Testing 'Volterra' — Microsoft's Windows Dev Kit 2023 ARM PC

The Windows Developer Kit 2023 ('Project Volterra') is like an M1 Mac mini for Windows. Except it has an upgradeable SSD.

But is it fast enough? And why didn't they just call it the Surface Desktop?

Mentioned in this video:

Contents:

00:00 - Windows on what?
01:44 - Tearing it down
03:26 - Windows on ARM
04:33 - Benchmarks
07:42 - Linux support
09:13 - Hope

[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.

[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!

[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

[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.

[wldymir]

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 !

[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.

[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.

[harshvaragiya]

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

[keco]

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

[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.

[jamescameron]

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

[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?

[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.

[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.

[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.

[drinkintea]

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

[marantz]

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

[lucaballardini]

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.

[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 😮

[jjdawg]

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