I Got Myself A Surface 3!

[AppleMan2015]

I'd tell you what I think about it, but I've spent the last half hour waiting for the damn thing to update itself. olol Microsoft.

This thread is now pending.

edit: JUST A MOMENT MY ASS!

edit 2: Seasons change, the years roll on, children grow old with each passing day, and I become wiser with age.

Damn thing's still updating. I'm staring there at that blue screen with the animated circle, telling me, nah...TEASING ME with "just a moment". GET DONE DAMN YOU! I GOTTA GO!

A progress bar sure would be nice.

edit 3: at least I can bounce the screen up and down. Up and down. Up and down. Tee hee. SO ******** FUN!

edit 4: Found the battery for my stylus. It was in the bottom of the box, underneath the manual. Those sneaky bees.

edit 5: when I press the Windows button, it goes bzzt.

Still telling me to wait just a moment.

edit 6: I now have irrefutable proof of Anthropogenic Global Warming. I haven't discovered anything particularly new, it's just that enough time has passed...

edit 7: Thought it was done for a second there. Turned out it was just the glare off my lamp.

Microsoft at its best lmao

 

[Renzatic]

Microsoft at its best lmao

Yeah. Though on the plus side, the SP4 was CONSIDERABLY quicker. I don't know if this was due to the better hardware, the fact there weren't as many updates for it as there were the S3, or that I skipped the forced update at first boot, and grabbed them all from the updates page on the systems menu, but it took all of 5 minutes to do.

And I've started goofing around with benchmarking it. I ran the CPU bench through PassMark PerformanceTest 8, and...

This is what I got

It's comparing it to desktop CPUs. It's not too half bad, considering what it is. I might look for another suite, though. Something that makes it a little easier to compare and contrast.

Oh, and more free.

 

[AppleMan2015]

Yeah. Though on the plus side, the SP4 was CONSIDERABLY quicker. I don't know if this was due to the better hardware, the fact there weren't as many updates for it as there were the S3, or that I skipped the forced update at first boot, and grabbed them all from the updates page on the systems menu, but it took all of 5 minutes to do.

And I've started goofing around with benchmarking it. I ran the CPU bench through PassMark PerformanceTest 8, and...

This is what I got

It's comparing it to desktop CPUs. It's not too half bad, considering what it is. I might look for another suite, though. Something that makes it a little easier to compare and contrast.

Oh, and more free.

Eh... I'm still a huge skeptic of Microsoft. Until I don't have to worry about viruses on a daily bases, they suck in my book.

 

[bmac4]

Yeah. Though on the plus side, the SP4 was CONSIDERABLY quicker. I don't know if this was due to the better hardware, the fact there weren't as many updates for it as there were the S3, or that I skipped the forced update at first boot, and grabbed them all from the updates page on the systems menu, but it took all of 5 minutes to do.

And I've started goofing around with benchmarking it. I ran the CPU bench through PassMark PerformanceTest 8, and...

This is what I got

It's comparing it to desktop CPUs. It's not too half bad, considering what it is. I might look for another suite, though. Something that makes it a little easier to compare and contrast.

Oh, and more free.

I think Windows 8.1 had everything to do with the speed. I got my Surface pro 3 last week and it already had Windows 10 and it took maybe 10 minutes to update. I don't think the Surface pro 4 is that much faster. All the reviews I have seen say the surface pro 4 is not that much faster.

 

[bmac4]

Eh... I'm still a huge skeptic of Microsoft. Until I don't have to worry about viruses on a daily bases, they suck in my book.

Is this still argument Apple fans make? I remembering saying this 7 years ago when I got my MacBook, but I thought that died years ago. I have been using Windows computers for the last couple of years, and they have done great

 

[AppleMan2015]

Is this still argument Apple fans make? I remembering saying this 7 years ago when I got my MacBook, but I thought that died years ago. I have been using Windows computers for the last couple of years, and they have done great

Yup. Microsoft is rather bad in my eyes,

 

[bmac4]

Yup. Microsoft is rather bad in my eyes,

Well good luck with that

 

[Renzatic]

I think Windows 8.1 had everything to do with the speed. I got my Surface pro 3 last week and it already had Windows 10 and it took maybe 10 minutes to update. I don't think the Surface pro 4 is that much faster. All the reviews I have seen say the surface pro 4 is not that much faster.

Remember, I'm comparing to the non-pro Surface 3. Even the entry level Core M3 that I got should be faster than it.

The only downside I've seen thus far is that the SP4 gets A LOT hotter than the S3 did. Though I am running it off the AC at the moment. It might not be so judicious about balancing performance when it's not on the battery.

Is this still argument Apple fans make? I remembering saying this 7 years ago when I got my MacBook, but I thought that died years ago. I have been using Windows computers for the last couple of years, and they have done great

This. I haven't had to contend with a virus since about 2002 or so. About the only way you can get a virus these days is if you download and install one of those PC VIRUS PERFORMANCE SAVER 2011 PRO SCANNER ransomware programs. You don't just pick them up anymore.

 

[bmac4]

Remember, I'm comparing to the non-pro Surface 3. Even the entry level Core M3 that I got should be faster than it.

The only downside I've seen thus far is that the SP4 gets A LOT hotter than the S3 did. Though I am running it off the AC at the moment. It might not be so judicious about balancing performance when it's not on the battery.



This. I haven't had to contend with a virus since about 2002 or so. About the only way you can get a virus these days is if you download and install one of those PC VIRUS PERFORMANCE SAVER 2011 PRO SCANNER ransomware programs. You don't just pick them up anymore.

Oh sorry. I did not realize you had the Surface 3 not the pro. Yeah the pro 3 is very nice

 

[Renzatic]

Second wave of impressions.

XCOM runs so, so, SO much better on the SP4 than it does on the old S3. It's obvious the Skylake iGPUs have a lot more kick to them. I can't run it at full resolution, but at 1366x768, the same res I ran it previously, it's getting at least 45 FPS. Need to fire up fraps to get a real number on it.

It's weird having a trackpad that's worth half a damn on a Windows computer. It's a little cramped vertically, but it's still far and beyond any trackpad I've used previously on a PC. The only problem I have is pinch to zoom, which seems to decide when to work or not entirely randomly.

It does get hot under stress, about as hot if not a little hotter than my old iPad 3, but it also cools down surprisingly quick.

Next up: PHOTOSHOP AND MORE BENCHMARKS!

 

[alex2792]

I picked up the SP4 type cover today, and it's AMAZING. I'm not sure how MS did it, but the keyboard and trackpad are just as good as my MBA, which is saying something. Terrible PC trackpads was the main reason I stayed with Apple so now the Surface is officially the greatest device ever made.

 

[MattLangley]

Remember, I'm comparing to the non-pro Surface 3. Even the entry level Core M3 that I got should be faster than it.

The only downside I've seen thus far is that the SP4 gets A LOT hotter than the S3 did. Though I am running it off the AC at the moment. It might not be so judicious about balancing performance when it's not on the battery.

http://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench3/compare/3976633?baseline=3977452

Geekbench
S3 Atom: 968
SP4 m3: 3164

Geekbench Multicore
S3 Atom: 2420
SP4 m3: 4652

Also the SP4 m3 memory is about 3x faster than the S3 Atom... so significantly faster. Very curious on the m3 battery life.

 

[Renzatic]

Also the SP4 m3 memory is about 3x faster than the S3 Atom... so significantly faster. Very curious on the m3 battery life.

I need to read up more on it, truthfully. But it seems to me that the Core M chips are basically downscaled iCore chips, all using the same base technology, but not being driven as hard.

As for battery life, it's fairly anecdotal at the moment, but it already seems to be getting better battery performance than my S3 did. On a rough guesstimation, I'd say I'm losing about 10% per hour, which would put it about on par with my old iPad. Though I did notice that when I went to install Photoshop, the download, decompression, and installation hammered the battery fairly hard, dropping it about 5% in 10 minutes.

Now for some benchmarks. I ran Crystal Disk Mark to run 3 passes at 1GB read/write on both the SP4 and my PC. For reference, it's a Haswell i5 4590 with a 512GB Samsung 840 Evo M.2 SSD.

PC

SP4 M3

Going by this, it seems that my SP4 is using a SATA based SSD, rather than the PCI-e based ones used in the upper tier models. It's not slow by any means, considering the niche the M3 model addresses, but it does fall short of what I've seen the i5 and i7 SP4's bench.

And hey, what better way to celebrate spending $1100 on a tablet than by hooking a Xbox 360 controller up through the USB port, and playing some Doom.

 

[MattLangley]

I need to read up more on it, truthfully. But it seems to me that the Core M chips are basically downscaled iCore chips, all using the same base technology, but not being driven as hard.

As for battery life, it's fairly anecdotal at the moment, but it already seems to be getting better battery performance than my S3 did. On a rough guesstimation, I'd say I'm losing about 10% per hour, which would put it about on par with my old iPad. Though I did notice that when I went to install Photoshop, the download, decompression, and installation hammered the battery fairly hard, dropping it about 5% in 10 minutes.

Now for some benchmarks. I ran Crystal Disk Mark to run 3 passes at 1GB read/write on both the SP4 and my PC. For reference, it's a Haswell i5 4590 with a 512GB Samsung 840 Evo M.2 SSD.

PC

SP4 M3

Going by this, it seems that my SP4 is using a SATA based SSD, rather than the PCI-e based ones used in the upper tier models. It's not slow by any means, considering the niche the M3 model addresses, but it does fall short of what I've seen the i5 and i7 SP4's bench.

And hey, what better way to celebrate spending $1100 on a tablet than by hooking a Xbox 360 controller up through the USB port, and playing some Doom.

Very appropriate

Thanks for sharing the SSD tests. Guess it's not surprising they are using a more standard SSD in the 128GB option. One area it's not as blazingly fast, but like you said still pretty good.

 

[Renzatic]

Very appropriate

Thanks for sharing the SSD tests. Guess it's not surprising they are using a more standard SSD in the 128GB option. One area it's not as blazingly fast, but like you said still pretty good.

It's absolutely perfect for what it is. It might not be fast enough for the quote unquote true professional (or the incredibly impatient), but for average use, it'll never seem slow.

And for the next set of benchmarks? This is the point where I get real geeky. Instead of running a synthetic benchmark, I decided to put the SP4 through it's paces by rendering out a BMW through Blender. Yeah, it's a benchmark officially, and it's not the most complicated scene in the world, but it's not just not putting the machine through random stress tests, then spitting out a number. It gives you a better idea of how well your machine will run doing decently high end real world use.

The standard is 6 minutes, 10 seconds on an unknown generation i7 3.8Ghz doing CPU rendering. You can see the time it took to render out the scene at the top left of the screen, just underneath the header menu.

Core i5 3.3Ghz PC - 6 minutes, 55 seconds.

Surface Pro 4 M3 - 15 minutes, 40 seconds.

It's not going to break any speed records, but I'm honestly surprised that a machine this small was able to make a decent attempt it, let alone finish it. I expected it to crash about 2 minutes in.

Next up, I'll find a good synthetic benchmark (maybe Geekbench, I mean hell, it's the standard), then wait for Spinedoc to show up and start doing his thing. I want to see how well the M3 compares to the i5.

edit: a little bit of bragging and testing going on here. I fired up a little robot I worked on a few months back to see how well the tablet would handle the model. It's about 1.5 million polys, and I had AO activated on it.

It handled it surprisingly well. I bet I could do low poly work on this thing without it breaking a sweat.

 

[MattLangley]

It's absolutely perfect for what it is. It might not be fast enough for the quote unquote true professional (or the incredibly impatient), but for average use, it'll never seem slow.

And for the next set of benchmarks? This is the point where I get real geeky. Instead of running a synthetic benchmark, I decided to put the SP4 through it's paces by rendering out a BMW through Blender. Yeah, it's a benchmark officially, and it's not the most complicated scene in the world, but it's not just not putting the machine through random stress tests, then spitting out a number. It gives you a better idea of how well your machine will run doing decently high end real world use.

The standard is 6 minutes, 10 seconds on an unknown generation i7 3.8Ghz doing CPU rendering. You can see the time it took to render out the scene at the top left of the screen, just underneath the header menu.

Core i5 3.3Ghz PC - 6 minutes, 55 seconds.

Surface Pro 4 M3 - 15 minutes, 40 seconds.

It's not going to break any speed records, but I'm honestly surprised that a machine this small was able to make a decent attempt it, let alone finish it. I expected it to crash about 2 minutes in.

Next up, I'll find a good synthetic benchmark (maybe Geekbench, I mean hell, it's the standard), then wait for Spinedoc to show up and start doing his thing. I want to see how well the M3 compares to the i5.

That's not bad at all. So far on geekbench it looks like the SP4 m3 is landing only a little behind the SP3 i5, and that was considered pretty powerful and capable. So far from what I've seen even that entry level SP4 is proving to be fully capable (just takes a bit longer to do process intensive stuff).

Over on the redit thread someone was sharing their RAM usage on that same model (which was a concern since you can't upgrade the m3 more than the base 4GB).

Ok. The OS seems to be doing a good job of managing my RAM. So far, I haven't noticed any problems with performance. In fact it's very snappy. To get an idea of real world performance, I'm cruising 5 Chrome tabs (gmail, The Verge, Reddit, youtube, Adafruit) and a few Edge tabs (Outlook, surface setup), streaming a movie on Netflix, streaming music with spotify, with 3 Excel spreadsheets up (each with graphics and tables and filters and such). The RAM hasn't risen above 3.5 gig.

That's very impressive and highly productive multi-tasking. I think this is a great all-round cheaper but better battery SP4 model, while for more intense users will find it a great option as a very portal companion to more powerful machines that can pretty much run the same things just at a slower pace.

 

[Renzatic]

That's not bad at all. So far on geekbench it looks like the SP4 m3 is landing only a little behind the SP3 i5, and that was considered pretty powerful and capable. So far from what I've seen even that entry level SP4 is proving to be fully capable (just takes a bit longer to do process intensive stuff).

Over on the redit thread someone was sharing their RAM usage on that same model (which was a concern since you can't upgrade the m3 more than the base 4GB).

That's been my experiences with it. Surprisingly capable, though obviously not quite as quick at some tasks. If it has better overall battery life than the higher tier models, then I'd say it's an excellent trade off.

That's very impressive and highly productive multi-tasking. I think this is a great all-round cheaper but better battery SP4 model, while for more intense users will find it a great option as a very portal companion to more powerful machines that can pretty much run the same things just at a slower pace.

I've tried to get the UI to lag out and go unresponsive. So far, the most I've been able to do is get Task View to run at a slightly lower framerate. My entire experiences with it could be summed up as "it's a lot more stout than it should be". I can't complain.

There is one weird thing, though. Something I can't quite figure out, and I'm not sure if it's some very off software bug, or if it's incredibly specific hardware bug. While scrolling through heavily white webpages in Edge, when I reach the end of a page, and it starts to bounce, the entire screen will get a light yellow-greenish cast to it. Normally, the color temp on the screen is pretty solidly on the cold blue end of the spectrum, but when it happens, it gets a warm temp look like an old LCD screen. Weirdest damn thing, because I haven't been able to get it to do it anywhere else yet. Just in Edge.

edit: I think I figured out what causes it, and my poking and prodding caused it to blue screen. It seems to only happen while video's being played in Edge, and you've moved it just off the top or bottom of the screen. Firing up Netflix, and diving back and forth between open apps to force it to change color is what caused it to blue screen with a "kernel security check failure".

God, I hope it's just software. Early drivers for new hardware being flaky or something. I do not want to have to take it back, then reinstall everything again.

edit 2: it's video in general. Whether through the Netflix app, youtube, or a video file played off a thumbdrive, playing a video makes the screen go yellow.

Haven't been able to crash it again, but...on a good note, it's probably software. Likely a codec issue. That's the price I pay for getting something the day it comes out. On a bad note, blah.

 

[MattLangley]

That's been my experiences with it. Surprisingly capable, though obviously not quite as quick at some tasks. If it has better overall battery life than the higher tier models, then I'd say it's an excellent trade off.



I've tried to get the UI to lag out and go unresponsive. So far, the most I've been able to do is get Task View to run at a slightly lower framerate. My entire experiences with it could be summed up as "it's a lot more stout than it should be". I can't complain.

There is one weird thing, though. Something I can't quite figure out, and I'm not sure if it's some very off software bug, or if it's incredibly specific hardware bug. While scrolling through heavily white webpages in Edge, when I reach the end of a page, and it starts to bounce, the entire screen will get a light yellow-greenish cast to it. Normally, the color temp on the screen is pretty solidly on the cold blue end of the spectrum, but when it happens, it gets a warm temp look like an old LCD screen. Weirdest damn thing, because I haven't been able to get it to do it anywhere else yet. Just in Edge.

edit: I think I figured out what causes it, and my poking and prodding caused it to blue screen. It seems to only happen while video's being played in Edge, and you've moved it just off the top or bottom of the screen. Firing up Netflix, and diving back and forth between open apps to force it to change color is what caused it to blue screen with a "kernel security check failure".

God, I hope it's just software. Early drivers for new hardware being flaky or something. I do not want to have to take it back, then reinstall everything again.

edit 2: it's video in general. Whether through the Netflix app, youtube, or a video file played off a thumbdrive, playing a video makes the screen go yellow.

Haven't been able to crash it again, but...on a good note, it's probably software. Likely a codec issue. That's the price I pay for getting something the day it comes out. On a bad note, blah.

So I've seen multiple people express the same issue around the web, most people seem to express it's only happening in Edge. Are you seeing it outside of Edge?

 

[Renzatic]

So I've seen multiple people express the same issue around the web, most people seem to express it's only happening in Edge. Are you seeing it outside of Edge?

Yup. Though now that I think about it, most web videos are encoded in MP4, aren't they? The one I tried outside of Edge and the Netflix app was an MP4.

I'm about done in for tonight, but tomorrow I'll see if I can dig up an mkv or wmv file somewhere, and try it out.

 

[maflynn]

Next up: PHOTOSHOP AND MORE BENCHMARKS!

I don't do any heavy lifting in PS, but I do use lightroom and I noticed a significant performance difference in my SP3 vs. my MBP. Of course my MBP is a quad core laptop with a dGPU, so its kind of apples and oranges.

Overall though I'm happy with the performance, I can only imagine the SP4 being faster. I can't say that I'm tempted for the SP4 because there's not enough improvements to justify spending that much money on the SP4 when I have the SP3.

 

[Renzatic]

I don't do any heavy lifting in PS, but I do use lightroom and I noticed a significant performance difference in my SP3 vs. my MBP. Of course my MBP is a quad core laptop with a dGPU, so its kind of apples and oranges.

Overall though I'm happy with the performance, I can only imagine the SP4 being faster. I can't say that I'm tempted for the SP4 because there's not enough improvements to justify spending that much money on the SP4 when I have the SP3.

If there is one reason to upgrade beyond the better cooling capabilities, it'd be the screen. This would especially be a boon for you, since you're heavy into photography. The differences overall aren't absolutely vast, but if you could find someone to sell your SP3 off to, I'd say it'd be worth the upgrade.

Though I'd recommend waiting a couple of months if you do decide to go that route. As you've read above, I've got some issues. And I'm still not sure if it's software or hardware related. When I first fired it up today, I had the GPU drivers crash and recover on me 3 times, and I'll occasionally hear a little pop come through the speakers. I played through a couple of missions in XCOM to see if I noticed any performance difference, and it ran fine. Whatever the problems are, they seem to be limited to Edge and video on the desktop. But still...

...it concerns me.

 

[bmac4]

Does anyone know if the new surface pen works with the SP3?

Edit: just looked it up on the Microsoft site, and it compatible with SP3, and S3. Awesome I really want that and the new type cover

 

[maflynn]

Edit: just looked it up on the Microsoft site, and it compatible with SP3, and S3. Awesome I really want that and the new type cover

Its compatible but I don't think you'll get all the features as some of those rely on the new display panel in the SP4

 

[bmac4]

Its compatible but I don't think you'll get all the features as some of those rely on the new display panel in the SP4

Oh really? Well I still would like the different points I think that is really cool.

 

[maflynn]

Oh really? Well I still would like the different points I think that is really cool.

I believe the granularity of the 1024 point precision is done via the display - at least that's what I read somewhere.