Microsoft Surface tablets

It's still more of a laptop or ultra book masquerading as tablet. Fans and weight.

All in one device, master of none.
 
I didnt realize its still got fans in it, gotta get rid of those if theyre serious.
Whats the most powerful intel CPU thats fanless?
 
zed said:
I didnt realize its still got fans in it, gotta get rid of those if theyre serious.
Whats the most powerful intel CPU thats fanless?
Click to expand...
Microsoft is currently using the U-class Haswell which have a 15W TDP. Intel also has Y-class Haswells which have a 11.5W TDP and are intended for tablets.

I'm actually curious to see how the 3:2 ratio handles in a tablet. 16:9 and 16:10 can be a bit unwieldy to hold one-handed in landscape and seems a bit tall to read documents in portrait. 4:3 isn't as optimal for video. 3:2 seems like a good middle ground.
 
The y class is junk in Vaio tap 11.

It still need fan, it's still hot, but it can run max speed with 11 TDP for only about 20 secs then down to 6 TDP according to throttlestop.
It also have horrible throttling, at ~53c of heavy cpu and gpu load, cpu clock down to 600 mhz and gpu to 100 mhz.

Laptop with u series cpu can be forced to not throttle by using throttlestop. Y series can't.

So it's awesome that surface pro 3 have u series and quieter fan
 
They chose not to wait for Broadwell but what is the hurry in announcing (shipping?) now instead of in the fall leading up to the Holidays, which is when they announced/shipped the previous Surface models?
 
They're trying to be successful on this hardware front, so why should they have to wait until fall? I expect by then they will have model updates to broadwell.
 
Does anybody know what specific processor models are on offer? Just stating Core i3/5/7 says absolutely nothing about performance and why you'd spend $300 more for a i7 over a i5.

Cheers
 
Surface Pro 1 was begging for Haswell, Surface Pro 2 was practically the same as Pro 1 with the Haswell, and now Pro 3 is begging for Broadwell.

Looks like a tick-tock approach by Microsoft. "Tick" being new design/chassis and "Tock" being updated CPU/GPU.


Pro 1 and 2 were released within one year of each other, but the Pro 3 has been pushed forward almost half a year. I guess Microsoft couldn't wait until Q1 2015 to release the Pro 3 with Broadwell so they just went ahead and released it with Haswell.
This way, a "Pro 4" or "Pro 3S" could be available as soon as they get Broadwell chips, since they're probably pin-to-pin compatible with Haswell.


Anyways, what this form factor with that monster resolution is really begging for is an iGPU with eDRAM and, according to this, that won't happen for Broadwell's U series. We'll have to wait until late 2015 for that to come with Skylake.

Maybe AMD will come through with a x86 SoC using HBM before that?
 
ToTTenTranz said:
Anyways, what this form factor with that monster resolution is really begging for is an iGPU with eDRAM
Click to expand...
You need a GPU that's wide enough to saturate DRAM memory bandwidth before EDRAM makes sense. These small tablet chips (that run at fairly low frequencies) just aren't there yet. Remember that there are already fairly large caches on the GPU itself that take care of a lot of the bandwidth when compared to other architectures.

That said, I agree I'd love to see something like a GT3e in a fanless tablet, but unfortunately physics is going to prevent that for a little while yet :)
 
DSC said:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/8037/microsoft-surface-pro-3-hands-on-display-performance-preview



Clearly the SP3 is begging for Broadwell to be inside it.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/7318/intel-demos-14nm-broadwell-up-to-30-lower-power-than-haswell
Click to expand...

Yes, but the fan noise should be virtually inaudible for most real world computing tasks. Surface Pro 3 is a very impressive device in many ways. Fitting a Core processor in a 9mm thick chassis is quite an accomplishment, and the new hinge design and new magnetic attachment point for the keyboard (along with a bigger screen and nicer aspect ratio) make this device a much better laptop replacement than prior generations of Surface Pro.
 
BRiT said:
They're trying to be successful on this hardware front, so why should they have to wait until fall? I expect by then they will have model updates to broadwell.
Click to expand...

Guess it depends on whether they expect to sell this to consumers or another market.

Consumers do most of the buying for Christmas so a lot of companies line up electronics toys in the months leading up, to keep them fresh in the minds of shoppers.


Yeah maybe they will flip it over in what 4 or 5 months?

Then that's telling potential buyers to wait.
 
Surface pro probably out prices most of the xmas market. I think they need to knock about $100 off of each upgrade tier if they really want to move any volume.
 
Or include the keyboard cover, since they tout how much like a laptop it is, how it's for creative use, not just consumption.
 
it looks really nice.


As a surface pro 1 user , I have to say the two biggest problems are heat and battery life. The surface pro 2 improved both of those things. My friend has a pro 2 and it gets about double the battery life and is much cooler under load.

This looks to improve on it more, however i'm going to wait another year or two before upgrading, really want at least broadwell but maybe what comes after that.
 
AlphaWolf said:
Surface pro probably out prices most of the xmas market. I think they need to knock about $100 off of each upgrade tier if they really want to move any volume.
Click to expand...

Launch in time for summer (when people are gearing up to go on vacation and want a portable device) and charge a premium for early adopters/technophiles that want to take along something that's a tablet but can do more than what a tablet can do.

Discount device for back to school season.

Discount device further for the Holiday shopping season if desired.

Also, I'm glad there's finally a good Windows slate (tablet) with a non-widescreen aspect ratio. Personally, I'd prefer 4:3 (closer to NA letter size paper), but I guess 3:2 (closer to A4 paper but narrower when in portrait orientation) is moving in the right direction.

I am however worried about their pen input switch. It would seem they have moved away from a Wacom active digitizer with the inclusion of a battery powered pen. I wonder if it's by the same company that provided the disastrous pen solution for the Dell Venue 11pro and 8pro. If so, I hope that company has gotten their pen input issues sorted. I'd imagine they must have if it is the solution being used by Microsoft in the Surface 3.

But in any event, I'm not a fan of battery powered pens.

I'd also still prefer a keyboard dock (with extra battery + extra storage) versus the type covers. Give me this and I can probably learn to live with a battery powered pen.

Regards,
SB
 
ToTTenTranz said:
Surface Pro 1 was begging for Haswell, Surface Pro 2 was practically the same as Pro 1 with the Haswell, and now Pro 3 is begging for Broadwell.

Looks like a tick-tock approach by Microsoft. "Tick" being new design/chassis and "Tock" being updated CPU/GPU.


Pro 1 and 2 were released within one year of each other, but the Pro 3 has been pushed forward almost half a year. I guess Microsoft couldn't wait until Q1 2015 to release the Pro 3 with Broadwell so they just went ahead and released it with Haswell.
This way, a "Pro 4" or "Pro 3S" could be available as soon as they get Broadwell chips, since they're probably pin-to-pin compatible with Haswell.


Anyways, what this form factor with that monster resolution is really begging for is an iGPU with eDRAM and, according to this, that won't happen for Broadwell's U series. We'll have to wait until late 2015 for that to come with Skylake.

Maybe AMD will come through with a x86 SoC using HBM before that?
Click to expand...

Even without HBM, I think Beema would be a decent option for a cheaper Surface.
 
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