i7 benchmarks & tests

[dman27]

IMO, to say you didn't expect the SP3 to do "at least" what the salesman (Panay) said it would is a cop out. SP3 is an incredible piece of engineering, but don't sell me on a Corvette ZR1 and then it performs like a Mazda Miata.

Why not use the machine if it serves your needs, get your opinion out there about the ACTUAL performance and let the chips fall where they may.

There was an incredible salesman (fruit company) that overhyped and oversold you onstage with grand ideas that you NEEDED their product and it would change your life. Of course it didn't but people bought it like drugs simply because of the marketing and what they could actually do with it.

The one thing this salesman NEVER did, was sell you on specs that the product couldn't do. In fact he was known for being a tyrant to make it do more than what was listed on specifications.

I'm no fruit fan but again, if you want the SP4 to be actually better, making excuses for the head guy that says the product can do X will not give incentive for them to make sure it at least does X.

Ok, now on to the real topic here. See next post

 

[dman27]

Anyone have success with Under-volting ? I've had some increases in performance with little to no thermal throttling. During normal benchmarking, the CPU would generally drop below 2GHZ within 5 min of testing with thermal throttling. After Under-volting , I'm seeing no thermal throttling and average CPU speeds of 2.6GHZ over the benchmark tests.

If you're willing to test the Under-volt setting, it is in the screenshots attached.

Dynamic CPU voltage was changed to -82.03
Processor Graphics Voltage was changed to -62.5
All other settings are default.

Save your default settings in Intel Extreme tuning utility before testing.
I would suggest you run a benchmark first with default settings, wait about 5-10 minutes for the processor to cool down and run the new settings.
You can also, just download this profile and apply the changes to automatically enter the settings.
Download: http://hwbot.org/xtu/download/81707

 

[mtalinm]

The one thing this salesman NEVER did, was sell you on specs that the product couldn't do. In fact he was known for being a tyrant to make it do more than what was listed on specifications.

beg to differ. he said the Type Cover 2 was silent. it isn't. he said the SP3 has nine hours of battery life. it doesn't. would also say he stretched the truth on "lapability".

 

[hughlle]

I don't know what the argument is, but one of the first things about the sp3 I read was talking about the grand reveal, and it said something along the lines of the sp3 isn't fanless but it might as well be considered as such. I can't say how accurate a representation of his words the article portrayed, but from user reports, the FAM is anything but silent.

 

[dman27]

beg to differ. he said the Type Cover 2 was silent. it isn't. he said the SP3 has nine hours of battery life. it doesn't. would also say he stretched the truth on "lapability".

When I said "this salesman" I was referring to the salesman from (Apple) not MS.

 

[dman27]

It looks like the Under-Volting was TOO aggressive. It will pass the CPU benchmarking, but hang and restart on the Graphics stress test. I'm reducing the CPU to -55 and slowly moving Graphic offset up till stable.

 

[GreyFox7]

It looks like the Under-Volting was TOO aggressive. It will pass the CPU benchmarking, but hang and restart on the Graphics stress test. I'm reducing the CPU to -55 and slowly moving Graphic offset up till stable.

I read somewhere where some reported turning of the Balanced Power profile with undervolting ... but that may just be replacing one balancing act for another.

 

[dman27]

I read somewhere where some reported turning of the Balanced Power profile with undervolting ... but that may just be replacing one balancing act for another.

Yes, I turned off the balance power profile by enabling Hyper-V and set it to the Power Profile.

When I just did the CPU benchmarking, it had no Thermal throttling but 100% Power throttling. It did pass CPU with a very high score but was too much for Graphics.

 

[GreyFox7]

Yes, I turned off the balance power profile by enabling Hyper-V and set it to the Power Profile.

When I just did the CPU benchmarking, it had no Thermal throttling but 100% Power throttling. It did pass CPU with a very high score but was too much for Graphics.

Good work nonetheless.

"Vary your mileage may" Yoda
well he might of said that ...

 

[Seneleron]

Great point and one I was about to make. Really good gaming video cards cost nearly as much as a Surface Pro 3

Yes. . and no. My GTX 780ti was $725, but that's top of the line. You can go with a 76o or amd 270-290 series and be between $125 and $350ish give or take.

I think sp3 i7 is completely a marketing strategy. no engineer would squeeze an hotter part into the chassis when i5 is getting overheat already.

This was my point exactly: Either the i5 is so at the ragged edge there's no way the i7 can outperform it with the cooling solution *OR* the i5 has been deliberately limited by weak fan profiles and low temperature throttling settings to make the i7 LOOK like it performs better.

THIS Is why I want to see a comparison between the i5 SP2 and the i7 SP3: Because I believe the performance problems with the i5 are deliberately manufactured, not a limitation of the cooling hardware in the unit.

Not that I have ANY performance issues out of mine for what I do. If it throttles, I don't notice it... but if it could perform 20% better with a slightly more aggressive fan profile and slightly adjusted thermal throttling temperature. . welll. . . I do always believe in getting the most bang for your buck ^^

"Vary your mileage may" Yoda
well he might of said that ...

*NO*!!!!!!!!!!!!! Did, or did not. THERE IS NO "MIGHT"!

 

[GreyFox7]

Intel engineers built the i5 for X performance @ 15w TDP and the i7 for X+Y performance @ 15w TDP. If you throttle by Z percent I'd still expect a Y overall difference in performance. The Surface will dissipate W watts whether it has an i5 or i7 they are the same physical size. To say the i7 dissipates more heat than the i5 is to say that it violates the 15w TDP spec.
The i7 achieves its Y performance gain even though it has a lower starting clock rate (1.7 vs 1.9) thru having larger on chip cache and other design enhancements.

 

[bluegrass]

A suggestion. Lets have some fun with our new i7s. Just for S&G I started the Intel Extreme Tuning Utility just to monitor stuff and then started opening a lot of different things, starting with my video editor, 3 HDMI videos in different programs such as WMV & VLC Player, Outlook, etc. None of the programs flinched and I didn't encounter any thermal throttling. I think it might be fun to see how much we can shove at our investment and watch how it performs doing real stuff. From what I can see it doesn't seem to be hurting at all. No thermal throttling. I'll keep pouring it on & see what it takes to bog it down. I've got video on my Surface duplicated on a DVI monitor using a display port to HDMI adapter and another HDMI to DVI adapter on the monitor. I've got 8 gig & 512 gig SSD.