The Surface 3 Review
by Brett Howse on May 4, 2015 9:00 AM ESTGPU Performance
The Surface 3 with the Atom x7-Z8700 pairs the Intel Gen 8 Graphics from Broadwell with the Airmont CPU cores of Atom. Unlike the Broadwell cores though, the Surface 3 SoC only has 16 execution units (EUs) as compared to 24 in Core M. The maximum frequency is also reduced to 600 MHz for these cores, as compared to up to 900 MHz in Core M. This is all necessary to keep the x7-8700 in the 2 watt SDP.
So performance will be a step back compared to Core M, but really this should be no surprise. The interesting comparison will be how it compares to Surface Pro 3 with Haswell Gen 7.5 graphics and of course to Bay Trail equipped tablets.
We will start with some synthetic tests and then move on to DOTA 2 to see how it performs on a real world game.
3DMark Tablet
The GPU upgrade is a big improvement over the ASUS T100's Bay Trail graphics, but the Atom GPU still can not compete with the fastest tablet SoCs out there.
3DMark Notebook
Comparing the Surface 3 to PC class hardware puts it in a pretty poor light when looking at GPU performance. Our 3DMark tests have the Surface Pro 3 with the Core i3 on average 40% faster than Surface 3. Comparing it to the Dell Venue 11 Pro with Core M, we find the Core M GPU is on average 47% faster, which is quite a gap. Let’s not forget though that the Surface 3 is a mere 2 watt SDP, whereas Core M is a 4.5 W TDP and the Haswell-Y in Surface Pro 3 is an 11.5 W TDP.
GFXBench Tablet (OpenGL)
As with the 3DMark scores, the GPU upgrade is significant, but still a ways back of the best tablet GPUs out there. Intel still has some work to do on this front.
GFXBench Notebook (DirectX)
We see a similar story with GFXBench on the notebook side. The 16 EUs in our Atom SoC just cannot compete against the larger and faster GPUs in Core.
Moving on to a real-world game, we use a custom DOTA 2 benchmark for our lower powered devices. It is a very popular battle-arena game, and the GPU requirements are not too demanding.
The GPU in the Surface 3 is really not enough to play most games, and even on our value settings, the Surface 3 is not a great experience for DOTA 2. The higher TDP of Core M lets it do ok in this test, but overall the Surface 3 is a long way back of even the Surface Pro 3 Core i3.
Storage Performance
Like most tablets, the Surface 3 utilizes eMMC storage rather than the SSD storage found on higher priced laptops and Core M tablets. It costs less, it is less complex, and it works. So expectations are that it will not be able to compete with the fastest solutions out there. But as a tablet, workloads should be less complex, at least in theory.
Unfortunately Microsoft shipped me the 64 GB version of the tablet, and due to PCMark 8 requiring a large amount of free space in order to perform its tests, it was unable to be run on this device. But we have run into this issue in the past, and we can turn to a couple of other tools to get a feel for how the storage performance is. Even though eMMC is slower than a good SSD, there is still different levels of performance based on the NAND in use and the controller.
I ran CrystalDiskMark over a 4 GB span and the results are below.
Surface 3 eMMC Storage (left) vs Surface Pro 3 Core i3 SSD (right)
Compared to a true SSD, the eMMC performance leaves a lot to be desired. In fact, most of the time when I was using the tablet and I found it slow, such as installing software, or loading programs, it was mostly disk bound. There are faster eMMC options available, but I will refrain from comparing it to other tablets since we do not have the same benchmarking tools for both.
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Brett Howse - Monday, May 4, 2015 - link
The battery in the Surface Pro 3 is 50% larger. 28 Wh vs 42 Whchizow - Monday, May 4, 2015 - link
That gulf will probably grow as well with the rumors SP4 may have a Core M variant. Cherry Trail is a bit disappointing though, not a huge increase in performance and this S3 actually has worst battery life than some of its Bay Trail predecessors like the Asus T100.Even more telling is the next slowest device in most of your tests is the $79 HP Stream 7, and while the Surface 3 certainly has more going for it in terms of form factor and functionality, a sub-$100 device is going to get a lot of passes where a $500 might not.
Shadowmaster625 - Monday, May 4, 2015 - link
That battery is the ultimate symbol of greed. Like they couldnt eat an extra $6 to give the thing a respectable battery. We need some explanation as to what exactly is the bottleneck in a game like DOTA 2. The <20 fps is extremely disappointing. but is it the GPU or the anemic CPU cores that hold it back? And why didnt they at least double the L1? Talk about greed.dullard - Monday, May 4, 2015 - link
"I’m not sure if we have found a “perfect” aspect ratio for a tablet"One aspect ratio would be nearly perfect for almost every use, if only tablet manufacturers would make a tablet at that aspect ratio. That nearly perfect ratio is 2^0.5 : 1 (about 1.414 : 1).
1) A program designed to fill the screen at 2^0.5 : 1 would also perfectly fill half the screen at 1 : 2^0.5/2 (which is still 1.414 : 1 when rotated). Finally, we could have distortion-free multi-tasking with no extra programming needed, an issue that no tablet has really yet solved.
2) It is a natural-feeling aspect ratio, not too tall or too narrow. No "narrow video" warnings needed. Webpages that haven’t been converted to mobile would still work well. It would have good hand feel.
3) It is almost exactly A4 paper ratio (1 : 1.41421 vs 1:1.41428). A4 is the standard paper for 2/3rds of the world. Thus a Word document, PDF, or similar would fill the screen uncropped. It isn't far off from from the US 11:8.5 paper standard either.
4) It is pretty much in the middle of the 4:3 digital camera and 3:2 DSL camera aspect ratios. That means when using the camera to see photos, it will look good with minimal cropping or black bars.
I could go on and on.
Jon Tseng - Monday, May 4, 2015 - link
>Having the third position really helps in a lot of situations, and while I would have liked the>final one to open as wide as the Surface Pro 3,
There is actually a fourth position. Give it a good shove and it collapses even flatter. Not sure if this is a genuine position or a manufacturing fail safe though!
Jon Tseng - Monday, May 4, 2015 - link
More details herehttps://www.reddit.com/r/Surface/comments/33rxja/s...I tried it on a demo unit in curry's. It works the stand is def engineered to open this far (whether its engineered to do it regularly I don't know)
gsusx - Monday, May 4, 2015 - link
Wtf. Curry's have them in stock. . Where?Jon Tseng - Tuesday, May 5, 2015 - link
The big Curry's on Tottenham Ct Road has a demo unit out. Had stickers on saying "property of Microsoft not sale stock" so presumably its a pre-release date demo unit. Yeah I was surprised to see it too!beggerking@yahoo.com - Monday, May 4, 2015 - link
micro usb type-c would be better , but a standard micro usb charging is still a huge leap forward vs any proprietary charging port.reversibility is for idiots. PERIOD.
kmmatney - Monday, May 4, 2015 - link
I take it you haven't used a reversible charging plug? It is a much better solution. Period.