can't wait to buy surface pro 4

[jnjroach]

I honestly wouldn't expect any Chassis changes until the SP5....

 

[megatronium]

Certainly 16GB on the floor is certainly nice but I would probably still opt for a 256 drive that I could add up to a 512 Gb with an SDXC micro.

I was thinking however, that the recently available 4.5 watt fanless Broadwells with a 2GHz base freq turbo'd to 3.0Ghz would be helpful. And with a Broadwell in the same form factor as the current SP3, you retain the use of the current MS Docking Station etc and get 25% more life (so Intel says) off the battery that already exists, though I suspect better/bigger batteries may be available for the slightly larger space afforded by going to a fanless 14nm chip vice the current 22nm fanned iCore 3, 5, 7.

Were I Panos Panay's team I would not opt to change much else. We could argue about additional USBs or switching from MDP to HDMI or whatever ... but the design compromises already made we have all adapted to. And changing them inserts additional hardware and software risks that we just can't afford to take when we also have Win 10 to adjust to at the same time. You do get a bit of a graphics boost with the Broadwell's associated GPU, but once again I would not change much to accommodate 60FPS gamers, for example, when the machine is more general or business oriented. OTOH I could see trimming the blacken screen around the bezel maybe back about .25" and that would give us an effective screen size of close to 13 using the same form factor and use the upgraded GPU to power it with the same pixels per inch at 3:2 as is now the case.

Just my $00.02

All reports I've read say Broadwell is a step back.

At least on paper, the Surface Pro 3 with a Core i5 stacks quite well against the Lenovo Yoga 3 Pro, at least when it comes to raw power. The base clock speed for the Surface Pro 3 Core i5 is 1.9 GHz versus the slower 1.1 GHz found on the new Yoga.
However, even though the i5-4300u can reach 2.9 GHz, it is limited to just 2.5 GHz on the Surface Pro 3, like due to thermal and power reasons. Assuming Lenovo does not limit the Core M processor, it edges out the Surface Pro 3 Core i5 by 0.1 GHz, which is minor.
When it comes to graphics, the Surface Pro 3 Core i5 has more power for its base frequency at 200 MHz and a higher max dynamic frequency coming in at 1.1 GHz (versus just 850 MHz on the Core M).

The first Core M laptop paints a depressing, mediocre picture for Intel’s Broadwell\

Yoga Pro 3 review: Broadwell is a mixed blessing
The design is ever more exotic, but the performance is worse.

For now, improvement seems to be in the form of battery life. I wonder if a SP3 + Broadwell/Core M + Fan is enough to push out a SP4? Perhaps waiting for Intel's next revision (which should be major) is a better idea?

 

[jonypx09]

Hopefully, the SP4 would come equipped with Intel's 5th Generation i-Series processors rather than the Broadwell series.

 

[GreyFox7]

All reports I've read say Broadwell is a step back.

At least on paper, the Surface Pro 3 with a Core i5 stacks quite well against the Lenovo Yoga 3 Pro, at least when it comes to raw power. The base clock speed for the Surface Pro 3 Core i5 is 1.9 GHz versus the slower 1.1 GHz found on the new Yoga.
However, even though the i5-4300u can reach 2.9 GHz, it is limited to just 2.5 GHz on the Surface Pro 3, like due to thermal and power reasons. Assuming Lenovo does not limit the Core M processor, it edges out the Surface Pro 3 Core i5 by 0.1 GHz, which is minor.
When it comes to graphics, the Surface Pro 3 Core i5 has more power for its base frequency at 200 MHz and a higher max dynamic frequency coming in at 1.1 GHz (versus just 850 MHz on the Core M).

The first Core M laptop paints a depressing, mediocre picture for Intel’s Broadwell\

Yoga Pro 3 review: Broadwell is a mixed blessing
The design is ever more exotic, but the performance is worse.

They/we should be comparing Y series parts not Y series to U series. Broadwell Core-M is the counterpart to Haswell Y series and in fact the parts still bear the Y nomenclature... 5Y10, 5Y31, 5Y70 ...
So they should compare the Surface Pro i3 4020Y to the Yoga Core-M.
http://ark.intel.com/products/family/83613/Intel-Core-M-Processors

Although I believe Intel brought this on themselves by making the comparison first it was ill advised.

 

[megatronium]

They/we should be comparing Y series parts not Y series to U series. Broadwell Core-M is the counterpart to Haswell Y series and in fact the parts still bear the Y nomenclature... 5Y10, 5Y31, 5Y70 ...
So they should compare the Surface Pro i3 4020Y to the Yoga Core-M.
http://ark.intel.com/products/family/83613/Intel-Core-M-Processors

Although I believe Intel brought this on themselves by making the comparison first it was ill advised.

Is there a product that has shipped with an equivalent processor in Broadwell's class that we can compare?

 

[GreyFox7]

Hopefully, the SP4 would come equipped with Intel's 5th Generation i-Series processors rather than the Broadwell series.

Broadwell encompasses both Core-M and Core i.
They have released so far Core-M at 4.5w TDP and dual core versions of Core i U series with both 15w & 28w TDP
Still to come are the higher wattage, quad core, and quad+ core parts. All 5th generation is Broadwell.

 

[GreyFox7]

Is there a product that has shipped with an equivalent processor in Broadwell's class that we can compare?

It was just released this week and I just spotted the first benchmark article a few minutes ago... haven't had a chance to read it yet.

 

[megatronium]

It was just released this week and I just spotted the first benchmark article a few minutes ago... haven't had a chance to read it yet.

Ahh. Here we go.

For now that’s all the benchmarks we have to show. Like Haswell and Ivy Bridge before them, Broadwell looks like a solid upgrade from previous generation parts, but not with a lot of wow factor. Perhaps the SKUs with HD 6000 and Iris 6100 graphics chipsets will give us more to get excited about. Intel also claims that Broadwell-U processors will deliver a battery life advantage over Haswell-U processors with similar voltage, but we are wary of publishing these claims until we can test this in our own labs.
It may not be the most exciting CPU architecture, but Intel continues to deliver noticeable performance upgrades and better power usage with each processor upgrade, an impressive goal to achieve year after year. We suspect the most disruptive Broadwell will continue to be the Core M, which brings true ultrabook-class performance to ultra-slim tablets and convertibles like Lenovo’s Yoga 3 Pro.
Finally, thanks to Lenovo for accommodating our readers by allowing us to capture pre-production Broadwell-U benchmarks!

Interestingly enough, they are comparing it to SP1. Results still seem to point to "wait for new intel chip for SP4".

 

[GreyFox7]

Here you go hot off the press... although IDK why they used the Surface Pro 1 in this comparison but there's 3 generation here. I5-5200U, i5-4200U, i5-3317U, along with 5th gen Core-M 5Y70.
Edit: these are results from un-optimized pre-production units.

 

[mtalinm]

with Toshiba releasing a non-sucky SP-like device, I wonder whether msft will start to deprecate its own line. I think Satya really doesn't want to be in the HW business & will sell off Nokia before long. I can envision him ditching surface as soon as the OEMs get with it.

 

[GreyFox7]

with Toshiba releasing a non-sucky SP-like device, I wonder whether msft will start to deprecate its own line. I think Satya really doesn't want to be in the HW business & will sell off Nokia before long. I can envision him ditching surface as soon as the OEMs get with it.

Which device would that be???

 

[bvone21]

http://www.anandtech.com/show/8814/intel-releases-broadwell-u-new-skus-up-to-48-eus-and-iris-6100

According to Intel (none of this tested in the wild yet of course), the U series SKU's for Broadwell provide:

• Up to 1.5 hours longer batter life (while watching 1080p or UHD video)
• 22% performance gains in Games (3dMark)
• 50% faster performance in Video conversion (MediaEspresso)
• 4% improvement in productivity (SysMark)

...as compared to the prior generation. They compared i7-5600U (Broadwell) to i7-4600U (Haswell) in those figures. You can assume that those figures will "roughly" scale for other processors in the lineup as well. The largest improvements will be with the GPU. It seems like it will be a nice improvement...but nothing game-changing in terms of a Surface Pro 4.

I think they have more than enough performance in the current CPU's though...so I wouldn't mind MS tweaking things to squeeze more battery life at a cost of performance. Just meet SP3 performance and improve battery life and thermals (with the bonus of all the other improvements Broadwell brings) and I'll probably sell the SP3 to move up. I don't need more CPU performance...