD for 200? That's not very realistic.. At that price point they won't make any money off of it or even lose some as hardware dost itself isn't the only thing stacking up, development us expensive too

[@RandyHanley]

I have to agree about the part about it seeming like a surface inside a case. Even the SSD looks like the removable SSDs on the newer surfaces, such as the Surface Pro 8, etc.

[@nytrex2001]

It's seems like a pretty good deal. 32GB with 521GB storage is unheard of at that price point. Qualcomm's Nuvia SOC being released in Q4 next year should see it easily match Apple's M1 and M2 silicon.

[@excarnator]

Props to Windows for actively contributing to the ARM transition.

[@misakidebugged]

I would really love for Microsoft to just send an open letter to AMD and intel to make ARM CPU's for windows so we can standardize it, the efficiency is simply undeafeatable. Of course this would mean deopping that pesky exclusivity deal with Qualcomm. And then make Windows 12 exclusively ARM, They will have to work very very hard on getting their x86 emulation layer optimized first though.

[@xBINARYGODx]

if there is a deal, its a contract - they cant just drop it

[@misakidebugged]

@@xBINARYGODx Yep. Thankfully I hear its expiring soon.. it would be suicidal for Microsoft to renew it

[@MastermindAtWork]

Thanks Jeff for reviewing this this cause I was waiting for someone other than Microsoft devs to talk about it and see if it was ready for personally use.

[@artvram]

Great video! Would love this if it could boot Linux natively

[@Namudril]

Had to think for a moment what "ransom benchmarks" are =) Great job, thank so much! (misspelling fixed)

[@MarcoGPUtuber]

BUT! Does it run -Crysis- I mean Linux?

[@riklaunim]

Short answer no - unless Microsoft releases needed files/support. There was a full article on reddit testing this and WSL.

[@kevinsonkevin3634]

I'd get more excited about windows on arm for the lower end stuff. Getting a cheap but efficient windows device for simple industrial uses would really open things up for those that provide to enterprise folks that are all-in on windows domain.

[@JeffGeerling]

True; it would be really cool for Microsoft to put out a Surface 'lite' that is basically this box, with maybe 8 GB of RAM and a 64 or 128 GB SSD.

[@kevinsonkevin3634]

@@JeffGeerling Haha I was thinking even lower spec! WOR project wet my appetite for digital signage and POS usage where price and power draw win out over performance. I'd definitely want that surface spec too though!

[@Chris_Cable]

But... It's literally a dev kit, you can't fairly compare it to full production units like a Mac Mini. Even if the MS unit is newer. Edit: Still a great video Jeff :)

[@RunForPeace-hk1cu]

Apologists coming out in droves ... LOL

[@Chris_Cable]

@@RunForPeace-hk1cu Just stating facts... LOL

[@JeffGeerling]

I hear this a lot, and I get it-though in my opinion, a dev kit should have higher-end specs (since developers hate sitting around waiting for compiles and such). But even if lower-end specs are the norm, a low-spec dev kit that's two years newer than the lowest-end consumer box from Apple should at least be trading punches, not running a lap or two behind. If I were a full time Windows dev I'd push for something faster, or demand Microsoft support development on Macs, since it's so much faster still.

[@cyjanek7818]

yeah, you cant - devkits are usually better than production units So Microsoft has long Way to go

[@RunForPeace-hk1cu]

@@Chris_Cable Fact is you are coping ... 😬 I bet you're not a developer nor are you using ARM OS. Otherwise, you should be very frustrated that Apple is destroying MS ass with products they release years ago ...

[@SweBeach2023]

Agree with your point on the device being too expensive. $600 for the one reviewed is peanuts for a professional developer. But the hobbyist community has always been important to the PC industry, and a less expensive model would have been awesome just to get more of these into the wild. Like $250 for the same SoC but with 128 GB eMMC and 8 GB of RAM.

[@tramcrazy]

A really cool dev kit. Nice to have an easy way to test stuff for woa. Would be cool if they built an official arm surface desktop though, or even an atx arm motherboard… although that seems very unlikely.

[@petemisc4291]

It’s a Dev Kit, I think they want software tested/written for the new OS! The hardware is beside the point, it’s the software that’s the main feature, once that is ironed out, the hardware builds can begin in earnest.

[@deldarel]

A lot of dev tools are mainly in Linux. It'd be nice if they properly added support for it. I know you just use a tool chain, but it'd be nice to natively run the program you just ported.

[@BitCrazed]

Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) lets you run real Linux apps & tools alongside Windows, side-by-side, giving you the entirety of the Linux platform & toolchain. Also, MSYS2/CygWin provide Windows native POSIX-compatible command-line toolchain making it easier to build/port *NIX code on Windows.

[@thisisnotok2100]

@@BitCrazed agree. Softwate development is now just as accesible on Windows as it is Linux. I will always be partial to VMs though ;)

[@robgreen13]

@@BitCrazed Just got my Dev Kit and I'm heading for WSL as my first destination ... after checking out native arm64VS2022 first, of course, which is a real delight to see.

[@wanderingwobb6300]

I'd be glad to see windows on arm become the standard for low/mid range laptops. It just makes so much more sense. Hopefully this will help accelerate that process.

[@amateurwizard]

I've been calling Windows on ARM WOA for years in the hopes that it catches on... Help please

[@JohnADoe-pg1qk]

And looking into the next generation, we will call Windows on RISC V ... WORF [Windows On RISC Five]? 😂

[@the_hetman]

Better than Windows CE. It always did make me wince. 😅

[@merlinsrobe4621]

Intuitively, I think the only way Microsoft will get close to matching Apple with ARM CPUs is if they convince Qualcommn to go all in on Windows. The barrier to that happening is that Qualcomm has many other interests beyond simply producing Microsoft ARM CPUs. The alternative is that Microsoft develops their own CPU to take control of the "full stack". That will take many years of development, but it's probably the only path to speed and feature parity with Apple in the ARM space.

[@zhch]

Something like that may be in the works; I know some people at Intel, and in the past few years Microsoft has been poaching their engineers like crazy.

[@lee99bay]

We need fast windows 11 on raspberry pi!

[@JeffGeerling]

Unfortunately I think we'll have to wait for another generation of Pi chip for that to be better. You can run Windows 10 on the Pi right now... but even that runs pretty slow. Windows 11 now requires some extensions to the 'ARMv8.1' instruction set, and those just aren't supported in the Pi's hardware. It would be really cool if Microsoft officially supported running Windows on the next Pi (whenever that happens) and M1 and M2 Macs!

[@yorkshireplumbing]

We'll have to wait for a new generation of Windows, too.

[@jordanmetcalfe8302]

I've been running Windows 11 for ARM in a Parallels VM on a Macbook Pro with the M1 Pro chip and I have to say it's incredibly fast and stable, to the point where you can even run some (older) Windows games without it breaking a sweat.

[@moocow1452]

Do you think we'll see Arm powered laptops and "Steam Deck" setups, and that will be the killer app for ARM computers, or is that a long way off?

[@radiicall]

2:44 there's a screw that looks like its perfectly placed for a 2280 SSD, are you sure you can't move the standoff there?

[@JeffGeerling]

That's a screw holding that mounting bracket on the case; it is not threaded for the standoff, and it's also not positioned correctly for the 2280 standoff :( (sorry it wasn't clear in the angle I shot the video!)

[@radiicall]

@@JeffGeerling Thanks for clarifying!

[@Rostol]

dear Jeff, you seem unable to grasp the concept of a developer kit pc. this is not a for-consumers device. this is not a benchmark setup. this is a testbed for developers to test ARM builds or compatibility. a 2.5 gbit ethernet would be pointless and add to the driver complexity which is why they're using an usb bridge and not pci lanes, developing a motherboard and soc specifically for this would be idiotic and pointless. wasting time on thermals to have a passive cooled device is lost time. this is not a beta for a future product release. this will NEVER be released as a consumer product. all these tests are pointless.

[@JeffGeerling]

Dev kits should typically have _more_ speed than a baseline cheap consumer product, though. And in this case, it's the opposite. But in the entire conclusion, I mention many of the points you make - this is a good thing for Microsoft, and it's an interesting box. But I'm not yet sure if Microsoft's ARM push will persist and/or pay off. All bets are off.

[@mttkl]

Look at game console devkits, they all have much better hardware than the finished consumer product, a lot more ram, much much more network bandwidth, etc. These devices are intended to use heavily for development, with meh consumer hardware you are limiting what the devs can to push into it, specially in the early stages of development where optimization is not the priority.

[@DavinderSingh-nx5ms]

The issues are not the arm chips but the software availablity. Many software house are not investing enough to make a properly multiplatform software

[@Kneichion]

Absudley !! Expencive with buckets of Problems, I am sticking to my M1 Mac Mini

[@gamingkingX]

For a netwokring device (router fx) you could buy USB to erthernet adapters. I cant find the speed rating on any ports, but 2.5GbE USB adapters are pretty cheap.

[@AlmostBrokeLbs]

you can use core temp and gpu temp to see temps on windows

[@kandleech]

where?

[@yukas1ngas]

Performance is actually fine I think. Linux and BSD support from start is a good thing

[@ruevs]

Windows NT has had versions for x86, MIPS, Alpha, Itanium, x64 and now ARM. It's pretty portable from "day one" but the platforms were not particularly popular.

[@jaykoerner]

The Mac mini does support triple monitors, since displayport can be daisychained, granted that limits you to very specific monitors but it is technically possible

[@BeLikeNexus]

It doesn’t actually work, I’ve tried it

[@jaykoerner]

@@BeLikeNexus surprised apple blocked that...

[@marxmaiale9981]

Did they give any indication that they learned or even looked at what happened with their last arm computer? It was the surface RT, ran on a nVidia Tegra. I theoretically could still use it if windows didn't grow larger than its included hard drive.

[@xBINARYGODx]

that's not the last surface product with an arm inside - not even close - derp derp

[@gerdya6301]

Not sure what you mean with long way to go, but with a Geekbench score for 6490(devKit) vs 7600(M1 Mini), thats only a 17% difference - and that is with a big node disadvantage (Samsung vs TSMC).

[@vernearase3044]

The latest Qualcomm chip loses to a 2 year old Mac?

[@lucasew]

The coolest thing about this thing is that the project behind the windows port for snapdragon cpus allows running Windows 11 on a Xiaomi POCO X3. I know a guy that knows a guy that is working on it.

[@Owl-cj3fu]

@Jeff Geerling, I'm pretty sure you could fit a longer SSD into the slot if you unscrewed the standoff and swapped it with the fastener that's shown right where the mounting point for the longer SSD would be.

[@longnightsofsolace4010]

One thing to note is that while the cores used on the Dev kit are the contemporaries of the M1 (Cortex X1/A78), the manufacturing process is significantly worse (Samsung 5nm). Just see how big the gains QC made when porting the 8gen1+ to TSMC compared to the original 8g1 on Samsung. Would it be enough to match the M1, probably not but if it were made on TSMC it'd probably get 1200+/6000+ on GB5 and use less power.

[@darkpowerxo]

Can you compare it with surface pro 9 (arm version )

[@yt_reborngameplays]

Fedora supports arm versions. Thery have aarch64 img. Though idk if this pc is supported or not.

[@OffBy0x01]

Curious how many watts the cooling fan is consuming and how much impact that had on the idle & max usage.

[@kreuner11]

Windows used to support way more architectures with Windows NT. Version 4.0, which was last to do so, had x86, Alpha, MIPS, and PowerPC. The PowerPC support was later used on the Xbox 360 and the ARM support was probably first introduced for Windows Mobile and Windows RT. x86 support on these platforms was generally regarded as very good, especially on Alpha where it was able to run faster than on PCs of the time, so I don't know what caused this modern version to perform so much worse

[@harryhall4001]

I think mostly in this case the problem is the hardware and the fact that Windows 11 is quite bloated.

[@rockyiu7541]

It's because qualcomm sucks. Not only does it affect windows, android also suffers from it.

[@MrMinecrafter720]

@2:40 I think you can just remove the screw seen near the bottom left of frame and swap it with the standoff that holds a standard 2230 to allow for 2280 sized m.2 drives

[@JeffGeerling]

Unfortunately that's not quite in the right location and doesn't hold a stand-off either (that screw is a bit smaller)

[@MrMinecrafter720]

@@JeffGeerling Ah that's unfortunate. The angle of camera must have lied to me

[@puccaso]

6:44 "push microsoft to improve their software..." LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL

[@DavidAlsh]

Best summary about the Volterra hardware so far. You answered every question I had. Thanks Jeff!

[@Malak-techAI]

1:57 lol, that power brick is from surface dock Gen1 :D

[@Shannon-ul5re]

For a dev kit it's fine and if MS bring those PC's out. I want one, thats awesome.

[@raulsifuentes702]

I own the Lenovo Yoga c630 with the snapdragon 850 chip and that thing can run all day. I'm a huge fan of ARM processors because of their long battery life and portability. The future looks incredibly bright.

[@Z4KIUS]

to be fair the efficiency under load comes mostly from saner clocks, the thing is efficiency at idle, that's the big issue for classic x86

[@Technocrat.]

Question, does the Voltara Dev Kit have Power Options for High and Ultra high performance modes?

[@Haloruler64]

Great video! Shame that Microsoft is relying on Qualcomm though, I can't imagine them ever keeping up with Apple Silicon.

[@miika35476]

With linux support I would be very interested in this device, I hope it will happen at some point.

[@2greenify]

I'm just wondering if I can put Linux on itm

[@aliyuabba4575]

How does it compare to the Apple Arm devkit with A12Z bionic?

[@jesset2550]

Hey Jeff what arm extensions does it have. I'm wondering if it has arm virtualization extensions(VHE) in lscpu.

[@FSK1138]

0:57 LOL that is going to be the reality some day ( gpu's are CRAZY) i am really starting to appreciate "low powered computing" for me the sweet spot is 65w AMD and apple are the best options for my use

[@Madrrrrrrrrrrr]

That Nvidia remark he makes doesn't make sense at all. Nothing comes close to their performance per watt. All the 32 core gpu in the Apple's arm doesn't get close.

[@AnnatarTheMaia]

So how far along are you porting illumos to this hardware?

[@IngwiePhoenix_nb]

Shame it can not boot Linux natively. Whilst going through documentations and discussions about porting Linux to Android phones, I learned that many of those ARM chips by Mediatek and Qualcomm often don't provide the device information via SystemReady like how x86 CPU BIOSes/UEFIs do. Unfortunate, but this device still is pretty neat!

[@williamorangeofjuice7804]

As someone who has both the windows 8cx 3 and snapdron x dev kits, the stand-off was too big and in the wrong position. i ended up punching a socket throughhole and taping it with the same treads to move the stand up. it did indeed work for full size nvme drives. make sure to add thermal pads. just a fyi for anyone has gotten either dev kit. the thermal paste was already dry as heck. a rethermal quieted it down alot. as for active or passive display port. it takes Forever to boot regardless from what iv seen.