Postponing Gratification....

[ramit]

After spending a fair amount of time reading posts here and on Reddit, it seems to me like the SP3 (i5/i7) delivers on all fronts except that heat dissipation / throttling issues keeps it from being great.

Given that few months of patience should bring Broadwell and with it, better thermal behavior, I've decided to wait.

Obviously, waiting 6 months in this area will always bring 'better', but I this case, it really feels like Haswell failed to deliver as these throttling issues effects all ultrabooks I've seen tested.

Any counter arguments?

 

[leeshor]

Welcome to the forum

I'd say you pretty much nailed it. But you may indeed wait forever.

 

[GreyFox7]

I'd suggest you try one for yourself... there's an over abundance of negative Nellies on the Internet.

 

[ramit]

I'd suggest you try one for yourself... there's an over abundance of negative Nellies on the Internet.

True enough, but the throttling issues are not only real, but will have actual impact for me, I'm a developer, physics simulation involving heavy multitasking with basically 100% usage of each core, if I cannot get somewhat reliable timings out of an SP3 ( I'm not asking for good peak performances, just stable ones ), this is pretty much a deal breaker for me.

In addition, it's not like I really "need" yet another machine around, I just find the SP3 very sexy but I can wait for Broadwell to hopefully trim the Surface's skirt a bit for heat dissipation sake .

 

[daveyp]

any surface pro is a bad choice for real computing. i wouldnt be worried about the difference the throttled state makes, as both would be lousy. a desktop i3 stomps the i7 model sp3.

 

[GreyFox7]

True enough, but the throttling issues are not only real, but will have actual impact for me, I'm a developer, physics simulation involving heavy multitasking with basically 100% usage of each core, if I cannot get somewhat reliable timings out of an SP3 ( I'm not asking for good peak performances, just stable ones ), this is pretty much a deal breaker for me.

In addition, it's not like I really "need" yet another machine around, I just find the SP3 very sexy but I can wait for Broadwell to hopefully trim the Surface's skirt a bit for heat dissipation sake .

I can appreciate that. The SP3 is definitely my road machine and with docking station can easily handle everyday work and meetings seamlessly. I have other resources for doing the heavy lifting that I can reasonably access remotely right from the SP3.

 

[ramit]

I can appreciate that. The SP3 is definitely my road machine and with docking station can easily handle everyday work and meetings seamlessly. I have other resources for doing the heavy lifting that I can reasonably access remotely right from the SP3.

I which I could remote to my office machines but this would be a security nightmare so I doubt my company would allow it, still it is tempting for the home office.

I just dream of the day we can finally get rid of all that steam-punk era desktop PC without trade-offs.

 

[GreyFox7]

I which I could remote to my office machines but this would be a security nightmare so I doubt my company would allow it, still it is tempting for the home office.

I just dream of the day we can finally get rid of all that steam-punk era desktop PC without trade-offs.

There are good secure solutions available for remote access. If your Security dept. is blocking this ... they are just doing it wrong.

For example you could use Citrix to securely access your own desktop and it could be controlled by a personal certificate or physical USB device with two factor authentication and this is much better than general VPN access to the network. There are several other options as well...

 

[scfoster]

True enough, but the throttling issues are not only real, but will have actual impact for me, I'm a developer, physics simulation involving heavy multitasking with basically 100% usage of each core, if I cannot get somewhat reliable timings out of an SP3 ( I'm not asking for good peak performances, just stable ones ), this is pretty much a deal breaker for me.

In addition, it's not like I really "need" yet another machine around, I just find the SP3 very sexy but I can wait for Broadwell to hopefully trim the Surface's skirt a bit for heat dissipation sake .

There's simulation and then there's simulation. Depends on whether it's computational, or graphical, whether a GUI is used or you're running C, C# or something like that. Too many variables to tell you whether you will have issues or not. Multitasking would lean more heavily on RAM (8GB max), depending on what you mean by multitasking.

If there's visualization you may have issues. For pure computational stuff, it all depends on what you're trying to do and how quickly you need it.

The easiest is to try it and return it if it does not work for you. I will say I'm impressed with the "no questions asked" return policy at the Microsoft Store.

 

[ctitanic]

You will end in a endless waiting cycle.

 

[megatronium]

If you are doing work that requires 100% CPU use for extended periods then NO the SP3 isn't for you. Good luck!

 

[wynand32]

There seem to be an inordinate number of posts about whether the SP3 is suitable for a hardcore workstation. Many folks seem to be overlooking the fact that the SP3 is an incredibly thin and light hybrid device that crams a high-performance processor into an unprecedented form factor.

I wonder: is this because Microsoft has marketed the SP3 as a do-all machine? Is it because people look at the SP3 and simply desire it to be more than it is? Some combination?

I'm asking this as a serious question; I'm genuinely interested in the answer. I know that I, personally, don't expect my SP3 to perform like my desktop, or even my MacBook Air (which gets much hotter with much faster-spinning and loud fans, but perhaps less throttling). But then again my use-case is different, and apparently my expectations.

Thoughts?