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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extide - Monday, May 4, 2015 - link
Yeah, but that is only sequential -- in random I/I the eMMC will still beat the pants off a regular laptop hdd -- and that's what really matters.lilmoe - Monday, May 4, 2015 - link
Wouldn't you think that random speed not only makes up for that, but also makes it seem much faster in real life scenarios compared with HDDs?Anyway, UFS should make the gap much wider in future products. Samsung and others are working on super cheap modules. SSDs aren't needed in most segments.
magreen - Monday, May 4, 2015 - link
Yes, it is better in random access than a cheap laptop HDD. But I don't know if that's the only thing that matters. It's unbalanced, just like the early SSDs were. The early SSDs were unreasonably slow in random write, and this is unreasonably slow in sequential write.As to which is more essential to feel "fast," I think that may be in the eye of the beholder. Yes, this eMMC may have some snappiness to it due to quickness in random access, so it won't get slowed to a clickety-clackety crawl by a virus check, for example. But it's probably painfully slow to complete tasks we're not accustomed to waiting for (sequential). That may be what the reviewer is pointing out, that storage seemed to be a bottleneck.
68k - Wednesday, May 6, 2015 - link
Mechanical HD and eMMC is not even at the same level when it comes to which feel "faster". Random access is far more important for everyday use, which make eMMC superior in very close to 100% of the use cases.Random access performance of small sizes at low queue depth is what a disk targeting interactive usage should optimize for.
magreen - Wednesday, May 6, 2015 - link
Really? For a full-blown Windows install? How would you know?You're not making a fair comparison. Remember this thing runs full Windows 8.1. The whole purpose is that people can use their standard desktop applications. You can't just think of the speedup from a typical HDD to a typical SSD. You'd have to cripple the sequential access to make the assessment.
When was the last time you used an external SSD over USB 2.0 as your boot and programs install drive, to test your hypothesis? Or how about a microSD card as your boot drive? How slow would it be to fire up Microsoft Word? How about opening up a large video file? What about a file copy? You're not used to waiting for the sequential aspects of any of those because they're almost always >100MB/s, even on a cheapo 5400 rpm HDD.
jabber - Tuesday, May 5, 2015 - link
33MBps but far far lower latency which I find more effective/noticable than raw MBps. The average user won't be overly concerned.Too many of us here have just been spoilt.
tim851 - Monday, May 4, 2015 - link
I don't know, man. Here in Germany the Surface 3 64 GB is 10% more expensive than the iPad Air 2 with 64 GB. And I would never call an iPad 'good value', though it will likely hold its value better than the Surface.The Surface has the perk of running full Windows, but without a keyboard, I don't see anybody getting much use out of the desktop.
I personally still find the S3 pretty enticing, if only for the Stylus, which is another Apple-priced add-on. But I would call it good value, not to speak of "best value".
lilmoe - Monday, May 4, 2015 - link
Ok, but how many tablets do you know can do what the Surface 3 can at that price?I do agree that the accessories are on the overpriced side, but don't forget that they aren't the only accessories that work with this device, and it doesn't *need* them to deliver on its promise. I personally wouldn't be using it as a "laptop replacement" on the go, but at home or in the office, I'd connect it to a bluetooth/wireless mouse/keyboard and an external monitor if necessary...
This device works great for any type of media consumption since it's capable of running/viewing just about anything. It's also great for Office at home, or for your average secretary, assistant, HR, and sales employee for work. It's one of a kind device for these purposes.
Manch - Monday, May 4, 2015 - link
I have an original PRO and I use onenote on it religiously. Its replaced paper notebooks for me. I'm actually thinking about getting the S3. The pen is awesome. Marking up docs is great. Hand writing rec even works on my writing and I write right handed now bc of an injury. whether I'm at a tech conference or just at work, the device is awesome. My buddy has the S3 Pro and I drool about getting one. Thing is I have the dock, keyboard and what not already so I'm reluctant to buy again. I dont however need the power I have in the PRO. The regular S3 would work great.Manch - Monday, May 4, 2015 - link
I forgot to add, I dont see the desktop much on the PRO. I use it in tablet mode. Keyboard only gets snapped to it when i'm on the road bc its more than enough computing power. At my desk when docked i have an external monitor and kb mouse. With Windows 10 on it now, wow, so much better!