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Available Today: Windows Dev Kit 2023 a.k.a. Project Volterra

blogs.windows.com

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Re: Available Today: Windows Dev Kit 2023 a.k.a. Project Volterra

#351

Post by geerlingguy »

MBCook wrote: post #332
karmelapple wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!)

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 ca…

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.).

Re: Available Today: Windows Dev Kit 2023 a.k.a. Project Volterra

#352

Post by nuc1e0n »

Scharkenberg wrote: post #346
nuc1e0n wrote: post #343

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.

Yes, both 32-bit and 64-bit apps should work, as long as they don't rely on low-level x86 stuff.

Why isn't this capability highlighted more?

Re: Available Today: Windows Dev Kit 2023 a.k.a. Project Volterra

#353

Post by FeistySkink »

my123 wrote: post #23
nick88msn wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From what MS says you cannot do it out of the box.

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.

Which things currently work and don't with X13s?

Re: Available Today: Windows Dev Kit 2023 a.k.a. Project Volterra

#354

Post by megous »

kcb wrote: post #222
megous wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You can put a 2.5gbe adapter on the USB ports I guess.

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...

Re: Available Today: Windows Dev Kit 2023 a.k.a. Project Volterra

#355

Post by Macha »

indrora wrote: post #153
dtx1 wrote: post #90

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).

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 m…

> 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.

Re: Available Today: Windows Dev Kit 2023 a.k.a. Project Volterra

#356

Post by JAlexoid »

arglebargle123 wrote: post #244
wmf wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

Qualcomm's value proposition isn't the chip itself. It's the package, that includes the baseband.

Re: Available Today: Windows Dev Kit 2023 a.k.a. Project Volterra

#357

Post by AshamedCaptain »

alias_neo wrote: post #156
gjsman-1000 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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…

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...

Re: Available Today: Windows Dev Kit 2023 a.k.a. Project Volterra

#358

Post by sylens »

MBCook wrote: post #309
Nican wrote: post #260

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

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. I…

It is astonishing to me that people are out there buying Intel PC laptops when the M1 MBA can be had for <$1000

Re: Available Today: Windows Dev Kit 2023 a.k.a. Project Volterra

#359

Post by Cupprum »

treis wrote: post #298
pornel wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.?

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.

Re: Available Today: Windows Dev Kit 2023 a.k.a. Project Volterra

#360

Post by AshamedCaptain »

rr888 wrote: post #326
IceWreck wrote: post #7

I want to install Linux on one of these and use it as a low power consumption home server.

I was going to say you should just use a raspberry pi, but you can't get those any more anyway. :)

And RPIs are not very good regarding power consumption, neither idle power nor efficiency.
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