Microsoft Surface Pro 3 Review
by Anand Lal Shimpi on June 23, 2014 3:55 AM ESTLaptop Performance
Just like with battery life, we need to evaluate the performance of Surface Pro 3 as both a laptop and a tablet. As a laptop, Surface Pro 3 delivers performance comparable to other Ultrabooks of similar specs - assuming we're talking about short bursts of performance. In prolonged workloads you'll see a bit of a gap, and even a slight regression vs. Surface Pro 2 due to the thermal design targets for the new chassis.
With the exception of the Work suite in PCMark 8 v2, we're mostly looking at performance in the range of a 13-inch MacBook Air - the prototypical Haswell ULT notebook. Surface Pro 3 is definitely in good performance company. In the Work suite however the MacBook Air (running Windows) is able to deliver around 16% better performance than Surface Pro 3. I'm guessing this has to do with thermals more than anything else.
We see a similar story if we look at GPU performance:
In terms of playable games, with some tweaking to detail settings you should be able to average 30 fps in titles like Dota 2. Running at the panel's native resolution is generally out of the question but for lighter titles on Steam like Transistor, you can have a reasonable experience. The higher end Core i7 Surface Pro 3 does ship with Intel's HD 5000 graphics instead of HD 4400 in the Core i5 review sample I tested. It's entirely possible that we see better gaming performance or thermal management (more EUs at lower voltage) in that design.
Just like in previous designs, Surface Pro 3 integrates a SATA SSD (likely M.2 this time). In this case Microsoft uses an OEM version of Samsung's SSD 840 EVO, a 3-bit-per-cell MLC design that we've found to be a pretty good value. I am disappointed we didn't see a move to PCIe storage but for general use I doubt there's much value in it. PCMark 8 v2's storage test isn't particularly stressful but it does show that Surface Pro 3's SSD is at least competitive with its predecessor and the MBA despite moving to TLC NAND.
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Drumsticks - Monday, June 23, 2014 - link
Heavier isn't a bad thing. The SP pen is light in my opinion, I've yet to see somebody say the pen was uncomfortable. Again, on the pen, from above:"Overall I have to say the new pen is an improvement. You get a much thinner display, an unnoticeable impact to pressure sensitivity, improved latency and the experiential improvements are substantial (one click wake/OneNote launch is useful)."
I'm not saying this as an artist. But as a user, note taking (which is my primary thing as a college student) seems to be improved.
Upgrade the GPU to what? They weren't going to get dedicated graphics in here, and the i7 model uses an HD5000. The throttling is meh, as Anand again mentioned.
I'm not saying it's perfect. I want this with Broadwell, badly. But it's a big improvement. It's not like it's going to be lacking for performance for what it's needed for. I don't expect mobile gaming out of this device, and that's the only time it really saw throttling.
ymcpa - Monday, June 23, 2014 - link
Most reviews praised the pen for being heavier and more comfortable to hold than the original pen. Gabe from penny arcade never mentioned that the N-Trig was less accurate. I will take an artist opinion over yours. I have read several reviews where it was stated that the Wacom digitizer in the pro 2 wasn't very accurate near the edges.mkozakewich - Monday, June 30, 2014 - link
As someone who's suffering with the edges of my Pro, I'd like to hear about how the NTrig handles around the edges. As it's a different technology and doesn't rely on something behind the screen, I don't think there'll be any problems.Imaginer - Tuesday, June 24, 2014 - link
As an artist, and someone who regularly uses OneNote for notes on a previous Surface Pro 2, and after using a Surface Pro 3...With Wacom pens, they are hefty like a light pencil, and handle as such. The N-Trig pen of the Surface Pro 3, feels like a quality solid inking pen in weight.
The time measured lag, is for long, prolonged strokes of quick length, instead of short and slow velocity movements. Most of the time, in writing, one isn't writing in big letters. The only time this MAY come up, is one doing quick, very long lines of strokes. Most of the time in drawing, such strokes are not too often and few in between in sketching and painting.
My only gripe, is that with the default Pro 2's pen, is that the eraser end is pressure sensitive as well, and can be flipped to erase. The Pro 3's pen, uses a second button on the side for erasing, which isn't as comfortable for me, and an adjustment of such. Here is hoping a second more "pencil" like pen that has a pressure eraser end is released. (along with lack of Wacom's radial like menu).
In the forums, I made an image showing handwriting aspects of pen comparisons - something that I felt would be a nice touch in the pen mentions - as it is not hard to pull a comparison between the two.
ymcpa - Monday, June 23, 2014 - link
This was explained by Microsoft. A human can't possibly replicate 1028 points of pressure. They can't even replicate the 256 points that the N-trig has. It's really about the pressure curve that they use. Microsoft said they will have an update that will allow users to alter the pressure curve to fit their usage.basroil - Tuesday, June 24, 2014 - link
No, Microsoft explained that even though Wacom's pen supports 1024bit, the actual useful resolution is much smaller because of how the pressure curve is set up (it's linear rather than semi-exponential like the n-trig)basroil - Tuesday, June 24, 2014 - link
1024 levels (10bit), not 1024bit (which would be a ridiculous number)ymcpa - Tuesday, June 24, 2014 - link
They talked about the pressure curve but the blog also mentioned that the human hand can't reproduce 1024 different levels of pressure. That is why it won't matter if the N-trig digitizer has less levels of pressure.theuglyman0war - Wednesday, June 25, 2014 - link
Even if an artist can not replicate 1024 levels of pressure in a single stroke ( wonder how u prove as much as humans are scary amazing beings at times ) An artist can easily need as much "threshold" in many stokes... Working very light where details build up in whispers. In which case 256 levels unutilized is complete hogwash.mkozakewich - Monday, June 30, 2014 - link
It's not even about what the artist touches on themselves, and more about the range. I'd like my pen to to be able to step from size 1 to size 255 in 1-step increments, in which case the sensitivity levels would work fine and I'd still have a pen with a massive brush. (Honestly, I'd probably not use 255 levels. More like 64.)