true. I've waiting since 2006, microsoft quietly launched a mystery website called "origami" and rumor said it's a tablet windows pc. I have pinned my hope on every windows tablet announced ever since and been disappointed every time. the first time it seems getting close was the samsung 7 serious microsoft handed out at the build conference, but it had serious screen separation issue. if it's not the company issued surface pro 1, I probably still don't have a tablet. being a perfectionist suffer.
Postponing Gratification....
- Thread starter ramit
- Start date
I would be little more hopeful than this, for me, if it was not for the throttling issues, the SP3 would be just a dream come true, I love the screen ratio, the body design, the pen, well just about everything about it but for that damn CPU.
So maybe, just maybe, this time around, the dream is just 6 month in the future if Broadwell delivers.
Fingers crossed.
Problem I'm having with this and other discussions is determining exactly what the SP3 sweet spot is in terms of the performance/needs/utilization curve.
I get it's not going to work for hard core gaming or 3d rendition.
I get that it won't break a sweat as a kindle reader and net browser.
Problem is that the vast majority of us are somewhere between those two.
And so all this repetition about what it can't do does nothing to help me determine what it can do and where the usage begins to deteriorate.
That's not productive for anyone on this site IMO.
Does that make sense?
Len
I get it's not going to work for hard core gaming or 3d rendition.
I get that it won't break a sweat as a kindle reader and net browser.
Problem is that the vast majority of us are somewhere between those two.
And so all this repetition about what it can't do does nothing to help me determine what it can do and where the usage begins to deteriorate.
That's not productive for anyone on this site IMO.
Does that make sense?
Len
yes, at the sp4 announcement, panay will project a video clip on the big screen show the a benchmark chart elapsed for 24 hours and no throttling. "no performance drop", he says, then audience applaud.
Yes it does make sens.
I'm a c++ developer, and in my case, the current SP3 would be too much of a compromise, not because of the raw power, but because of the variance in performances.
I've read report of SP3 owners being quite happy even for light / mid video editing, so I guess that clearly put the SP3 well beyond of what one can reasonably expect from say an highend ARM devices.
But in my case, cycles of compile / run will be to much, by the time the compiler is done, the CPU will be in 'strike' mode and be unable to perform at acceptable levels to actually run the program (all this is speculative, I'd like to hear about real world usage for developers).
By comparison, the SP2 had no issues with that type of usage, one guy at work was using it to code/debug daily and was quite happy with the setup.
Just curious in case I get round to trying this... how big are these programs... YMMV ... how many minutes to compile on a what?
It's not so much the overall size of project that's the problem, I'm OK having to drink one or two coffees while waiting for a full rebuild
.If I take what I'm working on right now, I touch between 4 and 6 .cpp each cycle, it takes about 10 seconds to compile (in parallel, 100% cpu usage) on a Core i7 3720M (Ivy bridge), plus another 5 seconds to link (single-thread).
The reason it take so long to compile is that I need to generate a lot of code paths at compile time for various SSE versions and AVX because I need compare one impl. to the other a run-time unfortunately.
Michael Lovett
Member
I am also a developer. I can compile a very large c# project in 10 seconds or so on the sp3, which is almost twice faster than the laptop I was hoping to replace it with. That is impressive to me.
But here's the rub; if I had to do this compile after having done the compile several times just before (which is not that far fetched) then the throttling issue can come into play. In other words I'm fine if I always do the compile with the CPU is still "cold".
But here's the rub; if I had to do this compile after having done the compile several times just before (which is not that far fetched) then the throttling issue can come into play. In other words I'm fine if I always do the compile with the CPU is still "cold".
Michael Lovett
Member
This is one of the best insights on this topic; you are 100% right. The problem isn't that compromises had to be made and that we have a CPU that throttles down; the problem is that, for the guy in the middle (which I consider myself to be) it's a guessing game to know when the CPU is going to throttle, and thus to figure out if you really need to keep a backup machine or not.
I finally decided I wasn't going to guess.... I bought an I7 SP3 and I'm going to run it hard for 30 days. If it works for what I do, I'll keep it, if not I'll return it and wait for Broadwell.
Otherwise I'm living in fear, uncertainty & doubt..... Which is paralyzing.
YMMV
Len
Michael Lovett
Member
Lol, that's what I'm doing, but it's gotten a little more complicated: it mostly does what I want it to do. I sometimes have to use my laptop instead. So the equation is now: is it worth a 2k investment to have something that I overall really like that handles most of my needs or do I get picky about it and just wait till something comes along that meets all my needs. (And as Frank has pointed out, that day may never come).
Would love to know how this turns out for you; I think we are in the same boat
Michael
