Quick Advice on Surface Pro 4 M3

[WildKarrde]

Hah, I figured it would be, but I have no idea on AMD vs Intel.

So that pretty much confirms the M3 would be superior to what he uses now anyway? Just the i5 would be icing on the cake?

AMD is a great budget processor, I currently run one in my gaming PC, but AMD does almost nothing better than a comperable Intel does (for a higher price). To interpret the graphs in laymans terms, the i3 would be about twice as good as what he currently has, and the i5 would be about three times better. The i5 upgrade is certainly worth $100, but he should see a significant improvement without it.

The blue (after looking at it for about 20 seconds) seems to be those things I talked about that AMD actually does better than Intel, but I wouldn't worry about that much, everything else on the i3 definitely makes up for being behind the AMD in a few categories. Most software companies design their software to take advantage of Intel processors first.

So to sum it up, the i3 is overall better than the AMD, and the i5 is far better at almost everything than the AMD.

Of course what GreyFox says is true, it's really depends on how your brother uses his PC, but my best educated guess is that he will see a significant improvement with just the i3, and the i5 would be icing on the cake, as you said.

 

[GreyFox7]

AMD is a great budget processor, I currently run one in my gaming PC, but AMD does almost nothing better than a comperable Intel does. To interpret the graphs in laymans terms, the i3 would be about twice as good as what he currently has, and the i5 would be about three times better. The i5 upgrade is certainly worth $100, but he should see a significant improvement without it.

The blue (after looking at it for about 20 seconds) seems to be those things I talked about that AMD actually does better than Intel, but I wouldn't worry about that much, everything else on the i3 definitely makes up for being behind the AMD in a few categories. Most software companies design their software to take advantage of Intel processors first.

So to sum it up, the i3 is overall better than the AMD, and the i5 is far better at almost everything than the AMD.

Of course what FreyFox says is true, it's really depends on how your brother uses his PC, but my best educated guess is that he will see a significant improvement with just the i3, and the i5 would be icing on the cake, as you said.

Not to nit pick but it's a m3, Core m3-6y30 to be precise and Intel does still make i3 in the Core i family. Not that Intel product naming has ever not been confusing.

 

[E-LAN]

Thanks very much both for the helpful information and clarifications.

 

[leeshor]

I even remember when I started telling people MHz didn't mean much any more. Note, not even GHz. So the name isn't the thing either.

 

[Johnny365]

Core M3 in SP4 = i3?? Or are people just getting confused and saying it's the low end like in SP3?

 

[DocACE911]

Honestly until issues with the m3 are ironed out (firmware vs hardware) stay away.

Microsoft support admitted to me yesterday known issues with display driver crashing, bsod, and edge browser. They are also "investigating the battery issue"

Is this a heat issue? M3 issue? Dunno but it is ceazy annoying

Max out your CPU, browse to eBay, log into your account and crash display driver

Swapped mine for a new one last night. Will report back. However first attempt at eBay went smooth!