Microsoft Project Volterra: Stackable mini-PC introduced with what could be the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8cx Gen3

Microsoft has introduced Project Volterra, a mini-PC that resembles a Mac mini. However, Project Volterra is a developer kit, making it more comparable with the Apple Developer Transition Kit (DTK) that combined a Mac mini shell with the A12Z Bionic from an iPad Pro. Effectively, Project Volterra is the successor to last year's Snapdragon Dev Kit, which relied on the first-generation Snapdragon 7c.

In comparison, Microsoft states that Project Volterra runs on an unnamed Snapdragon compute platform. While Microsoft remains quiet on what chipset powers Project Volterra, WinFuture asserts that it is the Snapdragon 8cx Gen3, which contains four ARM Cortex-X1 cores running at 2.99 GHz and an additional four Cortex-A78 cores clocked at 2.4 GHz. Although Microsoft has not confirmed this, a device named 'OEMVL OEMVL Product Name EV2' appeared on Geekbench in February. Thought to be a next-generation Surface Pro X, WinFuture and Roland Quandt now assert that Geekbench provided an early look at Project Volterra instead.

Moreover, Microsoft claims that Project Volterra is stackable, theoretically allowing developers to combine two or more Snapdragon 8cx Gen3 chipsets together. Microsoft hopes to release Project Volterra later this year, which it also equips with dual USB Type-C ports, three Type-A ports, a Mini DisplayPort and Ethernet. Apparently, Project Volterra will ship with an M.2 2280 slot for SSDs too, unlike the Apple DTK or the Apple M1-based Mac mini.

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