“Project Volterra” review: Microsoft’s $600 Arm PC that almost doesn’t suck

140

Microsoft has released two new systems based on Qualcomm's Arm processors lately. The first, a 5G version of the Surface Pro 9, has mostly been panned by reviewers, with software compatibility being a major pain point even after two generations of the Arm-powered Surface Pro X. The second is the $600 Windows Dev Kit 2023, formerly known by the much cooler name "Project Volterra," and it's supposed to help solve that software problem.

Microsoft has tried doing Arm Windows developer boxes before—namely, the $219 ECS LIVA QC710 it began selling about a year ago (it's no longer for sale, at least not through Microsoft's store). But with its 4GB of memory, 64GB of pokey storage, and underpowered Snapdragon 7c processor, using it was like revisiting the bad old netbook days. Maybe you could get some basic browsing done on it. But actual work, even for someone like me who primarily works with text and medium-resolution photos all day? Nope.

The Dev Kit 2023 is nearly three times as expensive, but the hardware is powerful enough that it mostly just feels like a typical midrange mini-desktop in day-to-day use. Freed from the limitations of cruddy hardware, the machine makes it much easier to evaluate Windows-on-Arm's remaining software limitations. For this review, we won't be using it as a developer box, but it does give us a good chance to evaluate where the Windows-on-Arm project is right now, both in hardware and software—especially relative to the Mac, the other hardware and software ecosystem that is making a much cleaner, wider-ranging, and more graceful transition from x86 software to Arm.

A Surface in all but name

Microsoft isn't selling the Dev Kit as a Surface device, because it's not meant to be a machine for everyday PC users. There's plenty of Surface in its DNA, however.

That starts with its design. It's a substantial-feeling hunk of black plastic over a metal frame with a Microsoft logo imprinted on the top; it's smaller than a Mac mini (which, if you're not familiar, has had the same physical dimensions for 12 years), but if Microsoft had set out to make a Surface-branded Mac mini clone, it probably wouldn't look much different.

One reason the device is smaller is that it uses a 90 W external power brick, whereas the Mac mini's power supply is inside the enclosure. That flows from the way Microsoft seems to have put together the Dev Kit—the Mac mini's internals were designed specifically for their enclosure, while the Dev Kit appears to be quite literally a Surface Pro 9 with 5G motherboard with a case built around it. In that way, it's less like the Mac mini and more like the Apple Silicon "Developer Transition Kit," which adapted iPad Pro-ish innards for a Mac mini-shaped case.

The most obvious giveaway is a bunch of unused connectors that are visible at the top-right of the board when you remove the bottom of the Dev Kit—these would be used to drive a display and other internal peripherals in a Surface device but go unused in the Dev Kit. The two USB-C ports (again, a Surface holdover, with identical positioning and space between them) are the only ones built into the board, while the Ethernet port, USB-A ports, mini DisplayPort, and power jack on the back are all built into a separate board. (That it's a Surface Pro clone also means that the Dev Kit has no headphone jack.) Firmware and driver updates pulled down from Windows Update are also Surface-branded.

The Dev Kit can connect to up to three monitors at once using its mini DisplayPort and USB-C ports, and up to two of those can be 60 Hz 4K displays (refresh rates faster than 60 Hz are available at lower resolutions, but 60 Hz does appear to be the hard cap at 4K). Microsoft says that the DisplayPort is the one you should use for the primary display, and it's the only one that will display a signal when you're adjusting the box's UEFI firmware settings, likely also a holdover from its Surface roots—the internal display in a Surface would likely be connected with an internal embedded DisplayPort connector (eDP) that worked the same way.

The only upgradeable component in the Dev Kit is the 512GB SSD, which is a short M.2 2230 drive just like the ones Microsoft uses in other Surfaces. A typical M.2 2280 SSD would definitely fit, though you'd have to figure out how to hold it in place yourself since there's no built-in standoff for it. The rationale for using a short little SSD in the first place is probably the same as for reusing a Surface motherboard—cheaper to reuse a thing than to design and pay for a whole different thing, especially in what is likely to be a low-volume product.

Windows-on-Arm: Usable with frustrations

The Task Manager is one of the few ways you can tell Arm Windows from x86 Windows, at least on the surface. Credit: Andrew Cunningham

To talk about the problem the Dev Kit seeks to fix, it's instructive to take a look at the Windows-on-Arm experience. "So close and yet so far" sums up the vibe.

We'll start with "so close." Windows-on-Arm looks and acts exactly the same way that Windows does on a regular x86 PC. The interface is the same, apps are the same, downloading and installing apps and running apps are all the same. We've come a long, long way from Windows RT, which looked and acted kind of like Windows but couldn't run most of the third-party software.

Microsoft deserves credit for steadily improving Windows-on-Arm and improving the x86-to-Arm translation layer that makes it possible to run most Windows apps on Arm devices. Windows 11 added the ability to translate 64-bit x86 code as well as 32-bit code, greatly expanding the universe of apps that will run. I can get most of my basic apps up and running on Arm Windows, and the Dev Kit's performance is fast and responsive when running Arm-native apps. I plugged the Dev Kit right into my dual-monitor setup and it did just fine, driving both 4K displays fluidly and working properly with most of my connected accessories.

Unfortunately, that leads us to the "but so far" stuff. That starts with the x86-to-Arm app translation. It's... fine. It works. But x86 apps running on the Dev Kit regularly stutter or hesitate when rendering, waiting on the translation to happen before responding to input.

The Slack and Discord apps were both good examples—you sometimes need to wait a second or so between clicking to a different server or channel or conversation and actually seeing the result of that click show up on-screen. It's even more of a problem in the Audacity audio editor, where scrubbing back and forth through multiple audio tracks requires fluid UI rendering that the Dev Kit can't quite manage even with a relatively quick processor, fast storage, and lots of memory.

Many x86 apps can run on the Arm version of Windows, but the performance penalty is noticeable. Even apps with Arm versions sometimes download and install their x86 versions instead. Credit: Andrew Cunningham

Apple's Rosetta technology has some of these problems, too; scrolling in a Rosetta app, for instance, is noticeably jerkier than scrolling in an Apple Silicon-native app. But that's mitigated somewhat by (1) the M1 and M2 chips' superior performance and (2) the fact that Intel-only apps on the Mac are currently the exception rather than the norm. The reverse is true in Windows, where Arm-native apps are only sometimes available.

The Windows ecosystem's core assumption that you're running the OS on an x86-compatible PC even causes problems when the Arm versions of software are available. Some apps we installed (Firefox from Mozilla's website, Zoom from the Microsoft Store) did download and install their Arm64 versions automatically, with no user intervention needed. 7-Zip doesn't have an automated installer, but it lists an Arm64 version on its homepage right next to the 64-bit and 32-bit x86 versions (an approach some Mac apps take to advertise Apple Silicon support). But downloading Handbrake from its website and VLC from the Microsoft Store got us x86 versions of the apps, even though Arm64 versions are available from other sources.

Still other software refuses to run on the Arm version of Windows at all, even with code translation. Dropbox was the most notable of my typical app suite that simply refused to install, kicking me to an inferior "S Mode" version of the product from the Microsoft Store. And you may be out of luck for any hardware that requires specialized drivers, like my Scarlett Solo mic preamp; Arm Windows drivers are even rarer than Arm Windows apps, and unlike apps, they can't be emulated or translated—no driver, no support.

Microsoft's own apps (including Office, Teams, a preview of Visual Studio and many of its extensions, and even things like PowerToys) are available in both x86 and Arm versions. Adobe supports most of the features of Photoshop and Lightroom in the Arm-native versions of those apps. Things are getting better. But game compatibility is virtually nil, Google doesn't offer an Arm version of Chrome, and third-party app support is a crapshoot, but it's x86-only more often than not.

In a Surface review, these would all be complaints about the consumer viability of an Arm Windows device, but given that this is a device specifically aimed at the developers who could solve all these problems, it should be viewed as more of a to-do list. If a Dev Kit 2024 or 2025 rolls around and all these problems remain, it's a sign that the project isn't really moving the needle. But the hope is surely that a cheap-ish, relatively powerful dev box will fix a few of these outstanding problems before Qualcomm (theoretically) delivers the M1-class chips it's still working on.

Fast for an Arm Windows device (which is another problem)

Speaking of the M1, let's talk about where the Windows-on-Arm hardware ecosystem is right now.

The Dev Kit's Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3 is Qualcomm's fastest Arm chip to date, and since Windows-on-Arm only officially runs on Qualcomm's chips right now, that makes it the fastest Arm chip that can run Windows. (The "SQ" branding that Microsoft uses in the Arm Surface devices is just another name for the exact same silicon, though Microsoft may weigh in on the chip's clock speeds and power use and other performance-tuning settings).

Qualcomm says the 8cx Gen 3 offers up to 85 percent better CPU performance and 60 percent better GPU performance than the 8cx Gen 2, and pulling numbers from the Geekbench online results database backs that up. As for the ECS Liva QC710 developer box, the 8cx Gen 3, to use highly technical terms of art, rips the Snapdragon 7c's guts out and wears them as a hat.

So that's all promising. The issue for the ecosystem is that this best-of-the-best chip is, in most respects, significantly slower than the Apple M1; the 2-year-old versions of Apple's slowest Apple Silicon Macs still run circles around its performance, and they do so while consuming less power. The Dev Kit is a lot cheaper than a Mac mini once you take specs into account—both devices start at $600, but in the Dev Kit, that gets you 32GB of RAM and 512GB of storage. The mini doesn't offer that much memory, but upgrading to 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage adds another $400 to the price tag. But the Windows box is still slower, even before you take into account the Mac's smoother x86 emulation and superior Arm-native app library.

The higher power usage is also a problem when you're comparing it to Intel and AMD processors. The 8cx Gen 3 in the Dev Kit uses an amount of power comparable to Core i5 and Ryzen 5-tier laptop chips from Intel and AMD, processors you can get in mini PCs like Intel's NUC series. It's hard to recommend an Arm-on-Windows box if its performance-per-watt is no better than the x86 systems it's striving to compete with.

At a bare minimum, the 8cx Gen 3 doesn't totally embarrass itself. It's fast enough that when you have a bad experience with Arm Windows, it's mostly Arm Windows' fault rather than underpowered hardware. But as with the software situation, it's another reminder of how far there is to go.

Good for what it is

The Windows Dev Kit 2023. Credit: Andrew Cunningham

It's undeniably good for the Arm Windows app ecosystem to have a viable, decently specced PC that is usable as an everyday computer. The Dev Kit 2023 is priced to move, so there may be some developers who buy one just for the hell of it, which might have some positive trickle-down effects for the rest of the ecosystem.

Because eventually, the Windows-on-Arm project will need to develop some tangible benefit for the people who choose to use it. What you're getting with an Arm Windows device right now is essentially the worst of both x86 and Arm—compatibility problems without lower power use and heat to offset them and so-so performance to boot. Apple has cracked all three of these things; Windows and Qualcomm are struggling to do any of them.

It feels like great Arm chips for Windows PCs are eternally just around the corner. This time next year, the Nuvia acquisition may finally enable Qualcomm to field a true M1 competitor, if Arm (the company) doesn't sue the processors out of existence first. The Dev Kit 2023 could help make sure that Windows-on-Arm is ready for those chips when they come. Or it could end up as just another interesting footnote in the annals of Microsoft's hardware division.

The good

A well-specced box at a good price, which should encourage curious developers to give it a shot
Small
Good port selection for the size
Most Windows apps will install and run

The bad

Qualcomm's best hardware still falls short of the 2-year-old M1, to say nothing of the M2 or more powerful M1 variants
Driver deficiencies may prevent testing with some kinds of specialized hardware

The ugly

App compatibility and performance leave a lot to be desired

Ars Technica may earn compensation for sales from links on this post through affiliate programs.

Listing image: Andrew Cunningham

Andrew Cunningham Senior Technology Reporter

Andrew is a Senior Technology Reporter at Ars Technica, with a focus on consumer tech including computer hardware and in-depth reviews of operating systems like Windows and macOS. Andrew lives in Philadelphia and co-hosts a weekly book podcast called Overdue.

140

View Comments