This was posted 1 year 5 months 25 days ago, and might be an out-dated deal.

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Windows Dev Kit 2023: Snapdragon 8cx, 32GB RAM, 512GB NVMe SSD, Win 11 $949 Delivered @ Microsoft Store Online

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Windows Dev Kit 2023: Snapdragon 8cx, 32GB RAM, 512GB NVMe SSD, Win 11 $949 Delivered @ Microsoft Store OnlineAffiliate
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StingyMan on 04/11/2022 - 18:31 microsoft.com (1979 clicks)
Last edited 04/11/2022 - 18:38 by 1 other user
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Yes, OzRRP, but this a very nifty device that almost nobody knows about.

32GB ram, 512GB NVME ssd, mini form factor, lots of ports, wifi 6, great value for under $1k, only downside is ARM on windows (but support is getting better, power savings may also be a factor considering the current pricing predictions).

While this is a device primarily targeted at developers MS is not validating the origin of orders and anyone can buy, I was also getting free shipping to Sydney.

SSD is likely to be upgradeable according to here

Full specs for you nerds:

Dimensions
196 mm x 152 mm x 27.6 mm (8” X 6” X 1.1")
Memory
32 GB LPDDR4x RAM
Processor
Snapdragon® 8cx Gen 3 compute platform
Security
sTPM 
Software
Windows 11 Pro
Weight
960 g
What’s in the box
Windows Dev Kit 2023
PSU Box
PSU Cable
Warranty and Compliance Guide
Storage
512 GB fast NVMe Storage
Graphics
Qualcomm® Adreno™
GPU, Snapdragon™ 8cx Gen 3
Connections
2x USB-C USB3.2 Gen 2 
3x USB-A USB3.2 Gen 2 
Mini Display Port (supporting HBR2) connecting to primary monitor
Ethernet Port (RJ45) 
Wireless
Wi-Fi 6 
Bluetooth 5.1
Exterior
Materials: Shell made with 20% recycled ocean plastic 
Colour: Black 
Physical buttons: Power button, boot button and UEFI button 
Warranty1
1-year limited hardware warranty

Computing Computer Microsoft Mini PC

Related Stores

Microsoft
Microsoft

closed Comments

  • deadlift on 04/11/2022 - 18:37
    +3

    Windows on ARM
    X to Doubt.

  • dcep on 04/11/2022 - 18:42
    -2

    defeats purpose of running windows on arms, missing x86 supports

    what about getting this to run macOS ? essentially a mac mini , but SD 8cx gen3 still far inferior to M1 ?

    • StingyMan on 04/11/2022 - 18:44
      +5

      From what I'm aware, these devices can run x64 and x86 but though emulation which does not guarantee best performance. However, there are a growing number of apps that now support arm natively, more since devs had to compile arm for MacOS and now do so for Windows too.

      • dekekun on 04/11/2022 - 19:17
        +2

        Yeah they run x86/x64 apps fine, just not hardware drivers.

        Source: ours arrived this week and we've been playing with it. It's cool, it's faster than my 11700k in the right (read: arm native) apps.

    • athk on 04/11/2022 - 18:58

      Windows ARM can run x86 and x64 software… it’s just another overhead but it does it really well.

      Same as Rosetta on MacOS

      • incipient on 04/11/2022 - 19:23
        +1

        Technical point, I don't think rostetta is emulation. I think it's an abstraction layer combined with (partial?) executable instruction translation?

        Emulation is simpler/more robust but slower.

        • guidedlight on 05/11/2022 - 07:58
          +1

          The M1 CPU has a special mode that makes memory ordering behave like x86 CPU’s. So it’s not a pure ARM CPU when running Rosetta.

          But you are right that Rosetta is an AOT abstraction layer, with some hardware help.

    • scaryspace on 05/11/2022 - 08:02
      +4

      In this great video by Jeff Geerling, he states that you would get a higher geekbench score by running a Hyper-V VM (In Windows) running macOS and then Rosetta running through that, compared to running Windows with its own emulator/translation layer. Quite sad.

    • Bedgrub on 02/12/2022 - 21:02

      I've been running ARM of both Windows 10 and 11 in Parallels VMs on my M1 Air for two years now and the experience seamless.

      I run large data sets in Excel and PowerBI, and everyone application runs flawlessly. The only things that don't work are games and 3D modelling programs like AutoCAD.

    • Tim Mc on 04/11/2022 - 19:46
      +1

      "The rest of the innards are a bit of a mess. It looks like they literally grabbed the mainboard from a Surface and crammed it in judging by all these empty board connectors."

      A Surface in a plastic case with a fan for active cooling. :-/

      • Nom on 05/11/2022 - 14:00
        +1

        …so ?

        If this is the cheapest way to get the device to market, then what's the problem ?

      • Bedgrub on 02/12/2022 - 21:04

        Does it matter? Demonstrates that they haven't unnecessarily re-engineered it.

        Also, it's a dev box..

  • qvinto on 04/11/2022 - 18:46
    -1

    Ram and storage specs are good, the processor is not. A mac mini would be a better option if you want to run arm apps

    • incipient on 04/11/2022 - 19:24
      +6

      Unless you wanted to run Windows apps. Then a Mac is pretty terrible =P

      • onlinepred on 04/11/2022 - 19:40
        -1

        This won’t run most windows apps natively.

        • incipient on 04/11/2022 - 19:42

          You're correct. But a mac won't even run them non-natively will it?

          • onlinepred on 04/11/2022 - 19:46

            @incipient: A regular windows pc will run them and better. And cheaper.

            • incipient on 04/11/2022 - 19:59

              @onlinepred: But that's not a mac mini?

              • onlinepred on 04/11/2022 - 20:03
                +1

                @incipient: Yep so no reason to buy this unless you want a compromised reduced functionality of for a Hugh price. Unless you want to test out arm

        • qvinto on 04/11/2022 - 21:07

          It may run them quite well in VM such as parallels. But obviously use more ram

  • bargaino on 04/11/2022 - 18:46
    +7

    I'm struggling to see why you'd want this for anything other than ARM software development.

    Nice price if you do specifically want ARM. Otherwise there up plenty of cheap small PCs, just upgrade the RAM.

    • StingyMan on 04/11/2022 - 18:48
      -3

      Good price for the ram and storage, for non-gaming workloads cpu bumps have not made significant performance improvements in the last few years. So good for people who just want to check their emails and want something minimal that will (hopefully) last a while.

      • oz-dave on 04/11/2022 - 18:51

        If support for ARM never fully takes off, or is dropped in the future, it won't last as long as a regular CPU product.

      • bargaino on 04/11/2022 - 18:56
        +1

        So good for people who just want to check their emails and want something minimal

        Why would they care about 32GB? This is OzB! Tons of deals for USFF models for a tiny fraction of this price, and yes they will "last a while".

      • Dvbargain on 04/11/2022 - 18:59
        +1

        No… It's not. 32gb RAM and 500gb nvme is cheap now

    • Mooncakes on 04/11/2022 - 21:52
      +1

      I'm struggling to see why you'd want this for anything other than ARM software development.

      Do you not know what devkit means?

      • bargaino on 04/11/2022 - 21:56
        +3

        Do you not know what "other than" means ? :-)
        Native ARM development is a very niche purpose, and OP suggested it would have more broad appeal.
        I even write for ARM sometimes, but like most I cross-compile on a Linux Intel box, and test in an emulator or target hardware.

  • bamzero on 04/11/2022 - 18:47
    +1

    I guess you'd need to have a pretty specific use case given the price of second hand SFF PCs?

  • oz-dave on 04/11/2022 - 18:48
    +2

    It's an interesting product for a niche market, but not really a bargain if it is selling at RRP.

  • repeat on 04/11/2022 - 18:59
    +1

    Slightly related, the Rock 5 B from this deal are finally being shipped out.
    USD $170 (~$268) shipped for the 16GB model with heatsink and wifi/BT if you bought the coupon.

  • Austere on 04/11/2022 - 19:04
    -8

    Should note that this has some significant limitations of bad IO and weak CPU

    • BillyG687 on 04/11/2022 - 21:07

      That's not true at all.

      2x USB-C USB3.2 Gen 2 
      3x USB-A USB3.2 Gen 2 
      Mini Display Port (supporting HBR2) connecting to primary monitor
      Ethernet Port (RJ45) 

      What more do you want out of that? As for performance CPU mark places it at a score of around 11,000 where the M1 8-Core is 14,000. So it's not faster, but definitely not weak. Another comparison is the Ryzen 5 Pro 4500U which gets a similar score to the Snapdragon.

      • Austere on 04/11/2022 - 23:26
        -4

        RJ45

        Nope - 1GbE is a complete deal breaker and puts it behind older gen NUCs

        Performance

        It gets creamed in anything that requires extend instruction sets, ie vs a 12700T
        HWBOT x265 4K: 1.5fps vs 15fps
        7-Zip MT: 16,000 vs 58,000

        • Benno123 on 05/11/2022 - 00:48
          +2

          I don't think you understand what this product is. It's not an x86 based system. Should it be posted on ozbargain? probs not. But it's an ARM based windows PC targeted at devs. Of course it's not going to do the things that x86 CPU's do best. Again. That's not what this is.

          • Austere on 05/11/2022 - 11:42
            +1

            @Benno123:

            I don't think you understand what this product is

            I do actually, that’s why I am showing that despite above synthetic numbers its a real poor performer for general use

            But it's an ARM based windows PC targeted at devs

            Hence comments - specs are limiting for actual dev when you can fire up an 80 core VM w high speed networking for a few dollars

  • stmgr on 04/11/2022 - 19:24

    Im a web dev. Don't use pc except browsing otherwise. Im considering this but waiting for some more reviews.

    • xmagic on 04/11/2022 - 20:36
      +1

      I doubt you should wait.
      If you know the pros and cons of WoA then you should buy this as other WoA devices are not as polished and Surfaces with ARM are just too expensive.

  • eggaz on 04/11/2022 - 19:32
    -1

    "only downside is ARM on Windows" enough said.

    • virda on 04/11/2022 - 20:09
      -3

      "Windows" enough said.

  • Benno123 on 04/11/2022 - 20:01
    -1

    As a developer this intrigues me but MS have a long way to go to make windows on ARM viable yet.

  • hbb2005 on 04/11/2022 - 21:40

    What is the RRP for this? Did I get a wrong Oz bargain website?

  • BinChicken69 on 04/11/2022 - 22:09
    -1

    Haha microsoft has tried arm for all most 10 years so far still no luck but this may help the potential i have been waiting years!!! For a arm based laptop that actully works with apps maybe developers can use this to design more arm apps. Microsft really need to supply thr devs good toools like apple had doen to convert to arm or reprogrsm to arm

  • mostlygordon on 04/11/2022 - 22:12
    -1

    If only it run Linux… RRP too, so no bargain here.

  • wizko on 05/11/2022 - 02:55
    +9

    Excellent device actually. People keep shitting on Windows Arm yet the only way it grows is if people adopt. Lots of app have Arm variants now.

    In terms of performance the Snapdragon 8CX Gen 3 performs to the level of last year's Surface Pro 8 i7 when running native apps.

    Current apps that have native Windows Arm support (ensure you're downloading Arm variant not x86):
    - Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom
    - VLC media player
    - Spotify
    - Xbox app on windows with streaming support (finally)
    - Microsoft Office
    - Netflix
    - Edge browser
    - Firefox
    - Visual Studio & Visual Studio Code
    - WSL + Linux Arm

    Unfortunately Chrome doesn't have an Arm variant but you can install chromium woolyss which is basically an unofficial chromium build that has native Arm. Basically the same as the official chrome browser.

    My origianl Surface Pro X runs 100x better because of so many apps now being native compared to 3 years ago at launch.

  • TeddyBear on 06/11/2022 - 16:54

    Waiting for Windows on RISC-V

  • SailorGoon on 08/11/2022 - 15:22
    -2

    RRP and the price is actually not that great for 32gb and 500gb ssd. I hate the trend of RRP posts, first consoles now this. Next we’ll be thanking our employers for a 1% pay rise against 10%+ inflation.

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