System76 built the fastest Windows Arm PC

https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2025/system76-built-fastest-windows-arm-pc

by speckx • 2 years ago

126 63 2 years ago

jmclnx• 2 years ago

Do not let the title fool you. It also talks about Linux too.

exabrial3• 2 years ago

I cannot wait until they get into Mobile ARM and PopOS with Cosmic is a thing. Apple's quality on the hardware has [finally] returned after the War On Ports was declared over, but the software is still getting jammed with useless BS, parlor tricks, and gizmos that will be forgotten, while ignoring core stability, QOL issues, and further becoming a nanny-state. I'm ready to jump ship.

bryanlarsen2• 2 years ago

Agreed. Our experience developing a low level networking app leads us to believe that MacOS is far buggier than either Windows or Linux.

diggan2• 2 years ago

MacOS is far buggier than either Windows or Linux.

On the UI/UX side of things, definitely a worse experience than even stock Windows or Linux with Gnome, and that's coming from someone who generally likes it but got so tired of recent (at the time) bugs and jankiness that I had to migrate elsewhere. This was probably around 2016 or so, around the time when it seemed like there was no QA department at all at Apple.

gjsman-10002• 2 years ago

Frankly, this is partially a lack of research.

1. Don't like Gatekeeper? Run `sudo spctl --master-disable`. Afterwards, go to System Settings, Privacy & Security, and you'll have the option to allow applications from "Anywhere." You can now run unsigned code whenever you want. No notarization required. No disabling SIP required. Although, if you don't like SIP, `sudo csrutil disable` from Recovery Mode will do the trick. Don't like needing to "bless" your boot image to ensure a lack of tampering? `sudo authenticated-root disable` from recovery mode, and we're mostly back to the older days of macOS. Don't like code signing anywhere, even for system services? nvram boot-args="amfi_get_out_of_my_way=0x1" from recovery mode is all it takes.

I would never use a broken signed system volume on a work machine. However, good news, macOS lets you have completely isolated secure boot practices for each volume. As a result, you could have a fully-secure stock macOS with Apple Pay and all the features; and a macOS with no SSV, apps from Anywhere, and a homebuilt XNU kernel side-by-side without any loss in functionality.

2. "useless BS, parlor tricks, and gizmos" is equally applicable to Windows; and frankly many Linux distributions at this point. Only KDE was shameless enough to ship a rubber ball for my desktop (https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2017/03/kde-bouncing-ball-plasma...). I actually do appreciate some of macOS's "parlor tricks" and use them regularly (such as "desk view" with my iPhone), so YMMV.

3. Don't like the in-box apps? Put them all in a folder, disable notifications, never think about them again. At least they won't nag you to turn them back on, like Windows begging you for a Game Pass trial. Or, if you're really hardcore, disable SIP, mount the root disk, delete them all, "bless" your disk image (unless you killed authenticated root), and reboot.

https://www.reddit.com/r/MacOS/comments/zhl71h/a_very_silly_...

https://gist.github.com/macshome/15f995a4e849acd75caf14f2e50...

exabrial3• 2 years ago

ok, how do I uninstall siri, screentime, alert center, apple intelligence, spotlight, tips, get back 32 bit support, remove the OS level advertising tracking support, and uninstall game center?

jitl5• 2 years ago

Sure … it’s possible to turn off security. But what I want is a working and secure system that isn’t annoying. macOS today feels as obnoxious as Windows Vista did in 2007. I still weep for everything we’ve lost since Snow Leopard (greatest OS release of all time)

Like yesterday double click title bar to maximize windows mysteriously stopped doing anything on my M4 MBP. Why??? Guess I’ll try a restart and see if it helps…

jitl5• 2 years ago

I wonder if Linux/ARM (or specifically System76) has figured out how to do hybrid sleep-suspend out of the box. “closed laptop” performance in AMD/Intel land seems to have regressed substantially in the last 15 years; Microsoft is even encouraging vendors to drop support for regular S3 sleep https://www.spacebar.news/windows-pc-sleep-broken/ and my Steam Deck AMD machine makes no attempt to hibernate and will drain the battery in sleep in about a day and a half.

I personally had an okay time with Linux sleep in 2019 but for the life of me couldn’t get sleep-to-hibernate working and a quick google does not instill confidence in the current state of the world here. At least the process to set it up in 2024 is more straightforward on PopOS compared to my 2019 Ubuntu experience https://www.adlrocha.com/til/2024-02-13-linux-hibernate/

Power management is the one area Apple’s nanny state is a substantial advantage. Android took a long time to get good at battery compared to iOS (on my Nexus in 2013 I remember doing a LOT of fiddling to make sure random apps weren’t waking the CPU too much) but it seems great today.

Hopefully mainline Linux laptops get there too. Until then I’ll keep updating my mac-setup.sh script with ever more work-arounds…

Valord• 2 years ago

I agree with you on the sleep-hibernate thing. Unfortunate that Linux sleep is noticeably worse. Switched from Mac to AMD Framework 16 with Fedora and I discovered it quickly.

Cshelton• 2 years ago

We were piloting the new Snapdragon X Elite Surface Laptops to roll them out to our org about 3 months ago. Loved everything about it, but when it came to software... things became messy. The MSFT Office suite was great, as well as any browser of course. Then we had to make sure some older Excel plugins worked for financial users, they didn't. Had to use some workarounds. We tried our front end app Node build pipeline.. we gave up and had to put it in a container to get it to build properly. Tried a few things through the cpu emulator, it was no where near Apple's at their launch of M1. Ultimately, we had to go back to the Intel Surface Laptops. It felt like the ARM laptops were rushed about a year too early...

officeplant• 2 years ago

The really sad thing is the complete absence of support for WinARM when shit goes wrong. I've got one of Dell's Qualcomm 8CX Gen2 based inspirons that broke its windows install when it crashed on boot one day.

Its been sitting on a shelf for almost 8 months and I periodically take it down to see if shits been fixed for restoring its install.

Win11's built in self restore tools attempt to wipe and reinstall windows but ultimately fail and it reverts to the broken state. But this is actually better than 4 months ago when online reinstall function was ENTIRELY broken.

It took until a month or so ago for Microsoft to even offer Win11 ARM iso's on their website that weren't virtual machine files. But these images don't work on my inspirion, I'm guessing they don't bake in 8cx Gen2 support. I can get it to boot into the installer but usb is broken entirely and therefore it can't see anything on the installer usb once its booted. Keep in mind WinARM products have been on the market for years at this point. Its insane vs restoring an x86 laptop.

Dells tools for building a system restore usb are completely broken. I had to go into their text logs to get the web link and authkey to download the win11 iso. Even after building the boot drive it installs a broken version of win11 that can't successfully update, and has a constantly crashing explorer.exe.

I contacted Dell support about this and got strung along for 3 months of back and forth emails before they told me I needed to upgrade to a paid support tier to have a functional laptop again.

And then we get to linux where 8cx Gen2 support is a fucking void no one wants to touch because it has a different device tree than Gen1 or Gen3 which seemingly have some manner of linux support.

I really hope any IT squad that gets suckered into buying SnapdragonX laptops is ready for a world of pain when something goes wrong.

tokinonagare• 2 years ago

It felt like the ARM laptops were rushed about a year too early...

It's like this every year since the Windows RT laptops : 2012.

canucker20162• 2 years ago

The Microsoft Prism x64 emulator on Windows ARM was updated in November 2024 to support more x64 CPU instructions including AVX, AVX2, et al. see https://www.tomsguide.com/computing/laptops/windows-on-snapd...

There were rumours that Intel was threatening IP issues for companies building Intel CPU emulators. I have no idea how Apple or Microsoft dealt with any Intel-specific issues. see https://mspoweruser.com/intel-may-block-microsoft-from-allow...

canucker20162• 2 years ago

Here's an official post from the Microsoft Windows blog, https://blogs.windows.com/windows-insider/2024/11/06/announc...:

    Announcing Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 27744 (Canary Channel)

    Hello Windows Insiders, today we are releasing Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 27744 to the Canary Channel.

    We are also not planning to release SDKs for 27xxx series builds for the time being.

    What’s new with Build 27744
    
    New Processor Feature Support in Prism

    In today’s Canary Channel Insider Preview build, we’re previewing a major feature update to Prism, our emulator for Windows on Arm, that will make it possible for more 64-bit x86 (x64) applications to run under emulation by adding support for more CPU features under emulation.

    This new support in Prism is already in limited use today in the retail version of Windows 11, version 24H2, where it enables the ability to run Adobe Premiere Pro 25 on Arm. Starting with Build 27744, the support is being opened to any x64 application under emulation. You may find some games or creative apps that were blocked due to CPU requirements before will be able to run using Prism on this build of Windows.

    At a technical level, the virtual CPU used by x64 emulated applications through Prism will now have support for additional extensions to the x86 instruction set architecture. These extensions include AVX and AVX2, as well as BMI, FMA, F16C, and others, that are not required to run Windows but have become sufficiently commonplace that some apps expect them to be present. You can see some of the new features in the output of a tool like Coreinfo64.exe.

darknavi• 2 years ago

Luckily, switching back to Linux solves that issue. Games not only run with 3D acceleration, they run smoothly.
... Halo 3 ran just as smooth as an Xbox 360 ...

A game originally authored for a PowerPC CPU (Xbox 360), ported to x86 (Windows), automatically translated for an ARM chip (Linux). Amazing!

crowcroft• 2 years ago

I would love to know how efficient it is through those ports and translations, vs running smoothly through sheer horsepower (Xbox 360 is nearly two decades old).

Impressive nonetheless though!

kelnos• 2 years ago

it's a lot faster compiling Arm software native on a monster Arm CPU than even the fastest AMD or Intel CPU with emulation.

Running, sure, but compilation speed should be the same, assuming you're using a cross-compiler, which of course you would be. No emulation involved.

geerlingguy3• 2 years ago

Edited the OP to clarify that it's compiling + running test suites, which I believe was the main motivation for this machine's existence (an automotive developer was frustrated with the speed running hundreds of arm64 ECU VMs.

k_bx• 2 years ago

Cross-compiling software which relies on a big bunch of runtime libraries is a major pain in a big project. Have you ever had success with it?

legulere• 2 years ago

Sadly the article lacks comparison in single core performance with Apple chips. Comparison with x86 chips would also be interesting.

unnah• 2 years ago

Based on the presented multi-core benchmarks, the single-core performance is 40-50% of a single M2 Ultra core: 40% on the HPL Linpack benchmark, and 50% on Cinebench. That is compared to the average M2 Ultra core, counting both the fast "performance" cores and the slow "efficiency" cores. So the M2 performance cores are even faster than that, never mind the M3 or M4. Then again, you cannot buy a 128-core computer from Apple, so it's an apples to oranges comparison.

rbanffy• 2 years ago

I love the design reminiscent of Silicon Graphics workstations.

troyvit• 2 years ago

Yeah I was reading the article and started fast-forwarding through the description of how the machine was built because I wanted to get to all the Windows/Linux stuff, then was like wait this is System76 man! Their laptops are off the shelf stuff but their desktop hardware is just so classy (I worked for them for a year so I'm a bit biased).

bluGill5• 2 years ago

I'm waiting for their in house laptop they keep saying they are working towards. They say their workstation cases and keyboards are learning steps to creating the laptop, but so far nothing is here

benatkin2• 2 years ago

Half a gig of RAM would sure be great for ninja builds.

benatkin2• 2 years ago

Half a terabyte*

Aurornis• 2 years ago

The primary reason someone would buy this thing is for automotive development. Since most cars and infotainment systems run on Arm chips, building software with an Arm workstation makes sense—it's a lot faster compiling Arm software native on a monster Arm CPU than even the fastest AMD or Intel CPU with emulation.

I think this is a misunderstanding on Jeff's part, or maybe he was given some bad marketing material.

Emulating ARM software is slow, but cross-compiling for ARM is not. Cross-compilers do not rely on emulation to compile.

The reason this machine compiles quickly is that it has 128 cores and a high TDP.

Note that you can buy every part of this system—aside from System76's case and support—from a retailer like NewEgg (e.g. the motherboard + CPU combo for $2349) should you wish to build a custom arm64 workstation PC.

This link is to a different CPU that is not quite as fast as the one he tested (though still fast) and only has 10Gbe, not 25Gbe. Still a good bargain, but not the same part used in the system.

bryanlarsen2• 2 years ago

Cross-compiling can be a pain to set up, though. Sometimes it's easy, sometimes it isn't. I've definitely compiled under emulators in the past just to not have to deal with cross-compilers.

I definitely wouldn't spend $7000 to avoid the pain though!

taeric3• 2 years ago

Isn't it typically a flag, nowadays? Even for python, getting an install that works on ARM from X86 is largely `pip install --platform manylinux2014_aarch64 --only-binary=:all:`, if I have it right.

I confess it took me longer to find that flag than I'd care to admit. But AWS Lambda using ARM made this something worth finding. And many of the alternatives on how to get the artifacts to deploy did focus on containers for emulation, if I'm remembering correctly.

stefan_• 2 years ago

Yeah, I'm not entirely sure who this system is for. A lot of automotive infotainment is AMD now (if you are gonna sell to console makers..) and ARM64 is a perfectly "sane" architecture that has very decent software support in everything you would need to make a cross-compiling toolchain. Ironically the kind of systems that don't have the latter generally can't be very well emulated (or bought as a workstation) either.

The last time I wished for a native high performance ARM64 system was using PyInstaller to deploy something not very important to an ARM64 based embedded system which needs the native environment. But that's the reason it was "not very important"; I won't live to see them make a sane Python deployment story.

geerlingguy3• 2 years ago

I think this is a misunderstanding on Jeff's part, or maybe he was given some bad marketing material.

It was more the former, though mostly miswritten... what was in my head and what I wrote at 11pm last night were two different things :) (I've just updated the post)

The point is, this machine was built at the request (IIRC) of an automotive manufacturer who was tired of the delay in running a suite of I believe hundreds of ECU tests. So needing to have a machine which could quickly compile the arm64 software, then run it in dozens of VMs to run their test suite. It was expensive in the cloud, and took much longer on a local workstation, so the Thelio Astra was born.

Ampere has a synthetic benchmark to kind of illustrate this point (though of course the benchmark is slanted completely in Ampere's favor, as Coremark is one of the few benchmarks where Ampere does better core-for-core than AMD/Intel): https://github.com/AmpereComputing/qemu-coremark?tab=readme-...

This link is to a different CPU that is not quite as fast as the one he tested (though still fast) and only has 10Gbe, not 25Gbe. Still a good bargain, but not the same part used in the system.

That's a good point, again I had only checked late last night and thought it was the same M128-30, but alas, it's the 2.6 GHz version. To be honest, I'm not sure how to get the dual 25 GbE version of the board either, maybe ASRock Rack is only selling direct to partners. I will ask about whether it could be put into a bundle on NewEgg, I have no idea how they set up that arrangement, but IMO it should be available!

And having the CPU's easily purchasable without a motherboard bundle would be nice, too. They're probably not a high-volume item, but they have their place.

bluGill5• 2 years ago

I don't understand the value? Why not build for your native CPU and run the tests there. Eventually you need to cross compile for the target as well and run integration tests, but the vast majority of your tests should be portable to run on anything you compile for. You probably want to write some custom text fixtures/emulators so that you don't have to test everything in a full car - dangerous error conditions in particular should be tested in emulation as much as possible before you find a lab to run a real world test (if you test them - is it worth exploding an engine just to verify you show the correct RPM?)

In the 1980s everything was written in assembly and you depending on the clock speed. However these days embedded should have learned that the CPU you write for will go out of production and so you should write portable code except for the small shim layers that talk to the real hardware.

cbsmith3• 2 years ago

In the 1980s everything was written in assembly and you depending on the clock speed. However these days embedded should have learned that the CPU you write for will go out of production and so you should write portable code except for the small shim layers that talk to the real hardware.

Ah... the illusions of "portability". A lot of the reason you want to test your code is that there may be behaviors specific to the target platform (either in the hardware itself, in the compiler, in the runtime, or in support libraries/frameworks). You may well write with the intent to be portable, but you test for the reality that you never really are.

9999000009995• 2 years ago

The nice thing about System76 selling this machine is you get their excellent support (you can choose from 1-3 years of support at purchase). This is a huge boon to businesses who elect to run open source software, because they get a fully-supported hardware configuration instead of having to figure out compatibility themselves.

This entire thing reads like an advertisement.

Note that you can buy every part of this system—aside from System76's case and support—from a retailer like NewEgg (e.g. the motherboard + CPU combo for $2349) should you wish to build a custom arm64 workstation PC.

7000$ for a computer you can build for around 3500$.

You can literally just take their part list and install the OS yourself.

I understand companies need to make a profit, but this is nuts.

Likewise in the laptop market your almost always better off installing Linux on a Windows laptop vs paying 2x for a System 76 version.

Linux can't be simultaneously easy to install and justify on 100% markup.

6SixTy3• 2 years ago

System76 has their own UEFI BIOS and EC firmware, but that doesn't even make it better since you can hypothetically buy a Clevo laptop and mod it to be a brother from another mother.

9999000009995• 2 years ago

What's the ultimate difference for an end user.

Just buy a Thinkpad or another laptop that has good support for Linux.

I definitely get the argument that your supporting Linux by buying a System 76 computer, but the last time I checked IBM Red Hat isn't exactly a charity.

geerlingguy3• 2 years ago

For my own computers, I prefer to build myself, as I save a ton, and usually end up with a machine I'm happier with.

But as someone who's helped with many IT purchasing decisions, having a supported configuration and a company to call (instead of me being front line IT support, PC support, hardware support, etc.) is a huge benefit.

And right now there aren't a ton of Linux-first hardware vendors, so System76 charges a premium. It's worth it to some, but not to many.

Note that the system starts at $3299 — $2,000 of the price of the as-configured workstation was the 512 GB of ECC RAM. Those sticks cost $160/ea on Amazon.

There's a markup, but it's not $7000 for a computer that costs $3500 DIY. The DIY cost would be somewhere around $4000-4500 and would have a 2.6 GHz CPU and Dual 10 GbE instead of 25 GbE.

I'd like to see Ampere get all their CPU models out to retail availability though. Right now if you bought the base model for $3299, you could buy a M128-30 CPU for $2299, but only through NewEgg's "Request a Quote" system, which is a potshot.

9999000009995• 2 years ago

$7000 for a computer that costs $3500 DIY. The DIY cost would be somewhere around $4000-4500 and would have a 2.6 GHz CPU and Dual 10 GbE instead of 25 GbE.

I'm seeing some deals on the ram which can get it down to 1200 or less for the 512

So instead of a 100% markup, a modest 75%.

I just can't imagine the person who.

A) Needs this setup.

And.

B) Can't fit some computer parts together and install an OS.

Even then eventually issues will emerge. I have more faith in being able to fix my own PC vs waiting a full week for tech support. All the parts should be under warranty.

UncleOxidant2• 2 years ago

I'm looking on Newegg and it looks like the the motherboard/Ampere CPU bundle is $1434 (Asrock Rack Ampere Altra Bundle ALTRAD8UD-1L2T Deep Micro-ATX Server Motherboard Single Socket (LGA 4926) with Ampere Altra Q64-22 64 cores). case and power supply $300. 64GB RAM $65. 1TB M.2 SSD $55. A400 graphics card $180 (not a great card). That comes out to $2034. So yeah, they've got about a $1250 markup.

UncleOxidant2• 2 years ago

This would be a very nice Linux workstation. Not going to rush right out and get one soon, but something to keep an eye on.

lmaoguy• 2 years ago

Kinda like being the fastest double amputee in a foot race at the recovery center.

nixosbestos• 2 years ago

I sure wish Jeff would learn some Nix or NixOS. Not only does cross-compilation not need to be hard, there is a cached flake that supplies Cosmic for aarch64-linux.

znpy• 2 years ago

I'd love to be able to get a specced down, "low"-power, version of this to use as a home server:

- lower-end cpu (the 32-core version would be just fine for me)

- keeping the possibilty having lot of ram around (128gb? 256gb? 512gb?)

- low-end gpu or no gpu at all (it would be headless anyway)

- keep the ipmi around

- maybe some 4 hot-swappable 3.5" drive bays ?

I could see myself blowing 2000-3000$ on something like as long as I can keep it working for ten years. Maybe update it a bit over the years.

And i'm not joking about the ten-years: I'm still using a 2014-era HP MicroServer Gen8 and it works great. It shows its age, but it does still work great.

System76 built the fastest Windows Arm PC

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