The Microsoft Surface Studio Review
by Brett Howse on January 20, 2017 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Desktop
- Microsoft
- Surface
- Surface Studio
Wireless
Microsoft has stuck with it’s tried and tested Marvell AVASTAR 802.11ac wireless adapter for the Surface Studio, and they’ve been using this NIC for quite a while on the Surface devices, so this isn’t a surprise. Over the years, the experience with the Marvell adapter has not been the best, although recent driver updates have both improved performance, and made the adapter less prone to not finding networks to connect to.
How times have changed. The Surface Pro 4 in the above graph has the same network adapter, but you can see how far Marvell has come with the drivers. It has been solid so far in regards to connections as well, and hopefully that doesn't change. The Surface Book, with the same adapter, sometimes needs to be restarted to fix the networking even to this day.
The Surface Studio also has the Intel I219-LM Gigabit Ethernet adapter, for those that prefer a wired network connection. It does provide a better experience if you do have a cable handy, since even the best 3x3 802.11ac cards can’t really compete with Gigabit wired.
Audio
When it comes to audio, Microsoft had to put some extra work into the Surface Studio to ensure that the audio experience wasn’t impacted by too severely by moving the display. A lot more engineering went into this than you would expect, and the Surface Studio features a total of seven speakers. Apparently the Surface team decided to go big, or go home, so they fit four speakers into a downward firing grille at the bottom of the display, plus there are two additional speakers in the base. The final speaker is a subwoofer to help out on the low frequencies.
Four of the Studio speakers are on the bottom edge of the display, and another two plus a sub are in the base
The sound quality of the Surface Studio is far better than you would expect for a small, tightly packed device like it is, and having the speakers in multiple locations helps out when the display gets moved into the drafting mode, since the ones on the base can now chip in to make up for the speakers on the display no longer as optimally oriented.
The system gets quite loud, and I measured a maximum of 88 dB(A) when playing music, and the sound was not distorted even at maximum volume. The subwoofer definitely helps out too, with decent frequency response even on the low end of the scale. It’s not a home theater in a box by any means, but it would likely be enough for many people.
Thermals, and Noise
Packing a PC into a space the size of the base of a Surface Studio, especially with a GTX 980M inside, is quite a challenge, but ensuring that the system does not overheat, even under load, is often too much for small devices like this. There are two fans inside the Surface Studio, and they vent out a row of slots in the black plastic underneath the computer.
When discussing the cooling with the Surface team, they were very proud of the work they had done there, especially the amount of heat dissipated per dB of noise. In order to test the thermal capabilities of the Surface Studio, the Tomb Raider benchmark was run continuously at 1920x1080 Ultra settings, which loads the GPU up to 100%.
The cooling system is very good in the Surface Studio, despite the significant heat generated by the GTX 980M. The system was able to run for five minutes at maximum boost clock of 1126 MHz before the GPU hit the thermal limit of 87°C, at which point it reduced its frequency to 1050 MHz over time, and stayed right there for the rest of the test. Perhaps the most impressive bit is that even with the GPU at 100% load, the sound pressure level with a meter over the keyboard, was just 46 dB(A), and the sound frequency is low enough that it isn’t bothersome. Microsoft did their homework on the cooling system, and the Surface Studio is solid under load.
Where it is let down though is at idle. Despite being very quiet under load, at idle, the system still produces 37.5 dB(A), and the fans constantly run. The CPU and GPU idle around 39°C, which is very reasonable, but the sound is always there. It’s not loud, but it’s always there. For me, desktop systems should be almost silent under light workloads, but that’s not the case on the Studio, which is disappointing.
The other issue on the noise side, at least on this review unit, is that there is a small amount of coil whine when the system has the display off, but it’s not yet sleeping. Most likely, this is the power supply, which is also built into the base of the Studio, coping with the reduced power demand since it isn’t driving the display backlight anymore. Once it goes to sleep, it’s not an issue, but the system does wake up periodically to update email, and the like, so even if it is sitting there asleep on the desk, occasionally the coil whine will come back, and the fans kick in.
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vLsL2VnDmWjoTByaVLxb - Friday, January 20, 2017 - link
The second one 3 months in? After Microsoft kept promising driver/firmware updates to address the issues?It's a business laptop that was going to be a test case for our company, selling it isn't our job. Microsoft extended the warranty, and we decided on XPS 15's instead for our fleet. (which work nearly flawlessly in comparison.)
It wasn't capable of reliable external display/peripheral use either, the dock sucked.
Icehawk - Sunday, January 22, 2017 - link
Yeah we have SP3s, 4s, and SBs at my work and none of them work reliably with more than one monitor. Our clients just love that.sprockkets - Saturday, January 21, 2017 - link
Not trying to troll, but that's like every MS computer since forever.I have an Asus computer that can't wake up either with Windows 8 or 10. Works fine with Linux, SuSE 42.1. Yea, linux isn't perfect but MS has had decades to get standby right, and can't.
Remember the last time an ios or android device failed to wake up when hitting the power button? Me either.
philehidiot - Sunday, January 22, 2017 - link
Sprokkets, that's a damned good point. How can waking from a sleep state continue to confuse Microsoft when as you rightly point out, phones do it multiple times a day flawlessly. It's maddening and you can't realistically sleep your PC during critical work without saving everything (and when you've multiple tabs, papers, word, Excel and PowerPoint documents open that's one big pain in the arse).thebuccaneergentleman - Sunday, January 22, 2017 - link
I don't know if EVERY MS computer is like this... Some are and some are not. We deployed hundreds of Surface Pro 1, 2 and 3s over the years at my company. Some were very good... many were not. The higher-ups though decided to pass on the Surface Pro 4 and started to purchase Lenovo laptops. It was a good call. Our IT support cases have dropped into single digits for the new Lenovos. MS had a PERFECT idea with the Surface. I LOVE the concept. But their execution (at least till the Surface Pro 3 as I have not used a SP4) was less than stellar. Too bad. Its hard to rebound from even a small bad batch.niva - Wednesday, January 25, 2017 - link
Yeah that's a ridiculous statement.I've been using linux for about 10 years now on all sorts of computers. Typically you will encounter issues in linux exactly with things like standby and sleep mode, even if everything else works out of the box. Don't even get me started on drivers for new hardware like dedicated graphics or application support. I've stayed with Windows pretty much 100% due to my Photoshop needs. Sure I game some on my desktop too, but these days even that wouldn't be enough.
I love linux, it's great for many things, especially for the price, but the area you brought up as an advantage somehow you're completely wrong about.
This new device from Microsoft is interesting. The price is ridiculous though. I'll wait for future generations and see how things go in the future. As an artist I'm definitely interested in these types of devices.
tamalero - Sunday, January 22, 2017 - link
There are a lot of stuff that Microsoft hs fucked up over the years.For example.. if your monitors turn off (multiple monitors). Your color calibration information resets to default.
Shutting down any monitor will now cause all the icons to switch to the remaining monitor and the color calibration will be lost as well.
Microsoft support tech(from India and Turkey) only kept repeating the same BS recipe of "reboot, didnt work? then boot in safe mode" and then end with "Its working as intended, its not a bug. We will report this to the developers for xxx reason" and nothing..
Rezurecta - Friday, January 20, 2017 - link
MS support is good. Just get you surface exchanged.geekman1024 - Saturday, January 21, 2017 - link
MS support is good, but their hardware products' quality isn't.My Surface 3's pen function is bad straight out of the box, so I have to send it in for repair the day I've got it. The Surface Pen 4 I've bought for the Surface have its bluetooth function working intermittently, most of the time the top button click doesn't work. Then I remembered I used to have a MS wireless laser mouse + keyboard combo which died 3 months after purchase. My XBox 360 RRoD'ed just a few weeks after warranty expired, nice calculation on the MTTF, Microsoft.
Seems like EVERY MS hardware product I owned have to turn bad at some time. Is it my bad luck or MS's QC needs some debugging?
goatfajitas - Monday, January 23, 2017 - link
Exactly... I dont want good support nearly as much as I want it to not break... Same reason I dont buy a Kia with a 10 year 100,000 mile warranty. I dont want it to break and be fixed for free, I want to not be stuck with a broken car I have to deal with regardless of who pays for it. This comment section alone is riddled with Surface Pro and Surface Book users reporting all sorts of issues. Pass. Big time pass.