[HN Gopher] Available Today: Windows Dev Kit 2023 a.k.a. Project...
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Available Today: Windows Dev Kit 2023 a.k.a. Project Volterra
Author : mpalme
Score : 235 points
Date : 2022-10-24 17:21 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (blogs.windows.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (blogs.windows.com)
| thallavajhula wrote:
| I saw the "Stackable" part and thought you could stack one on top
| of another to have a combined compute + memory available
| automatically. Now that would've been mind blowing
| sithadmin wrote:
| There's actually a small vendor that produced tiny systems that
| do literally stack like Lego, intended for cluster deployment
| in edge computing use cases like retail or restaurants.
| Stacking the units provides all necessary interconnects.
|
| I can't remember their name for the life of me, but they demo'd
| it at VMWorld a few years back.
|
| The economics versus boring pizzabox or compact blade systems
| probably never worked out in their favor, hence why I'm having
| so much trouble tracking them down again.
|
| Edit: found them. I guess they're still alive. Hivecell:
| https://hivecell.com/
| haunter wrote:
| Well I'd actually buy one of these if I could lol
| haunter wrote:
| Well I'd actually buy one of these if I could lol
| Kukumber wrote:
| At this price, with that HW, they are either delusional, or they
| have to pay insane fees to Qualcomm, they should have built their
| own silicon
|
| That's what decades are poor management gets you, you late to the
| party with expired food
|
| Apple was smarter when they came up with their M1; with an
| aggressive pricing and excellent performance/watt
| smoldesu wrote:
| How is Snapdragon 8cx support on Linux? I recall seeing some
| basic dotfiles for the ARM Thinkpad when it hit shelves, but I
| haven't seen anything else. Is there a good chance it would run
| OOB on a recent kernel with this devkit?
| btdmaster wrote:
| Given https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-5.20-SoCs-8cx-
| Gen3-Arm, it should already work if you run something rolling
| release or similar that has reached 5.20. (Otherwise, waiting
| for 6.1 is probably simplest.)
| m000 wrote:
| Would this run WSL by any chance?
| Wohlf wrote:
| WSL already runs on Windows 10/11 ARM in non-S mode, so no
| reason to assume it won't.
| fleddr wrote:
| Honestly, if Apple were to care, they could undo the course of
| computing history where at one point Windows became the monopoly.
|
| Launch a 500$ category laptop, say 3 gens old. That would soon be
| M1. Won't be very profitable, but a direct competitor to the
| typical crappy Windows low-end laptop.
|
| Yet it's so much better in performance, security, battery life,
| total lifespan, etc. Double down on making it idiot-proof.
| Optimize the onboarding experience for ex-Windows users,
| including prominent placement of alternatives for popular W32
| software. Make sure Office works well, and so on.
|
| I would admit that it would take many years to make a dent, but
| there's no rush to it. Windows seems a sitting duck. Nobody,
| including Microsoft, seems to care about it.
|
| Edit: oh yes, forgot about gaming.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| I think the build quality of the thing might be more of the
| cost than the difference in power. Could be wrong, though.
| coolca wrote:
| They could make a m1 SE in late 23 with a plastic case as old
| MacBooks, same ports of m1 air, slightly less battery and 1080p
| screen at 500$ and it will sell like crazy.
| awill wrote:
| The difference here is that the M1 in the M1 mac mini is faster
| than Apple's phone SoC (the A16). The Qualcomm 8cx gen 3 (what a
| terrible name) in this machine is NOT faster than even Qualcomm's
| phone SoC (the 8 gen 1), let alone Apple's phone SoC.
|
| It's absurd to be selling a desktop PC that's weaker than a
| phone.
| chinabot wrote:
| Prefer 32GB than a better CPU.
|
| By the way When the fuck did 32GB become an entry requirement,
| I am so saddened by the crappy software and stacks that treats
| memory like an infinite resource
| blibble wrote:
| presumably they want it to be able to run Teams
| geodel wrote:
| Yeah, Where would computer industry be if physical
| collaboration with open office setup and online
| collaboration with teams/slack does not take place?
| foepys wrote:
| GP was a dig at Microsoft Teams being utterly bad
| software that not only uses absurd amounts of memory for
| a chat app but also hogs all kinds of resources while
| still being generally laggy on high-end machines.
| wongarsu wrote:
| And just for comparison, the cheapest Mac mini with 32GB RAM
| is $1699. I can forgive a slower CPU in a machine that's
| about one third the price.
| anaisbetts wrote:
| The only dev environment that I know of where 32GB is an
| entry requirement is Professional (i.e. non-trivial, non-
| hobby/learner) Android development. You certainly do not need
| it to develop Windows applications.
| Finnucane wrote:
| Being old enough to remember when 32K was generous space,
| memory is an infinite resource.
| geodel wrote:
| Agree. Further I nowadays see crappy software developers
| instead of being apologetic or at least modest, claim some
| kind of moral high ground along the lines of "This software
| wouldn't even exist if not for our _accomplishments_ , so be
| thankful to us"
|
| I'd hope some one have already or will write thesis on
| correlation between _Rise of Javascript stack and narcissism
| in software industry_.
| mtgx wrote:
| GeekyBear wrote:
| I think the point of this machine is to give Developers a test
| bed for apps they port to ARM Windows.
|
| However, given that it took Microsoft more than a decade to
| decide to port their own Visual Studio to ARM Windows, I'm not
| sure why they think third parties are chomping at the bit.
|
| If Microsoft wants to copy Apple, they need to copy the
| decision to immediately port all their first party software.
| tokinonagare wrote:
| > the point of this machine is to give Developers
|
| At 700EUR price tag what a gift! It's 3-400EUR too expensive
| for a very dispensable toy, especially given that the managed
| stack (.net) of Microsoft development tools can be tested on
| Raspberry Pi or M1, which are both very popular with
| developers.
| GeekyBear wrote:
| Yes, I've mentioned elsewhere that they really should have
| gone all in on copying Apple and not only make the Dev kit
| cheaper, but issue a credit on future hardware purchases if
| the Dev returns the Dev kit when they get done porting
| their software.
|
| It's not like you want to keep something this underwhelming
| forever at that price point.
| PaulWaldman wrote:
| This Qualcom chip is very similar to the Microsoft SQ3 that is
| available in the new Surface Pro 9.
| room505 wrote:
| Will this Windows Arm only get three years of updates, just
| like a Qualcomm phone?
| vinkelhake wrote:
| Sure, Apple's got the superior ARM silicon. But an alternative
| take is that this SoC is plenty fast for non-poweruser desktop
| use (which should be the majority of users).
|
| You don't _need_ top shelf performance for browsing the web,
| checking your emails or writing some docs.
| [deleted]
| chrisseaton wrote:
| If people didn't want top-shelf performance why would they be
| using a desktop, instead of a phone, tablet, or laptop? Isn't
| performance the whole point of desktop?
| robertlagrant wrote:
| Or screen size.
| [deleted]
| dmitrygr wrote:
| > You don't need top shelf performance for browsing the web,
| checking your emails or writing some docs
|
| DIDN'T
|
| Until electron
| Sakos wrote:
| It's a chicken or the egg dilemma. Non-Apple ARM is too slow,
| so nobody wants Windows ARM, and nobody wants Windows ARM, so
| nobody is seriously working on consumer-targeted ARM. It will
| probably fail because Microsoft is generally bad at managing
| and marketing their hardware projects and coordinating with
| manufacturers and retail partners. Also, yeah, the pricing and
| performance is abysmal. But there is some sense to trying to
| lay the groundwork for future ARM SoCs running Windows.
|
| Right now, the biggest driver for Windows ARM adoption is,
| ironically, Apple's M1 and onwards because of people running it
| as a guest OS through Parallels.
|
| Also, frankly, I'm okay with Microsoft failing at projects like
| this. We don't need another Apple-like presence on the market.
| bigmattystyles wrote:
| >> Also, frankly, I'm okay with Microsoft failing at projects
| like this. We don't need another Apple-like presence on the
| market.
|
| Don't we?
| kstrauser wrote:
| I've gotta agree with you there. I love my Apple gear, but
| I hear and understand the criticisms against them. The
| above argument sounds to me like "you think one monopolist
| is bad? Wait until there are 2 of them!"
| siggen wrote:
| It will be an oligopoly then.
| Sakos wrote:
| No, in the non-Apple world, Microsoft doesn't drive the
| computing industry. It's market-driven coordination between
| a multitude of manufacturers and retailers where no one
| instance has control over the others. Apple is a vertically
| integrated monopoly that effectively rules all its partners
| (from apps to hardware) with an iron fist and can push its
| decisions on users (and partners) unilaterally.
|
| So no, I don't want Microsoft to become another Apple.
|
| From my point of view, Microsoft failing to do what Apple
| does is a good thing because it means there's some
| semblance of a working, competitive (if imperfect) market.
| They can't force other companies to dance to their tune.
| indymike wrote:
| > so nobody is seriously working on consumer-targeted ARM.
|
| Consumer targeted arm chips power most phones and tablets.
| Many of them are more than a handful for i5 and i3 class
| Intel chips and draw a lot less power. When you are talking
| about a $599 price point, you aren't talking about top-shelf
| Intel, anyway.
|
| > But there is some sense to trying to lay the groundwork for
| future ARM SoCs running Windows
|
| Now that ARM has grown up to be a viable alternative to
| Intel, this makes a ton of sense.
| machinekob wrote:
| i3/i5 12 and 13 gen?
|
| Outside m1/m2 there isn't any chip that can be compared to
| i5 intel 13 gen especially for PC space [that is in the
| same price bracket]. (maybe some arm chips can get close to
| i3 12100f but you can get it for 90 usd and get good single
| core performance so im not sure if in this price point is
| even any arm alternative)
| pge wrote:
| what's the incentive for a chip manufacturer to put out a
| better ARM chip (eg comparable to the Apple M1)? I don't
| know that world well, so my best guess is that the
| margins go to the OS manufacturers, so unless you have
| guaranteed commitment from MSFT for a given volume, and
| some sharing of the margin, it's too risky to invest in
| the R&D to make a better ARM chip. The market for x86
| chips is large and known, so for someone like Intel, it
| makes more sense to invest in the i3/i5 than in a new
| line of ARM. But that's all speculation - would love to
| hear the perspective of someone who understands the
| industry better.
| eklitzke wrote:
| Long term there is a huge market for server-oriented CPUs
| that can compete with Intel Xeon, which currently has a
| near monopoly in the server market. Note that a lot of
| companies are already working on this: Ampere (ARM),
| Amazon (Graviton3, etc.), and likely Nvidia, Rivos
| (RISC-V), etc.
|
| The best of market ARM designs don't really compete head-
| to-head with Xeon right now, but there are still a ton of
| server applications where they make already make sense.
| As a simple example companies like Google and Facebook
| have hundreds of thousands of servers that are doing
| things like running memcached or running some application
| like D/GFS where the server is mostly just doing a lot of
| I/O and doesn't necessarily need really beefy single-
| threaded CPU performance.
|
| Longer term obviously if there are ARM or RISC-V CPUs
| that can compete head-to-head with Xeon in terms of
| features and single threaded performance then that opens
| up pretty much the entire enterprise/server market.
| MBCook wrote:
| Performance is irrelevant depending on metrics.
|
| If my new zCPU chip is 60% as fast as a Xeon at your
| task, that's a problem.
|
| If it can do it at 40% of the Xeon's power, things get
| interesting.
|
| I could use twice as many zCPUs, be 20% faster, and use
| 20% less power. That also means less cooling capacity in
| my DC.
|
| Some tasks will always need the absolute best single
| threaded performance. But a lot don't. And the Xeon's
| power requirements leave a large opening we're starting
| to see other companies poke at with things like Graviton.
| sliken wrote:
| Apple has done pretty amazing things with the m1. IMO the
| most unique part is scaling memory bandwidth.
|
| The vast majority of PCs are running 128 bit wide memory,
| with workstation CPUs like the threadripper (and pro)
| being the exception, but a VERY small fraction of the
| market.
|
| The M1 has 128 bit wide 67GB/sec peak (that you'll never
| see) bandwidth, like most PCs. Upgrade to the Pro and you
| get 200GB/sec. Max will take you to 400GB/sec, and Ultra
| takes you to 800GB/sec.
|
| On the Intel (i3, i5, i7, i9) or AMD (ryzen r3, r5, r7,
| r9) you get ... the same memory bandwidth. Check the 8
| core vs 16 core scaling numbers and for most benchmarks
| you'll see poor scaling. Sure you can increase GPU
| performance by adding GPUs, which reduces (but not
| removes) the need for extra memory bandwidth. Sadly iGPUs
| (outside the XboxX and PS5) largely stink and are only
| good enough for non-GPU intensive workloads. Apple on the
| other hand does scale GPU performance, granted not to the
| levels that AMD and Nvidia do.
|
| So why can't anyone in the PC space do more memory
| bandwidth and a decent iGPU, especially when for years
| the GPUs were in short supply and had exorbitant prices.
| I think it does come down to OS support, volume (which
| could be problematic if current GPU customers avoid you),
| and potentially reducing profits for AMD (who would have
| sold an expensive external GPU). Not to mention that
| fast/wide ram requires soldering chips on board or
| increasing size/cost with large banks of ram. Even
| servers with 8 memory channels (minimum 8 dimms) only get
| you to the M1 pro level (1/2 of the m1 max and 1/4th of
| the m1 ultra).
|
| Apple can say we have X% of the market today, and all new
| customers will be on our new platform with 2 years, so
| the driver, OS, iGPU, memory bandwidth, etc will be
| amortized over substantial volumes. Additionally Apple
| gets a larger fraction of the revenue, since they aren't
| paying Nvidia or AMD for a GPU. Who is going to push a
| MBP or Apple studio competitor that could ship the same
| volumes?
| MBCook wrote:
| > what's the incentive for a chip manufacturer to put out
| a better ARM chip (eg comparable to the Apple M1)?
|
| Intel & AMD's consumer and/or server market share.
|
| I can't imagine going back to an Intel after an M1. The
| battery life is better. It's dead silent. It doesn't get
| warm. It's like a totally different kind of object.
|
| I know PC people (those who want Windows) aren't
| interested in an M1 Mac. That's fine.
|
| But I see PC laptop reviews with 4 or 6 or maybe 8 hours
| of battery life. They get hot but the fan isn't "too
| loud". And I know the performance isn't the same.
|
| And I just wish reviewers would call it out. They're not
| on the same level. I'm sure fanboys would complain about
| the comparison in every review, but why shouldn't Windows
| users have something much better? It's been proven
| possible. Hold AMD/Intel/Qualcomm to the fire more.
|
| If Qualcomm could get a chip with reasonable performance
| at a reasonable price that just doesn't get hot and waste
| all its battery playing space heater, I bet they could
| really get a hold on the laptop market.
| [deleted]
| eric-hu wrote:
| Proving your point, Amazon designed graviton, an ARM
| processor for their data centers.
| MBCook wrote:
| Data centers know power/heat is everything. I'm not
| surprised they're leading the way.
|
| But as a consumer you're stuck. You should have a machine
| with the performance of any normal/good laptop with _way_
| better thermals and battery life.
|
| I'm not sure what the Uber-high end laptop would look
| like but surely it would do better than today.
|
| The scale needs adjusting. What counts as "too hot", "too
| short battery life", "minimum performance."
|
| It all should have changed. But it didn't. The industry
| acts like Macs are magic and therefor incomparable. "Of
| course that Boeing goes faster, it's a jet engine plane.
| You can't compare that to our cars."
|
| They're both computers. It can be done. So why are
| Intel/AMD/Qualcomm getting off the hook to such a degree?
|
| I just don't understand it. It's almost like Stockholm
| Syndrome or something. "Intel is nice to us, who are we
| to complain?"
| whywhywhywhy wrote:
| >I'm okay with Microsoft failing at projects like this. We
| don't need another Apple-like presence on the market.
|
| Personally I'm not ok with being locked out of potential
| computing power by platform so I can't get excited as MS
| struggles to keep up.
|
| It's either MS keeps up or the future ahead is dark.
| derefr wrote:
| > It's either MS keeps up or the future ahead is dark.
|
| You say that as if Apple will become some sort of PC-market
| hegemon, driving consumers and professionals to use its
| proprietary ARM hardware and OS despite having traditional
| Windows- or Linux-based workflows, simply because Apple's
| ARM is _just so much faster_.
|
| Here's the third option: nobody cares what Apple is doing
| over in its corner of the PC market; the PC market remains
| an x86 market; and it continues to be driven by the needs
| of corporate buyers buying 1000+-part orders of PCs to
| outfit entire (non-IT!) businesses with; where those
| businesses don't care about having the fastest computer,
| but simply need "a" computer, with support and parts their
| internal IT department can swap out when needed; where the
| biggest factor driving purchases is TCO; and where TCO is
| driven down by commoditization and competition, not by
| vertical integration.
| kevinsundar wrote:
| This still misses a large risk for Microsoft. Business
| software is moving to web apps. The orders of 1000+ PCs
| you've described will be soon replaced by BYO personal
| devices (who's owners prefer vertical integration like
| Apple for ease of consumer use) and Chromebook esque
| devices which are even cheaper than traditional PCs for a
| business.
|
| Microsoft cannot keep doing what they are doing.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| _> Microsoft is generally bad at managing and marketing their
| hardware projects and coordinating with manufacturers and
| retail partners_
|
| X-Box would beg to differ since 2002.
| Wohlf wrote:
| Surface products as well.
| Kranar wrote:
| XBox is a great example of horrible mismanagement that cost
| Microsoft many billions of dollars, was almost abandoned,
| and went through a very rocky path to get to where it is
| today which is still frankly not that great of a position
| (it lags behind Switch and Playstation):
|
| https://www.shacknews.com/article/121384/last-one-at-the-
| tab...
|
| Don Mattrick almost tanked that entire product and it
| survives today because Phil Spencer miraculously managed to
| turn it around after all of the previous leadership was
| forced out of the company.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| _> XBox is a great example of horrible mismanagement that
| cost Microsoft many billions of dollars_
|
| Guess what, so was the first NES, and the first Play
| Station, the first Game Boy, etc. for their respective
| companies.
|
| Breaking into a new market, with a new product, in
| uncharted waters, with no prior experience, with no
| support from clueless executives who don't believe in the
| new product looking for any reason to stop you from
| burning cash, endless turf wars such large and expensive
| projects create, makes it is hard, brutally hard, for any
| company to succed on the first try.
|
| _> and went through a very rocky path_
|
| The Xbox 360 sold 85 million units, one of the best
| selling consoles of all time.
| 0x457 wrote:
| > The Xbox 360 sold 85 million units, one of the best
| selling consoles of all time.
|
| Define the best? It is 10th in a list of consoles that
| sold at least one million units. It sold less than
| console release later and went through even rockier path
| - PlayStation 3.
| Kranar wrote:
| The first NES and Playstation were MASSIVE successes for
| their respective companies, as was the Gameboy. In fact,
| the NES is credited with single handedly putting an end
| to the video game crash of 1983. The Gameboy sold out in
| a matter of weeks and Nintendo managed to sell every
| single Gameboy that it produced for the course of its
| first two years.
|
| Here's an article about how massive of a success the
| original NES and Gameboy were and how it revived Nintendo
| as a company:
|
| https://www.polygon.com/2019/4/19/18295061/game-boy-
| history-...
|
| I have no idea where you got the idea that any of those
| products were mismanaged or cost those companies enormous
| amounts of cash and in fact those specific examples are
| among the most successful product launches in video game
| history.
|
| >The Xbox 360 sold 85 million units, one of the best
| selling consoles of all time.
|
| The XBox 360 is the best selling console from Microsoft
| and ranks 9th among all consoles behind the Playstation,
| Playstation 2, Playstation 3, Playstation 4, Switch,
| Gameboy, and Wii.
|
| Read into that what you will.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| _> The first NES and Playstation were MASSIVE successes
| for their respective companies, as was the Gameboy._
|
| I never said they weren't successful, I said they were
| also mismanaged during development like you said about
| the xbox, because management at Nintendo did not believe
| in the product.
|
| _> I have no idea where you got the idea that any of
| those products were mismanaged _
|
| Documentaries and war stories on youtube rabit holes.
|
| _> in fact those specific examples are among the most
| successful product launches in video game history_
|
| Today it's easy to say that with hindsight, but before
| they were launched, during their development, many in the
| company did not believe in those projects would succeed
| at all, leading to many internal fights and turf wars.
|
| Also, Nintendo has a number of fuckups that bombed as
| well. Anyone remember the Virtualboy? Or the Wii-U?
| Gamecube also didn't sell too good.
|
| The only thing that moves Nintendo merch is their
| exclusive IP (Zelda, Mario, Pokemon, etc), as their HW
| products are mediocre at best both in technical
| capabilities and in quality.
| Kranar wrote:
| Can you please link to a Youtube video or article
| indicating that Nintendo management thought the Gameboy
| or NES would be a failure or that Sony thought that the
| Playstation would be a failure.
|
| I am looking at some quick sources that I can find, and
| it looks like the complete opposite, that the management
| at Nintendo was very eager to develop a home video game
| console based on the success of their arcade games. They
| believed in the NES so much that when Atari bailed on its
| partnership agreement with them (due in no small part to
| the video game crash of 83), they went ahead and decided
| to do it alone.
|
| Here is an article that was posted to HN awhile back that
| does a very deep dive into the development of the NES.
| It's an excerpt from the book "Console Wars" and it does
| not paint a picture at all like the one you're
| suggesting:
|
| http://grantland.com/features/the-rise-of-nintendo-video-
| gam...
|
| A relevant quote is:
|
| "Yamauchi wanted Nintendo to aggressively get into the
| videogame business, which was really two separate
| businesses: home consoles and coin-operated arcade games.
| He saw the potential in these industries and took the
| necessary steps for Nintendo to enter both."
|
| As an FYI, Yamauchi was the President of Nintendo.
| wmf wrote:
| The solution to chicken-or-egg problems is known: you spend
| money to just overpower the problem. But MS and Qualcomm
| aren't doing that; they're half-assing their ARM hardware to
| save a little money.
| arglebargle123 wrote:
| Does Qualcomm actually need to whole-ass a solution though?
| They're making gobs of money on mobile SoCs, any additional
| market for these chips is just gravy. Microsoft is the
| party that stands to really gain from a successful x86
| alternative here but they don't seem like they're willing
| to pony up Apple or Google money to design their own chips
| yet.
| JAlexoid wrote:
| Qualcomm's value proposition isn't the chip itself. It's
| the package, that includes the baseband.
| wmf wrote:
| Qualcomm is fully capable of building an SoC with eight
| X2 or X3 cores, for example, if MS is willing to pay for
| it. I think it's on MS that they didn't set higher
| performance goals for Qualcomm. Nvidia can also design
| good ARM chips (see Orin) but MS went and got married to
| Qualcomm (never do this!) so they can't use them.
| GeekyBear wrote:
| Yup.
|
| Compare this to Apple's $499 ARM Dev test kit that you
| could return for a $200 credit.
|
| If Microsoft is serious about ARM, they need a very low
| barrier of entry for those willing to port their software.
| [deleted]
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| Apple's ace card is that they bought PA Semi and have a
| competent team to pull off what Qualcomm apparently can't.
| wyldfire wrote:
| Well, the Nuvia acquisition seems to indicate that at
| least Qualcomm _wants to_. might be some generations
| before we see their designs.
| mrkstu wrote:
| Except for the fact ARM is suing them to prevent using
| any of the Nuvia tech in their chips, since the license
| terms with ARM didn't convey with the purchase.
|
| There is a good chance they get on the verge of shipping
| and find they can't actually sell any of their new
| chips...
|
| https://www.axios.com/2022/09/06/arm-qualcomm-nuvia-chip-
| gia...
| 0x457 wrote:
| Lol, Qualcomm is Oracle of hardware world. Buying a
| company is a no way an indicator that they want to do
| anything. They haven't delivered a good SoC since Apple
| released A7.
| pdntspa wrote:
| > . But there is some sense to trying to lay the groundwork
| for future ARM SoCs running Windows.
|
| They've been doing exactly that since Windows 8, if not
| earlier. Perhaps the Year of Windows on ARM is somewhere
| around the corner from the Year of the Linux Desktop
|
| I think we are on the ... third? ... attention cycle for
| this? Because they were trying pretty hard when W10 dropped
| too
| ethbr0 wrote:
| The year of Linux-on-Windows-on-ARM Desktop.
| Damogran6 wrote:
| In a way, it's not much different than when they were porting
| Windows NT to Dec ALPHA. (But I suspect ARM has legs, where
| Alpha didn't)
| MBCook wrote:
| Didn't NT actually start on the Alpha and end up with x86
| becoming a co-platform (and later main platform) during
| development?
| msoad wrote:
| Let's not forget that Microsoft did not put in the work to
| optimize for Arm like Apple did.
| neogodless wrote:
| At least according to this related blog post[0] (and
| submission[1]), they've put in work, albeit not as thorough
| and effective as Rosetta 2.
|
| > To boost performance, we have added vendor-specific
| optimizations so your apps run well on a variety of Arm
| hardware. We have several runtime improvements to targeting
| server throughput (RPS) and latency.
|
| Seems largely focused on .NET 7 though[2].
|
| [0] https://blogs.windows.com/windowsdeveloper/2022/10/24/ava
| ila...
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33319535
|
| [2] https://devblogs.microsoft.com/dotnet/arm64-performance-
| impr...
| bpye wrote:
| Windows 11 can run AMD64 applications on ARM64 through a
| JIT, similar to how Rosetta operates [0]. I don't know if
| anyone has tried to compare them in benchmarks though.
|
| [0] - https://blogs.windows.com/windows-
| insider/2020/12/10/introdu...
| rr888 wrote:
| Firstly its a dev kit, not a retail product.
|
| But most people only need a browser and maybe a few simple
| products anyway. A phone SoC is probably enough.
| 1123581321 wrote:
| The Apple dev kit was about two thirds the speed of an Intel
| Mac Mini. Microsoft or Qualcomm hasn't shown us what their
| production PC Arm chip will look like.
| wmf wrote:
| Production ARM Surfaces have been out for a while; they have
| lower specs than this dev kit.
| 1123581321 wrote:
| I assume this dev kit is leading up to an announcement of
| significantly more performant PC hardware. If I'm mistaken,
| that's disappointing.
| [deleted]
| kcb wrote:
| 8cx gen 3 is definitely faster multicore and about the same
| singlecore. The 8cx chips also have a wider memory bus and
| pretty massive GPU in comparison the the mobile parts. Looks
| like also far better cooling than a phone or thin and light
| laptop here as well.
| Spivak wrote:
| Yeah I don't know what the parent is talking about Gen 3 is
| lightyears ahead of Gen 1 of this line of chips. Passmark has
| it at 4k for Gen 1 and 11k for Gen 3.
| awill wrote:
| If you're referring to my comment, I'm not comparing the
| 8cx gen 3 to 8cx gen1, I'm comparing 8cx gen 3 (this
| desktop/laptop chip) to 8 gen 1 (QCOMM's flagship phone
| SoC).
|
| As I said in my comment, QCOMM's naming sucks. cx is their
| desktop/laptop line. They have no designation for their
| phone line, so the confusion isn't surprising.
| wongarsu wrote:
| A Mac mini with otherwise comparable specs (32GB RAM, 512GB
| SSD) is nearly three times as expensive as this Microsoft
| machine. I don't think it's fair to expect a CPU that beats the
| M1 or phones that cost more than $599.
| sliken wrote:
| M1 has 4 high performance cores called firestorm, and 4 energy
| efficient cores called icestorm. Same cores that are in the A14
| which is in the Iphone 12.
|
| Since then the A15 came out with some efficiency and
| performance improvements, it's in the M2 IPad and M2 MBA and
| presumably several future apple products.
|
| The A16 has some efficiency and perfomance tweaks and is what's
| in the recently released iPhone 14 Pro and Pro Max.
|
| So sure, the M1 in the M1 mac mini might have more power,
| cooling, and cores than the iPhone 14 pro, but the cores are
| actually slower at the same clock. Sure a phone will hit
| thermal limits sooner than a SFF PC.
| Meph504 wrote:
| It is a dev kit, for preview, I'm guessing them going with
| cheaper, available, to get software builts out that perform on
| shit hardware, is better than developer on better than consumer
| grade equipment only to have the applications choke when
| consumers have it.
|
| I admit I'm disappointed in the showing, and I think that
| Microsoft not loosing out on this market is important to them.
| I'd be willing to be bet 2nd gen of this will likely be
| produced by a 3rd party vendor.
| mrweasel wrote:
| Exactly. Apple have the advantage of being able to tell
| consumers that if they want a new Mac, then they get no choice.
| They'll have to buy an M1 or M2. Despite of this Apple knew
| that M-series computers needed to be better than the previous
| Intel lineup, and noticeable so.
|
| An ARM based Windows computer isn't a bad idea, I just question
| if Microsoft is able to deliver on it. Picking the same
| manufacturer, who repeatably failed to deliver usable ARM
| processors for desktop and laptops seem like a obvious mistake.
| This isn't their first attempt either, so why would I trust
| that this won't fail, like the last time? Apple had done this
| before an architecture transition before, Microsoft haven't,
| and I doubt they have the will to ensure that it will succeed.
| They are too tied up in the x86 world, too busy with Azure and
| they don't have the attention of the consumer market.
|
| In terms of price, it's really close to the Mac mini. Factor in
| performance, then this thing is a bad deal.
|
| The form factor is right for many uses, but I don't get who the
| potential buyers are.
| lostgame wrote:
| >> An ARM based Windows computer isn't a bad idea, I just
| question if Microsoft is able to deliver on it.
|
| Microsoft has _already_ executed and brutally failed with ARM
| in the form of the disastrous Surface RT /Windows RT.
|
| But, and more importantly.
|
| Two people with unlimited resources are running a race car
| race.
|
| One starts a year or two before the other. Even with
| unlimited resources; the other racer/team has unlimited
| resources, too.
|
| So let's say they can both reach a maximum of the speed of
| sound.
|
| Apple's already been going the speed of sound for a couple
| years now; they also have the advantage that their vehicle in
| the race has software and hardware that are married.
|
| Microsoft is not only nowhere near the speed of sound, but
| even though they also have unlimited resources; they are
| severely hampered by separate hardware and software, with the
| exclusion of their surface tablets, whose previous
| incarnation of this race car model crashed and burned on the
| race track.
|
| This isn't a race where MS can or will catch up. They're
| already years behind. Not that I encourage anyone to use an
| OS with built-in ads anyway. Just use Linux at that point.
| kstrauser wrote:
| If MS showed up with a backward compatibility layer as good
| as Apple's Rosetta, they'd instantly be a strong
| competitor. Maybe not for gaming systems or high-end
| workstations -- at least not immediately -- but in the huge
| space of people who want a battery sipping laptop with
| access to a vast amount of software they're already using.
| csydas wrote:
| I don't think MS needs to push this if they want to
| succeed, they need to start making a consumer friendly
| machine that Windows runs fantastically on.
|
| For an "acceptable" laptop, the price point is already
| pretty close to $1000, and before I would have a
| tentative recommendation of MacBooks/Macbook Airs because
| of the learning curve of MacOS. With M1/M2 and how much
| better it is than anything else on the consumer market, I
| openly recommend it to anyone in the market for a new
| consumer machine. Gaming isn't even that much of an issue
| anymore, so for casual players it's pretty fine.
|
| I was discussing this with a colleague last night, but
| the M1/M2 chips and complimentary hardware let Apple do
| some amazing stuff out of the box without adjustment that
| Windows simply has no answer for. The integration of the
| complimentary hardware with the M1/M2 chips is so strong
| that I stumbled onto features I completely missed
| announcements on, and it legitimately "wow'd" me.
|
| - Live Text caught me off-guard while drag/drop-ing an
| image to a chat app. I couldn't stop testing its limits
| and reading the dev docs
|
| - I took surprise calls from really crowded + noisy
| places and was in disbelief that my call partners
| couldn't hear anything but my voice in crystal clear
| quality
|
| - I ran games and software that just weren't possible on
| Intel Macs through Rosetta at pretty fine FPS/quality
| without incident
|
| - I didn't need to change a single program from my
| workflow
|
| Microsoft can likely do the same but they need to put the
| legwork in to make it happen. Personally I understand
| they have no interest in this and it makes sense -- they
| want you on Azure with your server workloads and this
| keeps the lights on at Microsoft, and as best I know the
| consumer market (not considering gaming) still favors
| Windows. But I guess that's why projects like this
| confuse me a lot since it must be a pretty substantial
| RND and manufacturing cost, neverminding advertising, but
| Microsoft doesn't seem to have their heart in it.
|
| It's not about backwards compatibility - consumers don't
| need to keep Windows 3.0 apps running, not a
| statistically significant portion anyways, they just need
| modern apps to run fast and well, long battery life on
| portable devices, quiet machines, and that's it, but
| seems that this just isn't something Microsoft is
| interested in taking over.
|
| I really can't think of Windows features in decades that
| "wow" so much as you just know what you get with Windows
| regardless of the version in terms of basic features;
| what worked on Windows XP probably works on Windows 11,
| but even that is starting to erode in a slow and painful
| way. There are quite a few programs on Windows I get the
| impression that Microsoft just doesn't want me to be
| running, but things like the Windows Store, Windows'
| implementation of security for unsigned apps, etc, these
| all feel like Microsoft isn't confident enough to fully
| invest into these new features or to drop them in order
| to advance.
|
| Microsoft definitely has the talent and cash reserves to
| pursue a strong consumer laptop to compete with Apple;
| for whatever reason, they don't seem to have the interest
| though for consumer devices. Probably the simplest reason
| is the server market is theirs and this is plenty of
| money, but I just can't get why they continue with such
| forays then.
|
| Edit: just elaborated on price point for consumer laptops
| and recommending machines.
| mmis1000 wrote:
| I think the primary reason that windows rt failed totally
| is no software can run on it at all. Not only you can't run
| x86 software. You can't even download random executable and
| run it. It is basically killed by ms itself. It is always a
| mystery to me that why ms would expect user to buy a device
| that nearly run nothing.
|
| It looks like they want to address this. But I wonder if
| they will succeed this time.
| qball wrote:
| >It is always a mystery to me that why ms would expect
| user to buy a device that nearly run nothing.
|
| Because at the end of the day, Windows RT was a creature
| born of greed. They saw dollar signs- Apple's 30% App
| Store cut- and as such wanted a machine that forced you
| to buy software only from them. There was no technical
| reason that normal software couldn't run on Windows RT,
| given that MS themselves did it with Office.
|
| So confident were they that this would work that they
| threw the tablet features onto Windows 8 proper,
| relegating the reason people buy computers to a secondary
| function- after all, paying MS for the privilege of
| developing software was going to be the New Way forward.
| Besides, don't you want security?
| kitsunesoba wrote:
| I'll be curious to see benchmarks but it would be funny if
| Windows for ARM running in Parallels on an M1 MacBook Air ends
| up being a better dev machine than an official Windows for ARM
| dev box produced by Microsoft.
| lostgame wrote:
| I hadn't thought of that - but holy shit; I'd put money on
| that being the case. How embarrassing.
| caycep wrote:
| on Vmware fusion tech preview...can't say I've pushed its
| performance, but it is really quite smooth so far...
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| So the big question... Can it run Linux?
| jenscow wrote:
| Of course, but the real question is: can it run Windows?
| bluescrn wrote:
| Or: can it run unsigned code?
| sedatk wrote:
| Or: will it blend?
| generj wrote:
| For a developer focused machine? Nearly certainly.
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| I have mixed feelings about how successful this will be. The 32GB
| of RAM is really cool for the price - but 8cx Gen 3 is still no
| M1. It's still significantly slower than an 11th Gen laptop Core
| i5. Probably not super fun to develop on, even if serviceable -
| but considering nobody has cared about Windows on ARM to this
| point, why would you spend $599 to suddenly care about it, when
| WoA has far less than 1% of Windows PC marketshare?
|
| Because Microsoft says it's the future? Microsoft is the worst at
| these promises. That's what they said about Windows 8, then
| Windows RT, the Windows Phone, the Windows Phone 8 platform,
| Windows 10 Mobile, UWP in General, the Windows Store, the
| relaunched Windows Store, Windows on ARM years ago, Project
| Reunion with XAML islands, Windows 10 S, Windows 10 X, Desktop
| Converter Bridge, the iOS Converter Bridge... I suppose they kept
| their promises with DirectX and that kind of thing. Right now,
| developer apathy for Windows is nearly insurmountable, and has
| been for the last decade, and Microsoft's constant changing of
| directions does not instill confidence.
|
| https://www.androidauthority.com/snapdragon-8cx-gen-3-intel-...
| [deleted]
| sedatk wrote:
| On the other hand, Microsoft had spot on bets on operating
| systems, Internet, 64-bit, cloud, gaming consoles, managed
| runtimes, programming languages, high-end consumer PCs, Linux
| integration, and open source (albeit late).
|
| Yes, they might have dropped the ball on more than one thing.
| You're especially right about Windows app ecosystem today, but
| it's not like Microsoft is constantly failing. They're doing
| phenomenal job on many fronts. They're certainly not that easy
| to write off.
| lostmsu wrote:
| Windows Store and Desktop Bridge work though. You are right
| about everything else.
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| Yes... and no. The Windows Store works way better now than it
| used to, back in 2015. Now it's finally serviceable, but it's
| still loaded with junk that makes the iOS App Store look
| well-maintained. Discoverability is still poor (better than
| it used to be), and the number of people actually using it
| also remains low. So... it works, but it was hardly the
| future of app distribution on Windows.
|
| As for the Desktop Converter, it's in the same boat. For the
| first few years, all it was, was a pile of PowerShell
| scripts. No GUI, mediocre documentation, run a pile of
| scripts to package your app for a Store almost nobody uses.
| Also the command to package the app requires Windows 10 Pro
| and, like, 30 command-line arguments that had to be _perfect_
| in order to work. Now it has a GUI, and more people use the
| Store than before, but the Store has abandoned the need to
| use it and now allows just directly downloading unpackaged
| Exes, rendering it mostly pointless.
| syntaxing wrote:
| I get it's way harder for Windows but they failed the first time
| but Apple succeeded because they went all in for the M1. Windows
| ARM is doomed to fail with such fragmentation.
| cylinder714 wrote:
| I'm stoked to see this as it's one more platform that can run
| OpenBSD 7.2. From the release announcement last week
| (https://www.openbsd.org/72.html): New/extended
| platforms: - Added support for Ampere Altra
| - Added support for Apple M2 - Added support for Lenovo
| ThinkPad x13s and other machines using the
| Qualcomm Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3 (SC8280XP) SoC.
| aliqot wrote:
| I want to be on OpenBSD so bad but support is not the same as
| full support. There are still issues like battery life, GPU,
| etc. AFAIK everything still happens on the CPU, which increases
| battery draw.
| DeathArrow wrote:
| This device uses UEFI or U-BOOT?
| bpye wrote:
| UEFI
| bitL wrote:
| Maybe I am missing the point, but why wouldn't you rather buy a
| NUC instead of this slow box? I get it MS wants to be like Apple,
| meticulously copying anything that pops up there, but their brand
| is associated with different "experiences" and their main value
| lies in backwards compatibility and open hardware ecosystem.
| kcb wrote:
| I doubt this is going to feel slow in actual use. You've got 8
| big arm cores with a lot of memory, fast storage, and active
| cooling.
| jyrkesh wrote:
| Having worked with Windows on ARM in the past, I _hope_
| you're right. But my experience has been that a ton of code
| is still going through the x86 emulation layer, which IMO is
| woefully lacking in performance, particularly compared to
| Apple's Rosetta 2 (which is a magical marvel of engineering).
| MikusR wrote:
| Rosetta feels fast because apple m cpus are about twice as
| fast as qualcom ones
| nebula8804 wrote:
| I learned this lesson the hard way during the AMD Phenom era.
| Core count are not a good representation of performance
| because the 8 "big" cores could be blazing fast or be
| secretly powered by a hamster on a wheel. What is the actual
| benchmark performance on real applications you might use?
| Thats what matters at the end of the day.
| seanp2k2 wrote:
| There are already other machines with 8cx Gen3 CPUs on
| Geekbench if you want to compare: https://browser.geekbench
| .com/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=8cx+ge... it's like a third
| slower than an M1 Max in single-core.
| znpy wrote:
| Because nucs are not arm-based.
| ykl wrote:
| The point of this is that it's an Windows-on-ARM devkit; you
| can't buy a ARM NUC that'll run Windows AFAIK (Intel doesn't
| make ARM machines), and you can't test ARM software natively on
| an x86-64 NUC.
| dblooman wrote:
| meticulously? What is it that Microsoft has really copied in
| the last five years?
| [deleted]
| crooked-v wrote:
| Because Intel performance per watt sucks compared to the
| competition, mostly.
| IceWreck wrote:
| I want to install Linux on one of these and use it as a low power
| consumption home server.
| mackal wrote:
| Secure boot is going to be forced on.
| sedatk wrote:
| which Linux can run on perfectly fine.
| vetinari wrote:
| Depends if it will enforce Windows' CA only, or if it will
| trust UEFI 3rd party CA too. See also "Secured-core PCs".
| Scharkenberg wrote:
| Despite much FUD spread in Linux nerd circles online,
| Linux can run just fine on it.
| piperswe wrote:
| Same here - with 32GB of RAM I could easily replace my main
| home server (which runs NixOS, so I can easily just rebuild the
| system for aarch64). I wonder how quickly people will get Linux
| running on these...
| whalesalad wrote:
| The M1 can run Asahi Linux, which I imagine is going to
| outperform this.
| https://www.androidauthority.com/snapdragon-8cx-
| gen-3-intel-...
| [deleted]
| radicaldreamer wrote:
| Exactly, this is priced very similarly to the Mac Mini with
| M1 (soon to be updated to use an M2) and can already run
| Linux fairly well.
| jbverschoor wrote:
| It looks like a macmini
| dihydro wrote:
| Mac Mini has no option for 32GB of RAM, and with 512GB of
| SSD storage is $899. How is that similar in price to
| $599?
| Tomte wrote:
| There are two nines. Pretty similar, I'd say.
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| Performing a substring comparison on integers isn't a
| useful operation.
| PaulWaldman wrote:
| I wouldn't say the pricing is similar. This retails at
| $599 with 32GB of RAM. The Mac mini is $1,199 with 16GB
| of RAM.
|
| edit: Was off on pricing of the Mac mini by $100.
| nick88msn wrote:
| From what MS says you cannot do it out of the box.
| my123 wrote:
| You'll need to wait a bit until a new device tree comes for
| these devices. Given that support for the ThinkPad X13s with
| the same SoC is coming along... going to happen pretty soon.
| FeistySkink wrote:
| Which things currently work and don't with X13s?
| mdaniel wrote:
| For others similarly interested, it turns out "X13s" is not
| "multiple X13 models" but rather "X13s" is the model
| number: https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/p/laptops/thinkpad/thi
| nkpadx/th... and is currently listed at USD$995 for "Gen 1"
| and all the way up to USD$1570 for the high end
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| I don't know why you would buy one, even if it were available,
| unless power-efficiency was a crucial component for a server.
| Can you imagine what you could get, on eBay, in a small form
| factor, for $600?
|
| I made off with a i3-8100T (about 3/4s as powerful, 35W TDP),
| with 16GB of RAM, and a 256GB SSD in an ultra-small-form-factor
| case for less than $150. For $600, it makes absolutely no sense
| against anything used. Let's say it drew 50W vs 20W total use
| at 10 cents per KWh. It would take 5 years to save $130, if you
| ran it 24/7/365. A $450 used Intel small-form-factor system
| would run circles around it in performance (especially after
| any emulation / code conversion) and you'd break even.
| megous wrote:
| More like 30-50c
|
| https://www.eex.com/en/market-
| data/power/futures#%7B%22snipp...
|
| Anything power hungry gets really expensive quickly for home
| use, these days.
| alias_neo wrote:
| Imagine for a second there are other countries in the world.
|
| Now let's say in Europe, just one of them was called "The
| United Kingdom", where after a recent (temporary) energy
| price cap, electricity prices rose to _only_ 36p/kWh (41
| cents US at current rates), and further rise are expected,
| and the cap had an end, bringing us potentially to double the
| current uni rate, then do the maths again and see why it
| might be a "crucial" component for many.
|
| Running old, cheap hardware with high power usage has been
| impractical here and many other parts of the world for quite
| some time and that was before recent disastrous rises.
| AshamedCaptain wrote:
| Problem is, we are not talking about 10 year old hardware.
| I find it sadly more likely that hardware from 5 years ago
| will consume less than hardware from a couple months ago. I
| myself have an x86 atom where the entire system can idle at
| <2W, which is no easy feat unless you start reusing phone
| hardware...
| rr888 wrote:
| I was going to say you should just use a raspberry pi, but you
| can't get those any more anyway. :)
| AshamedCaptain wrote:
| And RPIs are not very good regarding power consumption,
| neither idle power nor efficiency.
| kcb wrote:
| Snapdragon chips have pretty good Linux support. And the GPU
| driver is in a good state with Freedreno for desktop use. So
| probably a decent chance of it being functional shortly.
| mhd wrote:
| I wouldn't mind MS hardware if it were designed by the people who
| did the first Natural Keyboard or the Intellimouse...
| jmrm wrote:
| This is pretty interesting. I'm just imaging a future with
| inexpensive Windows ARM machines, passively-cooled, and running
| in most of the offices of your country.
|
| With most of the important Microsoft software already compiled to
| ARM, and with those kits available to developers to do compile
| theirs at a competitive price, I won't doubt that future could be
| possible.
| layer8 wrote:
| There are huge amounts of existing x86 software in use,
| including Office add-ins, Explorer extensions, and COM
| dependencies in general, that won't be recompiled to ARM. The
| only way ARM would take over is if compatibility with existing
| binaries is maintained (which is very difficult if not
| impossible for x86 DLLs within ARM-based applications), and if
| their execution remains sufficiently performant.
| mmis1000 wrote:
| Microsoft takes years to develop their own version of rosetta
| after the fail of Windows rt. And I think you are already
| able to use it now, you can already run x86 on Windows on arm
| vm on mac(m1).
|
| Just wondering the performance when running it on the dev kit
| they sell now.
| layer8 wrote:
| You can run a self-contained x86 application and self-
| contained ARM applications, but you can't integrate between
| ARM applications and x86 in-process components (DLLs etc.),
| and such integration is how a lot of things work in
| practice on Windows. Converting an x86 application to ARM
| means losing those integrations, and that is a major hurdle
| to adoption.
| MikusR wrote:
| https://devblogs.microsoft.com/windows-music-
| dev/load-x64-pl...
| moffkalast wrote:
| Ah yes, the Microsoft NUC.
| SllX wrote:
| Intel might take exception since it was supposed to be their
| thing for their ISA, but you know what? "Next Unit of
| Computing" is a _lot_ more apt here, at least from a Redmond
| perspective.
| Spivak wrote:
| I'm glad there's more serious competition in this space. And
| apparently I'm not alone in this opinion.
|
| From 2018: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17783924
|
| > Oddly, what I'd really like to see is ARM enter the NUC
| space. Maybe I'm the only one, but I'd like be able to pay
| $200-400 for a small, low power usage, decently performant
| machine. The 8th generation Intel NUC are good, but 28W TDP and
| it'd be nice to get it much, much lower than that. I know these
| are a small fraction of the overall market but personally I
| think it'd be cool.
|
| Once you want something more powerful than Raspberry Pi or a
| board based on a mobile SoC your options whittle down
| considerably. There are "mini/micro" PCs but they don't touch
| the lack of power consumption.
| moffkalast wrote:
| Well for what it's worth, Synology makes some ARM powered
| NASes. But I suppose those fall under the mobile SoC
| category.
| Spivak wrote:
| I've always been tempted by them but the price per compute
| power never got to the point where I wanted to pull the
| trigger. I don't fault them at all for their design
| choices, they make complete sense, but I wanted the box to
| be more compute/memory heavy.
| hedora wrote:
| For me, Synology is the remaining niche where Intel is
| still competitive.
|
| Whoops. Never mind; they have an AMD Ryzen model now:
| https://www.synology.com/en-
| us/company/news/article/DS1621_P...
| jeffbee wrote:
| You'd _think_ the actual NUC would be the ultimate perfect
| WinTel machine--I mean, it 's right there in the name!-but I
| can't even get the Windows installer to boot my NUC.
| dihydro wrote:
| If the ethernet port doesn't support multigigabit Ethernet, that
| is a shame. WiFi 6 is great, but we need more development,
| deployment, and support of multigigabit ethernet for corporate
| and enterprise customers!
| faeriechangling wrote:
| There's little point to such a feature for the intended use
| case, which is just to run some VMs to test builds on. At $600
| with 32gb of ram multi-gig is asking a little much.
| megous wrote:
| Not it's not, even $150 SBCs like odroid-h3 can have 2x
| 2.5gbit ethernet ports.
|
| For server usecase this is very unbalanced as far as
| connectivity goes. Say you want to use the modem or wifi for
| internet access. Modem gives you 5gbit/s and you'll get out
| to your network just 1gbit. Wasteful, and it needlessly
| limits the opportnities.
| kcb wrote:
| You can put a 2.5gbe adapter on the USB ports I guess.
| megous wrote:
| That would likely be stretching the USB interface to the
| limit. Ethernet is full-duplex, USB is not.
|
| Also this SoC doesn't even seem to have proper publicly
| available datasheet, and whatever marketing stuff qcom
| has on their website doesn't list USB at all, lol. So for
| all I care it can have just one host controller. Not
| interested in SoC with no datasheets, when it's not
| possible to answer basic questions about the SoC, like
| how many USB host controllers it has...
| atarian wrote:
| I have a feeling that Microsoft is eventually going to follow
| Apple's playbook and completely exit the desktop OS business to
| focus on their own line of products.
| sangnoir wrote:
| Their current strategy is the opposite of what you stated: it
| is to ensure MS software and services run on every imaginable
| product, including those made by others, including competitors.
| Hence XBox pass, VS Code / Edge on Linux, Office 360 on
| iOS/Android, etc.
| kristianp wrote:
| I'm surprised at the price for a 32GB RAM device. I'm tempted to
| get one just to double the ram of my desktop, despite probably
| being slower than my i7-3770. It might be a good platform to work
| on Scalable Vector Extensions (SVE) code without needing to rent
| a Graviton from AWS.
|
| Anandtech about the cpu:
| https://www.anandtech.com/show/17127/qualcomms-8cx-gen-3-for...
|
| Some info about the ARMv8.2-A Architecture (2017):
| https://community.arm.com/arm-community-blogs/b/architecture...
| whalesalad wrote:
| Funny, I have an i7-3770K as my gaming rig and to this day
| still play Warzone regularly on it. Such a workhorse for being
| 10 years old.
| dtx1 wrote:
| And here's the difference between Microsoft and Apple: When Apple
| switches to ARM, people believe them. When Microsoft switches to
| arm, people ignore them. Why? Because Microsoft only ever half-
| asses such changes (see the terrible SOC in this).
| MBCook wrote:
| Well when the M1 came out it was _dramatically_ better than
| everything else available to Mac users outside some small use-
| cases (like Mac Pro + multi-GPU).
|
| People would have mostly wanted it anyway.
|
| That doesn't seem to be the case with this hardware.
| indrora wrote:
| They have no better choice. Name me, today, a desktop class ARM
| SoC that isn't made by Apple and represents the median
| performance band of the class.
|
| Fundamentally, ARM Holdings is what Antitrust legislation was
| supposed to break down. They own the "ARM" name and control who
| can license the ARM IP and most importantly, _how_.
|
| Ampere, the folks behind a lot of ARM servers, are by contract
| barred from getting into the market of making ARM chips for
| phones, desktops, or otherwise. That's the form of their
| license: Server-grade 96-core behemoths running at 3+Ghz and
| with the thermal output of a small space heater.
|
| ARM holdings sets all sorts of weird restrictions and _forces_
| market segmentation to make sure that nobody "Accidentally"
| makes something that they don't immediately approve of.
| Qualcomm is basically locked into making phone SoCs for all
| eternity until they renegotiate their license with ARM
| holdings. They're in a shit situation because they have
| competition all over the place (Allwinner, Rockchip, a legacy
| Intel series, NXP, and Samsung to name a few), letting
| ARMHoldings bully them into not making something that rocks the
| boat too hard.
|
| Apple pulled a massive show of force in making ARM license them
| desktop grade chips. You see, Apple has been a license holder
| for ARM for a bit now (with the Ax series chips) and makes up,
| ballpark, 15% of worldwide phones and now >50% of US phones.
| Apple had already idly said "we could... you know, not use an
| integrated solution" when they fiddled with Intel's radio
| baseband.
|
| For ARM to try and sue Apple for breach of contract for
| developing the Mx series of desktop class ARM processors and
| get away with it, they'd be putting their market share
| dominance in four different major markets at risk. Qualcomm
| can't do that.
|
| So that leaves Microsoft, who does not want to get into the
| processor fabrication business and who is still reeling over
| the antitrust lawsuit 20 years ago (which, I'll point out, was
| mostly over a _shared text mangling library_ , for what it's
| worth) out in the dust looking for options, and the option they
| get is "Whatever Qualcomm will ship them."
| IceWreck wrote:
| > Apple pulled a massive show of force in making ARM license
| them desktop grade chips
|
| Afaik Apple has an Architecture License which means they can
| do anything they want. They were one of the companies who co-
| founded ARM.
| tiahura wrote:
| The architecture license was acquired in 2008.
|
| Is there any evidence that anyone has been refused a license
| to develop a desktop arm cpu?
| Macha wrote:
| > grade 96-core behemoths running at 3+Ghz and with the
| thermal output of a small space heater.
|
| I mean, have you seen some of the latest desktop-grade
| hardware? I have had space heaters with less heat output than
| a 4090 at full tilt.
| blibble wrote:
| > Apple pulled a massive show of force in making ARM license
| them desktop grade chips. You see, Apple has been a license
| holder for ARM for a bit now
|
| apple was part of the original ARM joint venture and gave it
| its initial capital
|
| it's been there since day 0
| kitsunesoba wrote:
| > Apple pulled a massive show of force in making ARM license
| them desktop grade chips. You see, Apple has been a license
| holder for ARM for a bit now (with the Ax series chips) and
| makes up, ballpark, 15% of worldwide phones and now >50% of
| US phones. Apple had already idly said "we could... you know,
| not use an integrated solution" when they fiddled with
| Intel's radio baseband.
|
| > For ARM to try and sue Apple for breach of contract for
| developing the Mx series of desktop class ARM processors and
| get away with it, they'd be putting their market share
| dominance in four different major markets at risk.
|
| As I understand, Apple has a special license with a lot more
| leeway than those held by other companies thanks to Apple
| having been one of ARM's founders[0], so they may not have
| had to do any negotiations at all since they had the rights
| from the get-go.
|
| [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arm_(company)#Founding
| dtx1 wrote:
| Let me play my tiny violin for the Gigacorporation Microsoft
| that was so unfairly treated by ARM that they just had to
| take "Whatever Qualcomm will ship them". Poor Multi Billion
| Dollar, they never had a chance to compete on a fair playing
| ground.
|
| Nah, this is just organizational incompetence. The same
| reason we got cortana, windows 8 or adds in the start bar.
| rchaud wrote:
| I think another considerable difference is that Windows global
| footprint is 10x that of MacOS, so Microsoft has to keep both
| backwards compatibility and OEM's production plans in mind.
|
| There is nothing for people to believe or not believe. MS
| cannot cannot discontinue x86 overnight because their OS is
| used by a much larger proportion of the world.
| dtx1 wrote:
| > There is nothing for people to believe or not believe. MS
| cannot cannot discontinue x86 overnight because their OS is
| used by a much larger proportion of the world.
|
| Apple managed a competent compatibility layer, albeit with
| some special sauce in the SOC to make it fast. Is that too
| much to ask from Microsoft?
| rchaud wrote:
| Yes, maybe it is too much to ask.
|
| Windows is a general purpose OS, which is why it dominates
| two enormous markets: business software and games software.
| Microsoft will usually err on the side of developers
| because of this. The two companies' philosophies will of
| course be different.
|
| If MacOS had similar mindshare in those markets, Mac
| developers would probably ask Apple to avoid overnight
| changes like the discontinuation of x86 Macs.
|
| MS still provides security updates for Windows 7 despite
| its EOL occurring nearly 3 years ago. This is because many
| organizations still run critical software that they cannot
| shift away from, for whatever reason. Apple doesn't have to
| do that because no hospital or airport is running their
| logistics on MacOS.
|
| Even with all this baggage, Windows on ARM has been
| available in some form since 2012's Surface RT.
| tmikaeld wrote:
| So, "everyone" is switching to ARM now?
| Kye wrote:
| Microsoft was there first, but handled it so poorly it got
| memory holed.
|
| edit: I forgot about the A in ARM.
| SllX wrote:
| Nah, Acorn was first.
| moffkalast wrote:
| It cost them an ARM and a leg.
| chasil wrote:
| I think the Newton was the first major use of the
| architecture outside the Acorn Archimedes.
|
| "...an advanced, low-power processor was needed for
| sophisticated graphics manipulation. He found Hermann Hauser,
| who had developed the Acorn RISC Machine that utilized what
| became known as the ARM architecture, and put together
| Advanced RISC Machines, now Arm Ltd."
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Newton
|
| Around this time, DEC also chose to implement their
| StrongARM, so that pushed into embedded.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StrongARM
| [deleted]
| throwntoday wrote:
| Take a look at what Apple is doing today to find out what the
| industry is doing in a year or two.
| MBCook wrote:
| Apple seems to be a lot more than 2 years ahead.
|
| The M1 was November 2020. That's two years ago, give or take
| a few weeks.
|
| There is nothing close to the M1 available for a Windows ARM
| computer. There is nothing close from Intel/AMD if you just
| want an ultra-low power chip with very good performance.
| counttheforks wrote:
| Break the build tools for their cash cow about once a month,
| and forbid anyone from developing for it without spending
| thousands of dollars on new hardware?
| karamanolev wrote:
| Seems to be working out for them alright. I'd love to make
| fun of them for similar reasons, but look at market, and
| more importantly, mind, share...
| jccalhoun wrote:
| Windows has been on ARM since 2012
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_RT
| chasil wrote:
| Windows CE was actually on it long before this.
|
| The original launch of CE was on MIPS and Super-H, but ARM
| appears to have gained support with Windows CE version
| 2.2.0.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Embedded_Compact
| tomcam wrote:
| Haven't bought a Windows machine in a few years. It seems like
| this would likely be useful as a general purpose development
| machine because there is probably no crapware installed. Do you
| think this is a plausible argument to buy one or are they now all
| infested no matter what?
| sedatk wrote:
| My experience with Windows 11 so far has been great.
| smoldesu wrote:
| It might not get the longest-term support, but it seems like a
| half-decent deal. If you're comfortable turning it into a home
| server/compute module once it reaches EOL, I'd say go for it.
| tomcam wrote:
| Yeah I like that choice to
| dgellow wrote:
| I wouldn't recommend Windows on arm if you just want a general
| purpose machine, it is still very niche and will need time to
| be well supported. Just get a desktop with a recent Intel or
| AMD and reinstall the OS if you want to ensure you have
| something clean.
| tomcam wrote:
| Well, a general purpose development machine. I'd like to be
| able to run office and a go compiler, not games
| xemdetia wrote:
| I kind of hoped this was a laptop instead of an all in one. I
| have a Lenovo x13s and I really like it. The windows on ARM
| experience with win 11 is almost surprisingly good compared to
| early arm iterations.
| FortiDude wrote:
| Damn, is that my new Linux ARM home PC? hehe
| gw99 wrote:
| The gen2 was scoring only half an M1 in performance. With the
| bloat of windows on top this is going to be horrible.
| nick88msn wrote:
| "Microsoft tells Windows Central that the Windows Dev Kit 2023 is
| exclusive to Windows 11, with no official support for running
| other operating systems such as Linux or even Windows 10 on ARM.
| The product is designed for developers looking to optimize their
| apps for ARM on top of Windows 11."
| gw99 wrote:
| Realistically you have to ask how many people is that now?
|
| I have never seen an ARM windows machine in the wild.
|
| In fact I barely even see any windows 11 machines.
| zeusk wrote:
| Surface Pro X had some traction, but they share the chassis
| with Surface Pro 7 and 8 so you wouldn't be able to tell even
| if you passed by one.
| Funnyduck99 wrote:
| No the 7 is different, but I believe the 8 and 9 look the
| same
| zeusk wrote:
| Ah my bad, I meant 8 and 9.
| xd1936 wrote:
| The word _official_ is italicized[1], and the words "the
| product is _designed for_" means there may be hope that this is
| possible.
|
| 1. https://www.windowscentral.com/software-
| apps/windows-11/proj...
| my123 wrote:
| UEFI Secure Boot can be disabled or put in a custom
| configuration on all arm64 Windows devices, including Windows
| Dev Kit 2023.
| smoldesu wrote:
| And people said they wouldn't help. This is intended for
| us!
| paxys wrote:
| That doesn't really mean anything. No laptop released by
| Microsoft or most of its OEMs officially supports Linux. I'd
| wager this one will be running some ARM distro within 5 minutes
| of the first developer getting their hands on it.
| [deleted]
| blinkingled wrote:
| Microsoft's Apple envy continues - additionally hobbled by
| Qualcomm's indistinguished/2nd rate hardware and disinterested
| developers.
| [deleted]
| osigurdson wrote:
| I'd like to be able to run Windows on mac M series.
| smoldesu wrote:
| Or full-featured Linux, for that matter.
| 58028641 wrote:
| Asahi Linux is making decent progress.
| VTimofeenko wrote:
| Arm64 vms seem to be working great. And pretty soon Asahi
| will get to the point of being completely usable as a daily
| driver
| smoldesu wrote:
| Why would I buy a Mac Mini for Linux when devices like
| this exist? The Qualcomm chip is officially supported and
| much cheaper than buying the Mac. Seems to be much less
| hassle and better value on the Microsoft side of things.
| artificialLimbs wrote:
| $699 for a Mini, $599 for this. The 32GB ram may be nice,
| but I haven't felt ram pressure on my M1 16GB even
| running Windows VM on Parallels once, with VSCode, Teams,
| ~20 tabs of Firefox, DBeaver, Outlook, and Kitty open at
| once.
|
| Would like to see perf numbers. Could be an interesting
| box, maybe a nice home server.
| Funnyduck99 wrote:
| that 699 mini also has a lot smaller ssd which is pretty
| important.
| Funnyduck99 wrote:
| Yeah I am seriously considering getting one of these.
| 32gb of ram for 600 dollars plus its a decent specked arm
| machine with plenty of ports
| thisarticle wrote:
| Where does it say Linux is officially supported?
| smoldesu wrote:
| The chip is having mainline Linux support merged with
| 5.20, according to Phoronix:
| https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-5.20-SoCs-8cx-
| Gen3-Arm
| monocasa wrote:
| I'd wait to hear if this board has Linux support. It
| might have a locked bootloader.
| smoldesu wrote:
| Specs seem to list UEFI Secure Boot, which has been
| unlockable on all of Microsoft's Surface devices _and_
| previous ARM outings. Shipping this with a locked
| bootloader would be one hell of a breach from tradition
| (and probably undermine it 's usefulness as a dev box
| anyways).
|
| Regardless, the internal SOC is the same as the new ARM
| Thinkpad which also shipped with an unlocked bootloader.
| Pretty much everything suggests that this will ship
| unlocked.
| monocasa wrote:
| > Specs seem to list UEFI Secure Boot, which has been
| unlockable on all of Microsoft's Surface devices and
| previous ARM outings
|
| That doesn't quite seem accurate.
|
| For one example: https://www.theregister.com/2016/07/15/w
| indows_fix_closes_rt...
| my123 wrote:
| For all ARM64 Windows devices, UEFI Secure Boot is end-
| user configurable. And yes that includes Surface Pro X,
| Pro 9 arm and this devkit.
| speedgoose wrote:
| Have you tried Parallels Desktop?
| GeekyBear wrote:
| Well, if they had copied Apple, they would have offered a $499
| developer test kit that you could use for a year to port your
| app(s) to ARM and then return for a $200 credit.
|
| Then you wouldn't be stuck paying way more for much less
| capable hardware.
| raverbashing wrote:
| If only MS was a larger company with more market push to get
| QComm to put effort in it or find another supplier... /s
|
| Or maybe, in some twisted logic they want to sabotage their own
| ARM products in favor of Intel
| Manozco wrote:
| It could make for an interesting server for homelab if we can
| easily install Linux on it. Does anyone know if there is some
| kind of lock that prevents installation of another OS ?
| ramesh31 wrote:
| Could this be the harbinger of a return to Windows Phone? The
| world sorely needs an alternative to the mobile OS duopoly.
| perardi wrote:
| Why?
|
| (And let's set aside the how they'd possibly be able to compete
| with the scale, market penetration, marketing spend, and mature
| app ecosystems of iOS/Android and Apple/Samsung.)
|
| Privacy? Lack of advertising? Respect for the user's choices?
| From the company that brought you Windows 11? Why does the
| world sorely need another closed-source operating system full
| of telemetry?
| ramesh31 wrote:
| >Privacy? Lack of advertising? Respect for the user's
| choices? From the company that brought you Windows 11? Why
| does the world sorely need another closed-source operating
| system full of telemetry?
|
| Hardware. I want a Surface Phone.
| IndigoIncognito wrote:
| I'd argue that Microsoft entering the mobile OS market is worse
| than having a duopoly
| radicaldreamer wrote:
| Why?
| ramesh31 wrote:
| >I'd argue that Microsoft entering the mobile OS market is
| worse than having a duopoly
|
| We need something. I've lost all faith in the hardware
| direction of iPhone. The 14 Pro (let alone Pro Max) is an
| absurd monstrosity. And Google clearly has no interest in
| innovation beyond copying Apple.
| myko wrote:
| > And Google clearly has no interest in innovation beyond
| copying Apple.
|
| I disagree, I think both platforms have copied plenty from
| one another. I used to jailbreak my iOS devices to get
| similar functionality to Android. Hasn't been necessary for
| awhile, I feel like the platforms are near parity now, but
| claiming one is copying the other (with no reciprocity)
| seems farfetched.
| xen2xen1 wrote:
| GP is probably one of the "small phone people" to hazard a
| guess.
| imwillofficial wrote:
| How do you mean? Im curious as to your thoughts
| ramesh31 wrote:
| >How do you mean? Im curious as to your thoughts
|
| They've lost any sense of maintaining a cohesive design,
| or keeping things sleek and convenient. Performance has
| plateaued to a level of diminishing returns, so the only
| way they can get people to buy a new phone every year
| since iPhone 7 is to say "hey we put a bigger camera on
| it".
|
| Product ran free with that mandate, and now we have this
| abomination: https://hips.hearstapps.com/hmg-
| prod/images/trevor-raab-ipho...
|
| I have this recurring fantasy of an alternate history
| timeline where Steve Jobs never died, and when an
| engineer brought him the first iPhone 7 prototype, he
| held it in his hand, flipped it over, felt the camera
| bump, and said "You're fired. Get rid of the bump". I
| just refuse to believe he would have allowed this to
| happen, and I refuse to believe that we can't have good
| cameras without bumps.
| imwillofficial wrote:
| Great points
| thesuperbigfrog wrote:
| >> I'd argue that Microsoft entering the mobile OS market is
| worse than having a duopoly
|
| Would please you elaborate your argument?
|
| Personally, I think having more choices would be better. The
| Apple vs. Google duopoly is limiting for consumers and
| developers.
|
| Would you rather have an expensive device that you barely
| control or a cheaper device that spies on you?
|
| More choices and competition, please.
| scarface74 wrote:
| So what exactly are "consumers" clamoring for that are not
| currently being delivered?
| thesuperbigfrog wrote:
| >> So what exactly are "consumers" clamoring for that are
| not currently being delivered?
|
| Until other choices are available, people tend to accept
| the default or keep on doing what was done in the past.
|
| There is a segment of consumers that would like choices
| beyond Apple and Google mobile operating systems:
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/technology/askjack/2019/jul/0
| 4/c...
|
| https://vivaldi.com/blog/technology/smartphones-5-alterna
| tiv...
|
| https://www.pcmag.com/picks/break-away-from-android-
| ios-7-fr...
|
| Personally, I would like to see more "convergence"
| devices that let the little computer I carry around with
| me be anything I want it to be: a programmable general
| purpose computer, a streaming media server, or whatever
| else I want.
|
| There are some projects that offer such functionality,
| but most require expert knowledge to setup or are not
| very widely-adopted or not very mature:
|
| https://maruos.com/
|
| https://www.pine64.org/pinephone/
|
| Walled gardens are not where innovation happens because
| the gardeners uproot whatever does not meet their vision.
| scarface74 wrote:
| You really don't think you're out of touch with what most
| users want?
|
| > https://www.theguardian.com/technology/askjack/2019/jul
| /04/c...
|
| Yes because using an operating system from the other 1
| trillion dollar market cap company is going to be a
| better alternative. Meet the new boss...
|
| > https://vivaldi.com/blog/technology/smartphones-5-alter
| nativ...
|
| And those alternatives are already out there and no one
| wants them in a first approximation to no one
|
| > https://www.pcmag.com/picks/break-away-from-android-
| ios-7-fr...
|
| Okay. So they are "out there to try". Have the majority
| of users been clamoring for it?
|
| > Personally, I would like to see more "convergence"
| devices that let the little computer I carry around with
| me be anything I want it to be: a programmable general
| purpose computer, a streaming media server, or whatever
| else I want.
|
| And you are in the modernity and so much so that it
| wouldn't be a profitable business. Do you think Microsoft
| is going to give you that?
|
| > Walled gardens are not where innovation happens because
| the gardeners uproot whatever does not meet their vision.
|
| Where are all of the "innovations" that the majority of
| people care about - or even enough to make a profitable
| business - on Android where you can sideload and have
| third party web browser engines?
| thesuperbigfrog wrote:
| >> You really don't think you're out of touch with what
| most users want?
|
| I don't claim to speak for what most people want. I think
| having more options than iOS and Android could help
| promote more consumer-friendly choices.
|
| >> Yes because using an operating system from the other 1
| trillion dollar market cap company is going to be a
| better alternative. Meet the new boss...
|
| It would be another choice. Yes, they have similar
| incentives, but more choices help to drive innovation and
| keep all players competitive.
|
| >> And you are in the modernity and so much so that it
| wouldn't be a profitable business. Do you think Microsoft
| is going to give you that?
|
| No. Microsoft is a better position than many to be a
| third choice in smartphone platforms, but they have shown
| poor initiative in the mobile space. They could try again
| or it could be some other organization with sufficient
| know-how and daring. (Something disruptive like Tesla or
| Starlink perhaps?)
|
| >> Have the majority of users been clamoring for it?
|
| "If I had asked my customers what they wanted they would
| have said a faster horse." --Henry Ford
|
| "Some people say give the customers what they want, but
| that's not my approach. Our job is to figure out what
| they're going to want before they do." --Steve Jobs
|
| >> Where are all of the "innovations" that the majority
| of people care about - or even enough to make a
| profitable business - on Android where you can sideload
| and have third party web browser engines?
|
| Android is innovative because it is more open than iOS.
| Even more innovation is possible given the right
| circumstances.
| scarface74 wrote:
| > I don't claim to speak for what most people want. I
| think having more options than iOS and Android could help
| promote more consumer-friendly choices.
|
| Using Linux on the phone with the lack of integration,
| the poor interface etc is the opposite of "consumer
| friendly".
|
| Normal consumers are not asking for the ability to
| "program their phone and run media servers".
|
| > Android is innovative because it is more open than iOS.
| Even more innovation is possible given the right
| circumstances
|
| "Open" is not an "innovation".
| thesuperbigfrog wrote:
| >> Using Linux on the phone with the lack of integration,
| the poor interface etc is the opposite of "consumer
| friendly".
|
| Who said anything about using Linux on phones? I agree
| that a third smartphone platform would need to be user
| friendly. Whether based on Linux, OpenBSD, QNX, Symbian,
| or something is just a technical detail.
|
| >> Normal consumers are not asking for the ability to
| "program their phone and run media servers"
|
| No one asked for iPhone. They were quite happy with their
| Blackberry and Treo phones. My personal wants for a
| smartphone are not why having a third smartphone platform
| would help innovation and competition in the current
| stagnant duopoly.
|
| >> "Open" is not an "innovation".
|
| Yes, but "Closed" sucks for everyone but the platform
| owners.
|
| iOS developers have been suffering and Apple has little
| reason it fix the issues:
| https://www.wired.com/story/apples-app-store-review-fix-
| fail...
|
| Android developers face similar troubles:
| http://www.fosspatents.com/2022/07/developer-class-
| action-se...
|
| The current smartphone duopoly is just two competing
| monopolies with consumers and developers caught in the
| middle.
|
| Some organizations are trying to get "Open" smartphone
| marketplaces and more choice and competition in the
| markets:
|
| https://appfairness.org/
|
| https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-
| releases/2022...
|
| Open standards and open markets encourage real
| competition and innovation.
| ridgered4 wrote:
| Not the OP but I've had this thought as well. Microsoft has
| an almost unassailable position on desktop even still. If
| they had a solid position in mobile they could probably
| expel Android/iOS from enterprise with the same bundling
| tactics they use to push out different software on Windows
| with their own (often but not always) inferior offerings.
| From there the consumer space would be weaker and
| enterprise may start to ignore iOS/Android altogether. iOS
| and Android may well be to entrenched at this point for
| this to be a realistic fear, but based on how aggressively
| Google reacted to Windows phone (The youtube app fiasco) I
| think they at least worry about it a great deal.
|
| Ideally, we'd have 3 or more fairly evenly matched and
| interoperable OS choices on mobile and desktop but that
| doesn't seem likely to happen. Trapping the monopoly inside
| it's own castle may be the best we can get.
|
| I feel similarly about people calling for Apple to open iOS
| up to different browser engines. Idealistically that is
| what I believe should happen, but realistically I think it
| would just result in Chrome being even more dominate. For
| the same reason I lament the death of IE and even the
| original Edge. I don't personally use IE or Safari but I
| benefited from them existing and having decent market
| share.
|
| > Would you rather have an expensive device that you barely
| control or a cheaper device that spies on you?
|
| It is unclear to me if modern Windows actually still spies
| on you any less than Google at this point. My feeling is if
| still does, it isn't by much.
| thesuperbigfrog wrote:
| >> Microsoft has an almost unassailable position on
| desktop even still. If they had a solid position in
| mobile they could probably expel Android/iOS from
| enterprise with the same bundling tactics they use to
| push out different software on Windows with their own
| (often but not always) inferior offerings.
|
| >> It is unclear to me if modern Windows actually still
| spies on you any less than Google at this point. My
| feeling is if still does, it isn't by much.
|
| Microsoft is in a good position to be a strong third
| contender in the mobile space, but that does not mean
| that they would be better in all aspects.
|
| >> Ideally, we'd have 3 or more fairly evenly matched and
| interoperable OS choices on mobile and desktop but that
| doesn't seem likely to happen. Trapping the monopoly
| inside it's own castle may be the best we can get.
|
| Yes. That is why I would like to see more choices with
| hopefully better treatment of consumers and developers.
| Right now consumers have limited choices and the mobile
| development experience is agonizingly painful. It seems
| like an opportunity for disruption, but the entrenched
| players are dug in deep and probably nearly impossible to
| dislodge.
| IndigoIncognito wrote:
| I was joking... Everyone Chill out
| faeriechangling wrote:
| The hardware looks well suited to a cluster to me especially at
| the price point and with the presumably low power usage. Smack
| three of these bad boys together and you're got about 64gb of
| memory to work with and 32gb for redundancy for $1800. That's not
| terrible considering SBCs only go up to about 16gb of memory and
| tinyminimicro boxes probably draw a bit more power and don't cost
| less new...
| cpsns wrote:
| 800$ in Canada, at that price point it's impossible to justify
| buying it instead of an M1 Mac Mini for 100$ more as a general
| use machine, especially given the sorry state of Windows-ARM.
|
| Given it's a dev kit companies won't care about cost, but I can't
| see many being sold to independent/small developers, the
| excitement just isn't there.
| bpye wrote:
| I initially had the same reaction but the 900$ Mac Mini has
| only 8GB of memory, 256GB of storage and can only drive two
| displays, vs this which has 32GB of memory, 512GB of storage
| and can drive three displays.
| [deleted]
| klodolph wrote:
| It makes sense. The Mac Mini is what you get if you want to make
| a Mac or iOS app, but you want to keep your Windows or Linux
| system for daily use.
| TwoNineA wrote:
| What's wrong with using a Mac Mini as a daily driver?
| klodolph wrote:
| I think you may be responding to something I didn't write :-)
| wumpus wrote:
| I have a mac mini as a desktop in my home office and actual
| office, multiple screens, and almost all my windows are either
| browsers or shell windows to my Linux dev server. I've never
| developed a MacOS or iOS app.
| ArtWomb wrote:
| I think I have to get one. To replace an obsolete HP Steam. I
| was gonna do the Mac Mini, but I don't think the M2 model is
| out yet. Just worry about Win ARM compatibility across remote
| desktop, citrix daas, etc ;)
| gopalv wrote:
| > The Mac Mini is what you get if you want to make a Mac or iOS
| app
|
| This is probably closer to the Mac Mini with M1 that they
| shipped to kick-start the Apple Silicon transition for desktop
| apps.
|
| Because if I was a windows programmer for today's customers, I
| can't really build things on a "Windows on Arm" device like
| this.
|
| Like Apple before, I hope this is just the first salvo against
| the Windows+Intel, before we all switch to Arm chips (including
| Intel fabs).
| porbelm wrote:
| I imagine Dr. Su a couple of years ago whispered to a couple
| of lead technicians "you are going to start a little garage
| side project here at AMD; it will be the future"
|
| AMD releases 32-core + ARM APUs
| pell wrote:
| Are you sure? I don't want to go the anecdote route here but I
| know plenty of people who use Mac minis as daily driver desktop
| machines.
| klodolph wrote:
| Yes, I'm pretty sure that the Mac Mini is good as a machine
| for developing Mac and iOS applications. I have myself used
| it for this purpose in the past, and it worked very well.
| TazeTSchnitzel wrote:
| There's no conflict? It's a good daily driver for some, and a
| good second machine for others.
| dijit wrote:
| There's a lot more use-cases though, of both systems.
|
| If you want a "good" small computer and you already have a
| screen (or want to buy cheap ones) then these systems are
| fantastic.
|
| Performance is completely fine for moderate-to-heavy workloads
| (assuming the heavy workloads are bursty) for the Mac mini, and
| hopefully this.
|
| Both systems are what you would get if you didn't need a
| display or keyboard already, they're desktop replacements with
| a small footprint, and fantastic for the majority of computer
| workloads including a lot of development ones.
| newaccount2021 wrote:
| lostmsu wrote:
| Lack of HDMI is disappointing.
| cjensen wrote:
| HDMI connectors cost a lot of money to the HDMI licensing
| authority. This payment is very painful if you have a small
| quantity of shipments. DisplayPort is free. And as others have
| pointed out, you just need to buy a cable.
| encryptluks2 wrote:
| Wouldn't display over USB-C solve this as well?
| Joe_Boogz wrote:
| It looks like this does support display over USB-C - the
| tech specs have a snippet saying that you should use DP
| over USB-C so you see the BIOS.
| montecarl wrote:
| A <$10 cable solves this problem.
| [deleted]
| regular wrote:
| fxtentacle wrote:
| Sorry Microsoft, you lost me with Windows 11. I'll wait until you
| release a worthy successor to Windows 10, just like when I
| skipped Vista.
| nyanpasu64 wrote:
| Windows 10 (and perhaps 8) was the beginning of Windows as
| spyware and adware that exists to manipulate rather than serve
| the user (outside of past obscure edge cases like Windows's
| anti-piracy mechanisms and disabling debugging on audiodg.exe).
| Now we have forced Microsoft accounts at install time,
| gaslighting users for switching off Edge and sending your Edge
| browsing history to coupon clipping sites, telemetry in Windows
| and Visual Studio and every time you open a MSVC command
| prompt, Visual Studio phoning home your menu searched to the
| web for "cloud AI menu search results"...
| DeathArrow wrote:
| I also skipped Windows Millennium and Windows 8.
| fxtentacle wrote:
| Yeah ME was awful, too. I thought 8.1 was actually OK.
| [deleted]
| jstimpfle wrote:
| Is there a list of things that are worse with 11? I had it
| pushed on one of my less frequently used devices and so far all
| that has been annoying has been the Explorer context menu which
| hides "less used" items (some of which I frequently need, of
| course) behind a "More" entry.
| nevi-me wrote:
| I'd also be curious to know. I've found Win11 to mostly be a
| skin on top of 10.
|
| Maybe I'm biased because I'm on the Insider Program, and I
| get changes incrementally instead of as a big release in 2
| years
| taspeotis wrote:
| Personally I find Windows 11 fine although the decision to
| make the start bar only icons instead of icon + text is a bit
| bizarre in today's trend towards (ultra)wide monitors.
| nightski wrote:
| I despise the fact that there is no right-click/context
| menu on the task bar. I use that frequently.
| taspeotis wrote:
| I think there is a registry key for that? And the very
| latest Insider build brings back Task Manager on right
| click.
|
| Explorer Patcher can fix it all but you shouldn't be
| obliged to fight the OS to feel productive.
| neogodless wrote:
| For me personally
|
| - Taskbar cannot be pinned to the side on my widescreen
| monitors
|
| - Items on taskbar cannot be un-grouped
|
| - Cannot show text on taskbar
|
| - News/weather widget is awful, full of clickbait news and
| tiny Weather widget, which is vastly inferior to having a
| live tile that opens to a full screen weather app
|
| - Reduced start menu customization (live tiles / grid are
| replaced with folders that add an extra click)
|
| Other than that I haven't used it enough to comment much
| more. I have it on my laptop which is mostly just used for
| gaming, and I can tolerate the taskbar and start menu
| regressions. But for me, most of using Windows is... using
| the taskbar and start menu. To take away most of their
| functionality seems like complete insanity!
| layer8 wrote:
| - The awful new context menu in Explorer.
| dmonitor wrote:
| it's so terrible that they even have to include a "show
| the good context menu" button
| gzer0 wrote:
| This tool [1] can solve all of your Windows 11 problems. I
| simply refuse to use windows 11 without the full right
| click context menu. This open source program does that, and
| much, much more. Smaller task bar, grouping/ungrouping
| icons. So glad I found this.
|
| [1] https://github.com/valinet/ExplorerPatcher
| jyrkesh wrote:
| > - Items on taskbar cannot be un-grouped
|
| Oh my god, so much this one. It's driving me insane. I keep
| hoping that the next round of Start menu "improvements"
| bring it back, but I keep getting disappointed.
| fxtentacle wrote:
| They basically tried to remove everything that needs a 2nd
| mouse button. Plus many keyboard shortcuts are gone. It looks
| and feels like an iPad to me, not like an environment to be
| productive in.
| nottorp wrote:
| Does it have a power brick larger than the NUC, like those things
| usually do?
|
| Neither the Verge piccies nor the marketing movie are clear on
| this.
| Joe_Boogz wrote:
| X2 - If its ARM / mobile chip I wouldn't think that the power
| supply would be very big. Maybe it's internal?
| thom_ wrote:
| They should give them away. I'd never spend $600 on any kind of
| windows product. Maybe we can install linux on it? But you'd have
| to be smoking crack not to buy a mac mini m1. It's the best
| computer I ever used hands down
| imwillofficial wrote:
| I mean crack, or a specific use case that isn't Mac bound like
| some kinds of development.
|
| But probably crack
| LegitShady wrote:
| if you don't want to spend money on it, just dont buy one. It's
| ok for something to be made for people who aren't you.
| swarnie wrote:
| Can a mac mini m1 run Windows?
| nottorp wrote:
| No, not x86 Windows. You can only virtualize ARM Windows,
| which the other answers mean.
| dottedmag wrote:
| Yes, in Parallels.
| TillE wrote:
| Virtualized, yes. For most purposes, an M1/M2 Mac is an
| excellent platform for developing stuff for Windows ARM64.
| 1123581321 wrote:
| When Apple released its $500 ARM dev kit ahead of the M1, they
| offered a $200 credit in exchange for return. Something
| equivalent seems appropriate here. This isn't meant to be a
| computer for mass consumption so shouldn't be compared to the
| M1 Mini.
| [deleted]
| justapassenger wrote:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3dxMGzt5mU
| csnweb wrote:
| It seems to be priced relatively cheap already with 32GB Ram
| and a 512GB SSD. A Mac mini with only 16GB of memory already
| costs nearly twice as much and I really wish there were a 32 gb
| mini at all. I like my Mac mini, but I hit the memory limit
| from time to time.
| [deleted]
| pid-1 wrote:
| Why would anyone buy that before Windows users are actually using
| ARM?
| wmf wrote:
| Maybe MS is giving these for free to important developers.
| timbit42 wrote:
| To run Linux on it, if it isn't locked out.
| Nican wrote:
| Jeff Atwood 5 years ago: "the Qualcomm hardware people told
| Google internally they were 5 years behind Apple on hardware.
| This was about 1.5 years ago, but I believe that's about right."
| ( https://twitter.com/codinghorror/status/1050538041796788225)
|
| And benchmarks continue to show:
| https://twitter.com/slightlylate/status/1584350796233117696
| tootie wrote:
| Is the chip in this PC anywhere on that chart? I assume it's
| most similar to the latest Galaxy's which are not far behind
| Mac. Which is pretty much fine as far as I can tell, I don't
| see many CPU-bound workstation activities for most folks. And
| if you are CPU bound, you don't buy a micro form factor.
| MBCook wrote:
| Someone had a battery life test for phones. The iPhones beat
| the android phones in nearly every test by hours. And they only
| had 60-70% of the raw battery capacity.
|
| And you know they have faster processors too.
|
| It's so weird to me. The A series is kind of "that doesn't
| count" because the competition can't get close. The M series
| wowed people and then we all went back to normal AMD/Intel
| stuff like nothing happened.
|
| If I want a new PC laptop, it just won't compare because no
| reasonable part is available for the heat/battery life I could
| have gotten.
| sylens wrote:
| It is astonishing to me that people are out there buying
| Intel PC laptops when the M1 MBA can be had for <$1000
| tootie wrote:
| Well, $1000 upfront plus $100 a year for the right to
| develop apps.
| borissk wrote:
| The base MBA comes with only 8GB RAM and 256GB SSD and has
| very limited upgrade option. Also Apple charges crazy
| prices for more RAM and storage.
|
| For $1000 one can buy a Windows laptop with 32GB RAM and
| 1TB SDD, that can cheaply be upgraded to 64GB memory and
| 10+TB SSD (2x SO-DIMM slots + 2x M2 PCIe slots).
| jzb wrote:
| Um. Cheaply to 10+ TB SSD? Where are you shopping?! I
| want to go there.
| MBCook wrote:
| I'm not arguing people should switch to an M1 Mac.
|
| I'm trying to say I think people should have the option
| of something like it on Windows, not just the hot/power
| hungry stuff out there today.
| MattGaiser wrote:
| $1000 is still more than I would guess about half of PCs.
|
| It would surprise me if my mother, grandparents, sister,
| etc. have ever sent more than $800 on a computer.
| q-big wrote:
| > It is astonishing to me that people are out there buying
| Intel PC laptops when the M1 MBA can be had for <$1000
|
| Can the M1 MBA run Windows?
|
| EDIT: Or can it run GNU/Linux natively (see
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33320765)?
| 58028641 wrote:
| Apple Silicon Macs can run Windows and Linux in a VM.
| Asahi Linux (native) is making decent progress.
| eliasmacpherson wrote:
| The M1 is a marvel, however there's a vast range of things
| it's not going to do anytime soon, e.g. CUDA, eGPU etc -
| nevermind games.
|
| https://store.steampowered.com/macos
|
| Had they not pushed Metal so hard over Vulkan - then things
| would be different. There's time yet for them to change
| course. (Seems Valve open sourced MoltenVK, so that's one
| barrier removed at least!)
| jimnotgym wrote:
| It depends what is important to you.
|
| Firstly I am mostly plugged in, so battery life is
| secondary.
|
| Secondly I am a heavy Excel user, and it just isn't as good
| on Apple
|
| Thirdly I use PowerBI which isn't available for Apple
|
| Lastly I have hybrid Active Directory, and can deploy SSO
| trivially to my remote Windows users, which I can't on Mac.
| During Covid I could mail someone a PC and get them signed
| on to AD resources in minutes. My Windows users are first
| class citizens, easier to support, and happier with their
| IT.
| ultrasounder wrote:
| THIS! Apple:- fair warning an inside Bollywood joke.
|
| Apple:- "Mere paas M1/M2/MAX,A16, Hain " and looks at
| MSFT and asks "Tere paas kya Hain"?
|
| MSFT:- Shoulder shrugs and says "Mere Paas Excel Hain".
|
| Apple has nothing on Excel. And Numbers languishes Excel
| by a few generations. Esp after the boatload of updates
| that Excel APIs got last year. I guess it's all about
| priorities and what's important for that business at that
| time.
| MBCook wrote:
| That wasn't what I was trying to say.
|
| I know there is Windows only software. I know there is
| software that's better on Windows.
|
| I don't care if people switch to Mac.
|
| They should _all_ have the choice of a chip as good (or
| reasonably close) to the M1.
|
| But they don't. And it doesn't look like that's changing.
| And I find that sad.
| MBCook wrote:
| I'm not advocating everyone switch to Mac. I'm sorry if I
| gave that impression.
|
| I'm advocating Windows/Linux users should have the choice
| of a machine roughly as good. Doesn't have to 1:1, but
| clearly there is a lot of space for "better" past what
| everyone is selling today.
|
| And I don't see that improving much after 2 years and I
| find it kind of sad.
|
| Why should you have to switch OSes and everything to have
| a fast computer with good battery life that's quiet and
| cool?
|
| You shouldn't.
| matsemann wrote:
| I guess that says something about the concessions some of
| us will do to avoid using MacOS.
| encryptluks2 wrote:
| An Intel laptop can be had for like $200
| makeitdouble wrote:
| This was the general sentiment when Apple was on PowerPC,
| and we were buying pricier mac laptops just because of the
| OS.
|
| I don't have actual experience on a windows machine right
| now, but if the linux subsystem is getting good enough,
| switching there could be worth the hardware and price
| penalty.
| uni_rule wrote:
| I understand the sentiment but a dead ssd won't permanently
| brick a large portion of x86 laptops.
| II2II wrote:
| More to the point: I can still access the data from the
| SSD even if every other component on the laptop was dead.
| Heck, I could pop the SSD into another laptop and
| continue working where I left off.
| karmelapple wrote:
| Who went back to AMD/Intel stuff? Any Apple user is far away
| from that, and comparing the performance, heat, noise, and
| battery differences between my Intel and Apple Silicon
| computers, I have no desire to regularly use an Intel machine
| until they make some stratospheric leap.
|
| (I still need it for some x86 vagrant boxes I have though!)
| moomin wrote:
| The entertaining thing here is that Apple's walled garden
| is intended to keep people in, but here it's keeping them
| out. The M1 is a technical marvel, but if you're not
| already tied to Apple, it's nowhere near good enough to
| warrant leaping that wall.
| Dennip wrote:
| But isn't the walled garden in thsi case part of the
| appeal? i.e. running windows on it bare metal would not
| be as performant because of all the tighly coupled
| hardware-software integration apple do?
| josephg wrote:
| I did. I moved over to linux mint for at-the-desk
| programming (though I still use a macbook while traveling).
| My linux desktop idles at 0% CPU, which is something macos
| hasn't been able to deliver for 5+ years at this point.
|
| Current generation Intel / AMD desktop CPUs have similar
| performance to apple's M1/M2 chips. They just consume a lot
| more power. (Though apparently applying a slight underclock
| makes a huge difference.)
|
| I'm not sure how recent intel / AMD laptop performance
| compares, but a PC with an x86 chip is still a great
| choice.
| chaostheory wrote:
| For VR and games, Apple doesn't compare to PCs for now
| until Apple Reality is released. Apple tolerates video
| games now because of the revenue, but they still don't like
| them. The M2 is the most amazing Apple upgrade that I've
| ever had, but it's an ecosystem that doesn't garner enough
| support for non-mobile, non-iOS video games.
| MBCook wrote:
| I meant the rest of the industry. They said "wow" and then
| went back to business as usual. They had talking points
| about how they'll improve and performance (as always) and
| efficiency got talked up more.
|
| But when will any of that show up? Hardware takes time but
| I just don't see reviewers demanding it. They'll be happy
| if it shows up but they're not calling out "this isn't good
| enough" and I just don't get it. How can they use an M1 and
| go back to a hot low battery life Intel laptop in the same
| price class and say "this is fine?"
| jborean93 wrote:
| What can you do about it. Outside of Apple hardware
| running macOS you just can't get the same. We can demand
| all we want but no one can offer what is available from
| Apple yet. I'm certainly not surprised Qualcomm/Intel/AMD
| want to add more fire to their feet by talking up their
| competition.
| MBCook wrote:
| But you _have_ to demand it. People have to make clear to
| the vendors that _this matters_.
|
| As long people don't do that everything will continue as
| normal. It needs to be very clear _you're not doing good
| enough_.
|
| As long as reviewers keep ignoring the elephant in the
| room in their text and scores, how are you ever going to
| get what I'm guessing just about everyone wants? They may
| not know it (us Mac users were getting annoyed at heat
| and noise but didn't know how much).
|
| But I'm convinced if someone built it, users would come
| out of the woodwork. So many people doing "office" work
| that doesn't require high power machines would benefit.
| Qualcomm just doesn't seem to be trying very hard in the
| computer segment.
| geerlingguy wrote:
| It's surprising that efficiency is barely mentioned
| still, in all the latest AMD / Intel reviews, maybe it's
| even a point that early reviewers have to avoid or
| something?
|
| To me, the performance per watt is increasingly important
| not only as we start approaching branch circuit limits
| (1200-1500W max in the US), but also as (in many places)
| energy prices continue to rise.
|
| Both idle power consumption (e-state, core sleeping,
| etc.) and max power consumption (with a few measures of
| work per watt) should be highlighted in any serious
| review, probably on par with whatever other benchmarks
| (like Cinebench, Blender, etc.).
| girvo wrote:
| Hardware Unboxed is the only reviewer that I see that
| discusses efficiency consistently when reviewing parts
| (be they CPUs or GPUs)
| sunjester wrote:
| This is very hard for me to believe, even when I see the test
| results. Everyone I know with an Apple phone is either over
| 60 or looking for a charger.
| tootie wrote:
| That can't possibly be a useful benchmark. There are hundreds
| of Android models with different batteries and power
| characteristics. Was it just CPU power efficiency?
| LeonM wrote:
| If I click on the "You can purchase the dev-kit here" button, I
| get "We are sorry, the page you requested cannot be found".
|
| Probably because the device is not available in my country, but
| then at least show a page explaining I can't purchase the device
| based on my IP or whatever. This was a really bad experience.
| jayski wrote:
| game of thrones has nothing on that Microsoft video...
| nuc1e0n wrote:
| Does windows on arm have emulation for x86 programs? I'd think
| something like what apple has done in the past with rosetta would
| be a necessity.
|
| It doesn't have to be super fast, just work well enough.
| Scharkenberg wrote:
| Yes, both 32-bit and 64-bit apps should work, as long as they
| don't rely on low-level x86 stuff.
| nuc1e0n wrote:
| Why isn't this capability highlighted more?
| Scharkenberg wrote:
| I don't know, perhaps because it's not that new. It's very
| nice to have though.
|
| On the other hand this particular device is meant as a dev
| kit for making ARM apps (either new ones or porting
| traditional programs to ARM) - it would be _a little bit
| ironic_ if x86 compatibility were to be highlighted here.
| dignick wrote:
| https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/arm/apps-on-arm-x8...
|
| Yes, but not for drivers (so device manufacturers have to write
| drivers specifically for ARM)
| tim-- wrote:
| It sure does! https://learn.microsoft.com/en-
| us/windows/arm/apps-on-arm-x8...
|
| It's probably nowhere near as good as Apple's emulation.
| https://www.techrepublic.com/article/windows-on-arm-this-is-...
| functorg wrote:
| Very interesting to see that it has a built-in NPU. Such co-
| processors are increasingly being included in recent high-end
| mobile phone platforms, used mostly to accelerate image
| processing algorithms.
|
| Seems like this is a sign of things to come in Windows platforms
| too, since Microsoft are including an NPU in this devkit. The PC
| of the future may well end up being CPU+GPU+NPU as standard, much
| as it is CPU+GPU today.
| kimburgess wrote:
| I'm almost willing to bet this is early look at what a 'native'
| Microsoft Teams Room device is. Currently Microsoft relies on a
| partner ecosystem for compute in these, but given the push into
| more features built around real-time image processing, dealing
| with multiple cameras, multiple audio channels and other
| latency sensitive workloads this seems like a perfect platform
| to distribute that.
| solarkraft wrote:
| Are they actually becoming serious about ARM all of a sudden or
| is this just a fluke?
|
| It speaks volumes that Visual Studio wasn't even available as an
| ARM version until now.
| znpy wrote:
| No, they have been for a while. You don't port a whole
| proprietary os to another isa overnight.
|
| And iirc windows rt already ran on arm.
| wvenable wrote:
| First they to make the 64bit version of Visual Studio for
| x86-64. It seems the ARM port was pretty fast after that.
| rkagerer wrote:
| Not to be confused with Voltera, a company in Canada that makes
| desktop PCB printers.
| mrlonglong wrote:
| I've spent ages trying to get Windows 10 Pro for ARM to run on my
| raspberry pi w/ 8GB. Seems to boot and then spend age doing sod
| all. Maybr some day it'll get better but until then I'm sticking
| with Linux. <3
| mdasen wrote:
| I think Windows on ARM still faces the same problem it always
| has: there's little reason for most people to care and it creates
| a collective action problem.
|
| With macOS on ARM, Apple said they'd stop making Intel machines
| and they launched a compelling new experience. If you were a
| developer, you knew you needed to get on board or be left behind.
| If you were a user, you probably wanted one of the shiny new M1
| machines, but even if you didn't you were going to be moving to
| ARM the next time you upgraded a few years down the line. Users
| also knew that software would be ported to ARM because it was the
| only way forward for the Mac.
|
| Microsoft isn't abandoning x86. So why should developers care
| about Windows on ARM? Why should users choose Windows on ARM when
| developer support is poor - Microsoft just got Visual Studio on
| ARM. Why should users choose Windows on ARM when the ARM
| processors being offered are way behind what Apple/Intel/AMD are
| offering for processors? With developers and users unenthusiastic
| about ARM, why should chip companies want to invest in
| laptop/desktop ARM chips? Why should a hardware company start
| making ARM machines that just incur losses for a few generations
| as they manufacture things users aren't interested in?
|
| There are certainly reasons to care, but it's a lot harder to
| justify. Maybe Qualcomm thinks it can create a new laptop/desktop
| chip business to rival Intel/AMD. That's certainly a good
| incentive, but I'm sure they've had meetings where they've talked
| about Microsofts lukewarm support for ARM, how to get users to
| buy an inferior product in the meantime (eg. until they create
| better chip designs and until devs port things to ARM), how to
| get devs to port things to ARM despite little user demand, and
| how to get hardware companies to want their laptop/desktop chips
| despite all this.
|
| I'm not saying that Windows on ARM won't happen. I think we're in
| a time when CPU-independence is a lot easier and there's a lot of
| money to be made. However, it won't happen nearly as quickly as
| Apple's transition - because people have a choice in the matter.
| Intel/AMD CPUs are likely to be significantly better (than non-
| Apple ARM CPUs) for years to come. If Intel is able to get back
| on track in terms of process, it'll be even harder for Qualcomm
| and others to match. And Microsoft is likely playing a harder
| game when it comes to translating x86 software. Apple mirrored
| Intel's memory guarantees in their ARM chips, but the ARM spec
| doesn't require that. That makes translating a lot easier/faster,
| but if Windows for ARM is going to work with weaker guarantees,
| that makes it a harder sell. With Intel and AMD doing decently
| well at the moment, there's less reason for users.
|
| Again, I'm not saying it won't happen. Hardware manufacturers
| will like having additional suppliers (even if the new ARM
| machines are partly just to get some leverage with Intel/AMD).
| Microsoft will want to make sure that Windows doesn't suffer if
| Intel/AMD stumble in the future. It's just going to be a long
| slog convincing developers and users that it's worth their time
| and money. Over a long enough time frame, I think new apps will
| be ARM/x86 and users will be fine with them at the right
| price/performance point, but it's not going to be like Apple's
| transition where people were enthusiastic.
| chocolatkey wrote:
| The most interesting part to me was the quote from Denuvo,
| presumably testing out pluton: "The Volterra
| devices are neat and powerful, ideal for us to test our market-
| leading anti-piracy and anti-cheat game security technologies.
| They're also very quiet, and they just work out of the box." -
| Reinhard Blaukovitsch, Managing Director of Denuvo by Irdeto
| progbits wrote:
| Yay, more walled gardens that will break for legitimate
| customers while pirated version will continue to work forever.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29149555
| [deleted]
| no_time wrote:
| I wonder how many years until every DRM vendor can enforce
| pluton as a baseline. 5 more?
| carlamengo wrote:
| > "Performance with Volterra has been refreshingly fast. We
| have run Actipro's x86-based product installers, and they all
| worked. Our WPF and WinForms controls all work well with no
| changes, even the 'API-heavy' ones, as does all test
| collateral." - Boyd Patterson, Senior Software Engineer,
| Actipro Software
|
| I just thought the same, but not WPF native on arm?, but an
| emulation layer?, still looks very promising.
| bitwize wrote:
| All that effort and the best ARM Windows development machine is
| still "a VM on an Apple Silicon Mac".
| mappu wrote:
| My understanding is that it's not possible to legally get a
| license for Windows in that case, as there's no SKU for it.
|
| Has that changed? Otherwise it's nonviable at $DAYJOB,
| layer8 wrote:
| What prevents you from using an existing not-hardware-bound
| license? Enterprise volume licenses should also work.
| lordleft wrote:
| Is this actually true? How is Visual Studio in parallels or
| crossover?
| thesquib wrote:
| Not great
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| Technically, yes. If you look at the benchmarks, a VM of
| Windows on an M1 (base model) is significantly faster than
| both the SQ1 / 8cx Gen 1 and SQ2 / 8cx Gen 2 processors
| Microsoft included with the Surface Pro X (by like, 30%, it's
| not even close), though how it compares to 8cx Gen 3 / SQ3 is
| unknown. However, considering we're on M2 by now, and that we
| now have M1 Pro and M1 Ultra models as well... egh...
| kcb wrote:
| Having a functioning GPU with this box is likely to make a
| bigger difference than the benchmarks in general use.
| postalrat wrote:
| 32gb on an m2 is probably going to cost you around $3000. I
| don't think 32gb on m1 is even possible.
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| Sure - if you need all 32GB for development work, it is a
| great deal. But, with a processor slower than a midrange
| modern Intel laptop, good luck using it to its full
| extent without feeling quite slow. So slow you might
| almost prefer a 16GB M1 Mac mini with swap for the rest
| despite the VM.
|
| Plus, if you read Microsoft documentation on Windows on
| ARM so far, Microsoft doesn't actually expect you to use
| an IDE on these machines - but rather run your code
| remotely on them. You'll be a lot happier with your IDE
| running on a more powerful machine. Of course, if you do
| that, the lack of a GPU on the M1 for a Windows on ARM VM
| becomes not really an issue.
| petercooper wrote:
| _But, with a processor slower than a midrange modern
| Intel laptop, good luck using it to its full extent
| without feeling quite slow_
|
| I have little recent Windows development experience, but
| I wonder if Windows on native Arm gets the same sort of
| latency/lagginess reduction that going from Intel to Arm
| on macOS does? Even if the raw processing power is less,
| I would be happy with the tradeoff if Windows felt even
| snappier.
| postalrat wrote:
| 16gb is the near the cutoff that I need to run all the
| app/containers/etc I need. If I don't have enough memory
| everything comes to an abrupt crawl.
|
| When that happens it doesn't matter what CPU I have,
| things are nearly locked up.
| lostmsu wrote:
| VS .NET workload is advertised to be working already.
| throwaway44111 wrote:
| My mac studio with an Apple M1 Ultra has 64GB of unified
| memory.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| Which probably cost you a bit more than $600.
| croes wrote:
| M1 != M1 Ultra
| postalrat wrote:
| How much development experience targeting windows on arm do you
| have?
| faeriechangling wrote:
| I've developed on WoA plenty and it's my primary Windows dev
| platform, but targeting it? Lol. I spin up an Azure VM for
| testing.
|
| Any business which might have made use of this to take
| advantage of things like ARM devices being cheaper/more
| available than x86 devices (you literally can't find an x86
| tablet worth using for less than $400) long since ported to
| Android. Microsoft sort of missed the boat with ARM. Every
| time I see those little android based terminals littered
| around small businesses I think "man this sure is a business
| Microsoft lost for no real reason"
|
| I wish Microsoft would support the WoA use case people could
| actually take advantage of. Using windows in a Mac VM. That
| would be by far the most effective way to get people to
| develop for the platform, not this product.
| Joe_Boogz wrote:
| It appears the consensus is HN is hesitant about the Windows on
| ARM push. I really want this to succeed.
|
| If this gains traction then we should start seeing support for
| windows laptops on ARM. As a dev who prefers windows but has a m1
| MacBook b/c of the battery life I really hope this works out.
| detaro wrote:
| There are Windows ARM laptops already, and their existence does
| a lot to justify that hesitancy.
| Joe_Boogz wrote:
| Previous laptops and current surface devices do support ARM,
| but IMO nothing MSFT has put out has been serious. (Looking
| at you Surface Pro X). This targeted solution correctly
| identifies the main problem with Windows on ARM. Lack of
| developer support. Outside of internal MSFT dev support no
| one has taken Windows/ARM support seriously. I hope these dev
| kits represent a wider market push that ultimately leads to
| better Windows laptops on ARM. (Ones that can close to gap
| with the current MacBook lineups).
| doublerebel wrote:
| The new Surface Pro 7 ARM looks serious -- it does seem to
| be the first serious ARM entry, though.
|
| Lack of Windows ARM devices for dev really has hamstrung
| Hololens 2 development -- it's also Windows ARM and there
| are very few libraries with Windows ARM compatibility. I
| altered many libraries myself, despite that the
| documentation was nearly nonexistent.
| pornel wrote:
| Of course Qualcomm being chronically incapable of making fast
| CPUs doesn't help, but partly it's just a chicken-egg problem
| of lack of ARM-optimized Windows software caused by the lack
| of ARM Windows users.
|
| Having a decent devkit may help bring more native ARM
| software, which may make these underpowered machines struggle
| less with speed and compatibility.
| treis wrote:
| Genuinely asking because I don't know. Is there anything
| that's better about ARM or is the Apple/TSMC being better
| than Intel, AMD, Qualcomm, Samsung, et. al.?
| Cupprum wrote:
| 1 - The instruction set is more interesting because it is
| smaller.
|
| 2 - Arm also implements weak ordering which is type of
| memory model. It allows instructions to be separated into
| groups based on whether they affect other instructions.
| This allows these groups to skip some waiting lines.
| (Magic). X86 has strong ordering, which can make it
| slower in specific scenarios.
| temac wrote:
| 3 - The instruction set is made of fixed length
| instructions
|
| TBH there are various mostly-Apple/TSMC-"exclusive"
| tricks too, for why their chips are better than the
| others:
|
| A - On Apple Silicon, pages are larger, but not too large
|
| B - there are various accelerators leveraged by libraries
| provided in the OS (or the provided toolchains, etc.)
|
| C - Apple got to use the best TSMC process years before
| the competition.
|
| D - TSMC is ahead (I'm curious of what Zen4 will give on
| laptop, btw)
|
| So it's mixed. The ARM ISA probably plays a small role in
| the perf of Apple Silicon vs. x86 chips, but is probably
| not the main cause of the perf gap.
| sethhochberg wrote:
| Its less about the instruction set and more about the
| specific implementation choices and market they're
| competing in. Apple has been doing ARM SoC design for a
| long time and was an early 64-bit adopter, buys tons of
| bleeding-edge capacity from fabs, and is willing to
| design in more expensive features like tons of onboard
| cache that they can make up on margins in other ways
| because Apple sells complete devices, while Qualcomm etc
| are mostly in the business of selling chips. So while
| there are fundamental differences between x86 and ARM,
| the bigger differences are more "Apple vs other ARM SoC
| designers" than something fundamentally different about
| ARM that Apple takes advantage of.
| kotaKat wrote:
| Yeah, I'm sitting here shocked at everyone's hate. I took a
| major leap and bought a Thinkpad X13s, with the same 8cx Gen 3
| CPU this thing has.
|
| I am beyond impressed at it. Windows 11 on it - while, yes,
| it's Windows 11 with its own concerns and issues - runs
| flawlessly. I've been able to run my traditional x86 and x64
| workloads - even things like arm64 Tailscale without issues,
| and I get amazing battery life.
|
| I am 100% for this thing. It's value for money in the high-
| performance ARM Windows rig market. It benches similarly to a
| ~11th gen i5 and runs the part.
| MBCook wrote:
| I'm out of the Windows ecosystem, except one machine at work.
|
| I'd love Windows on ARM to work. I love my M1 and would like
| something comparable.
|
| But Apple had the M1 and the ARM PCs seem to be based on iPhone
| 7 level chips (perceptually).
|
| "You can have Intel or ARM. No one buys ARM so there is little
| software. Windows was ruined on ARM for a long time. Your ARM
| laptop will be way slower, but it will be cheap because the
| only ones you can buy are ultra-low spec with terrible
| components like eMMC storage."
|
| There is absolutely no compelling reason to buy one for any
| reason and they're not fixing it.
|
| The first MacBook Air was a horrible computer in many ways, but
| it really excelled in one that mattered to people.
|
| These don't have that one thing that matters. They're just
| 'meh' computers that don't run much. MS can't fix it (without
| their own chip) and Qualcomm seemingly wont either.
| binkHN wrote:
| I don't know if Windows on ARM has a future, but, IMHO, almost
| anything that encourages more happenings in the ARM ecosystem is
| a benefit--the whole world has gone mobile, and its longer
| battery life takes the cake over its more powerful x86/amd64
| counterparts.
| nevi-me wrote:
| It continues to suck how African countries are excluded from
| these product launches and from many products in general.
|
| Microsoft has enough partners and regional offices because
| Office365 and Azure are the only worthy products for us in
| "shithole countries".
|
| If Microsoft isn't intending on selling a lot of these devices,
| the cost of adding 1 or 2 African countries would be relatively
| small compared to the revenue they make from our regions.
|
| I mean, expensive Macs came out, costing twice the shitty
| HP/Lenovo/Dell enterprise offerings with poor thermals and
| battery life. We bought them.
|
| I would buy this device if it was for sale in my market, I see a
| benefit in testing my work on Windows ARM64.
| DeathArrow wrote:
| >It continues to suck how African countries are excluded from
| these product launches
|
| All South American, most Asian and most European countries are
| excluded. That sucks, too.
| d4mi3n wrote:
| Do we have any sense of how much of this is driven by privacy
| regulation? Newer versions of Windows have been more
| aggressive about collecting user information, so this would
| not at all surprise me.
| bornfreddy wrote:
| Given that they are launching in _some_ of the EU
| countries, not much. That said, I do hope their data
| harvesting breaks some laws somewhere and they get fined
| handsomely. This trend is atrocious.
| ohbtvz wrote:
| The EU has probably some of the strictest privacy
| regulations in the world. I don't really get why you would
| think that.
| Bakary wrote:
| Are there any actual stats of how profitable African countries
| are for Microsoft?
| nevi-me wrote:
| I'd have to look. My previous employer spends a life changing
| amount of money on Azure. MS has a lot of local partners.
| They have an office here which seems adequately staffed
| (might be mostly consultants). I'd say 90% of South African
| businesses use Office365 to done level. We have Xbox
| subscriptions. When the Xbox came out, people bought it.
|
| On the surface, Microsoft should be making decent revenue. It
| won't compare with the revenue from the 8 markets they chose.
| However that's my point, if they include smaller markets
| strategically in some launches, it can benefit them in the
| future.
| 708145_ wrote:
| Excluded how you mean?
| croes wrote:
| "The Windows Dev Kit 2023 is now available to developers in 8
| countries: Australia, Canada, China, France, Germany, Japan,
| the United Kingdom and the United States."
| [deleted]
| MikusR wrote:
| They exclude about 180 countries
| tristor wrote:
| This looks like a really good deal for folks using WSL2 and VS
| Code for development.
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