Surface Studio teardown reveals few upgradable parts and hidden ARM chip

iFixit tore apart the Surface Studio and this is what they found…

Surface Studio teardown

In most cases when you’ve seen the inside of a computer, you pretty much see it all, but the new teardown from iFixit shows that Microsoft’s Surface Studio has a slightly different approach to all-in-one devices.

Of course, the 28-inch 4.5K display is the start of the show here, but another interesting component is the ARM 32-bit Cortex M7 processor found behind the screen. There is no information about Microsoft decision to include an ARM chip on an Intel-powered device, but it appears that the processor’s purpose is to help drive the display.

iFixit also tore the Surface Studio base, which looks very much like an Apple TV or iMac Mini, and it includes all the computer guts. The bad news here is that it’s not so upgradable, as Microsoft has soldered the CPU and GPU, as well as the memory into the motherboard. However, you can replace the custom hybrid hard drive, which unlike regular hybrid drives, the one from the Studio is made up of a traditional rotating platters hard drive and m.2 Solid State Drive.

Atmel ATSAMS70N21 32-bit ARM Cortex-M7 processor
Atmel ATSAMS70N21 32-bit ARM Cortex-M7 processor
Seagate Spinpoint M8 ST1000LM024 5400 RPM, 1 Terabyte, SATA 3.0 Gb/s hard drive
Seagate Spinpoint M8 ST1000LM024 5400 RPM, 1 Terabyte, SATA 3.0 Gb/s hard drive
SanDisk 05466 032G 32 GB NAND flash storage module (x2 for a total of 64 GB)
SanDisk 05466 032G 32 GB NAND flash storage module (x2 for a total of 64 GB)

At the end of the day, the Surface Studio received a repairability score of 5 out of 10, which no surprising is the same score iFixit gave to the Apple’s iMac.

Want to see more? Check out the gallery revealing more details of the hardware inside Surface Studio.

About the author

Mauro Huculak is a Windows How-To Expert who started Pureinfotech in 2010 as an independent online publication. He has also been a Windows Central contributor for nearly a decade. Mauro has over 14 years of experience writing comprehensive guides and creating professional videos about Windows and software, including Android and Linux. Before becoming a technology writer, he was an IT administrator for seven years. In total, Mauro has over 20 years of combined experience in technology. Throughout his career, he achieved different professional certifications from Microsoft (MSCA), Cisco (CCNP), VMware (VCP), and CompTIA (A+ and Network+), and he has been recognized as a Microsoft MVP for many years. You can follow him on X (Twitter), YouTube, LinkedIn and About.me.