Sort of surprised about cpu throttling down under load

[grumpy]

So now I'm wondering: just why are we being sold i5's and i7's that can't sustain their speed? What is the good of having this CPU speed if it can only be maintained for short bursts?? Honestly, this is getting close to "false advertising" for me... and I love the SP3 overall so don't be fast to dismiss me as a hater

To be fair, given the challenges of cramming a laptop into a tablet form factor, there need to be some compromises. Unfortunately, I think that MS compromised too much to chase the iPad. The only time anyone will notice the few mm difference is in review photos comparing the thickness to that of an iPad. The SP2 has much better cooling resulting in less throttling and better sustained performance. If the SP2 form factor is not a deal breaker for you, it may be the better choice. As far as the i7 goes, I think that it borders on fraud since it offers virtually no practical advantage over the i5.

You may also want to explore external cooling solutions.
http://www.surfaceforums.net/threads/cooling-pad-benchmark-sp3-i5.10406/

 

[grumpy]

Affect gamers and users running "very intensive" calculations. Come on! Tell me that that's the majority.

And the majority could be served equally well by a WinRT device. The Surface Pro line is marketed as a tablet that can do more for more people. The SP3 is failing in this regard.

Any way, I'm tired of these discussions.

Yes, the "it works for me so there is no problem" discussions are tiresome.

Do you think that the SP2 is better? Get one!

I do have an SP2 (and an SP1).

 

[ctitanic]

Yes, the "it works for me so there is no problem" discussions are tiresome.

Well, I don't feel that this applies to me. I have been helping anyone with problems that I don't have.

 

[malberttoo]

Unfortunately, I think that MS compromised too much to chase the iPad.

I think they were chasing the MacBook Air, not the iPad

IMHO...I absolutely get why people would be miffed that the SP3 can't top some of the CPU usage, when compared to say the SP2. You buy the newest iteration of something, and you automatically think newer=better, which is of course completely reasonable. I'm no engineer, and have no idea why MS did what it did or even if there would have been a better way. So I agree- this issue ended up being a bad deal for the customer.

But on the other hand, "the customer" in this case is really only a very small subset of SP3 users. Not that I'm blowing you guys off at all! I personally will probably never experience the throttling issue, even though I usually have a lot going on on my SP3 at any given time. I'm just not pushing the envelope. Not that there's anything wrong with pushing the envelope .

I have been thinking about it like this... my company hosts and does logistics support for auto and aircraft companies in the winter here in Alaska. They bring their stuff up to test it in the cold. I remember talking to the engineer once of one of the automobile companies, and he said "we don't care about what happens to you guys up here. We're not trying to make the vehicles survive Alaskan cold. Hardly anyone experiences the issues you guys do here, so we're not too concerned about issues that only happen here."

Anyways just my .02 worth...

 

[GreyFox7]

From what I saw today in testing ProcThrottleMax IF a couple of settings changes were implemented that are currently not available for some reason the gap could be fairly narrow between SP2 and SP3.
I need to go back and calculate the aggregate Power load before Thermal throttling kicks in but just eyeballing, it appears to be around 15w more or less.

In theory you'd be able to Overcook a 5w part (Broadwell Y).

I have stated before I think this design was meant for a Broadwell CPU but Intel fell behind on delivering that. Although, they are now shipping Broadwell Y chips just 3 months ago it was looking more like shipping would not start until December instead of August. Chip yields came up so they got the green light to ship.

Still the Throttled Haswell i5 4300U performs better than what a Haswell i5 4300 Y would. There's definitely more room in the box to tweak this puppy.

 

[ramit]

I thought I'd laid the throttling issue to reset. After all, my initial load test of 4-cpu intensive apps, plus a video was over the top.

So today I'm using the unit to run just one sustained calculation (which can run for 15 minutes or longer).

The CPU speed jumps up to around 3.2 for the first 30 seconds or so. Then as the unit heats up, the cpu speed drops, drops, and drops, until it is below 1Gig.

This is slower than many of the surface pro 2 tablets, and slower than the laptop I'd hoped to replace it with.

So now I'm wondering: just why are we being sold i5's and i7's that can't sustain their speed? What is the good of having this CPU speed if it can only be maintained for short bursts?? Honestly, this is getting close to "false advertising" for me... and I love the SP3 overall so don't be fast to dismiss me as a hater

But If I bought a car that was advertised as a replacement for my previous car, and I found out that after 10 minutes on the highway and highway speeds, it would slow down to 30 mph until it cooled off, I would think I'd been majorly duped. Why shouldn't I have the same reaction over the sp3??

Michael

I've made a similar argument in http://www.surfaceforums.net/threads/postponing-gratification.10172/ , even the car metaphor!.

It is refreshing to see that some SP3 owners can see its shortcomings without emotional bias.

Strictly speaking, the SP3 is a lesser laptop than is a MBA, computing tasks that can be performed by the latter cannot be sustained by the former.

 

[Michael Lovett]

These discussions are good, even if they are tiring. I know it sounds like I'm bitching over esoteric points, but I don't think I am. Today I ran a program to convert a file from one format to another, and got the throttling issue again. After 1.5 hours, it still had not finished, because the processor was at a crawl. Converting files, and doing other similar tasks, is not that much of a stretch for a desktop os user and as time goes on I think were going to see a more and more users find this pitfall.

The more I use the sp3 the more I feel that it was designed with a certain kind of user profile in mind..a user I would call "casual" or "light". It's not a crime for MS to create a device for such a user profile. The crime, so to speak, is that they haven't been forthcoming and telling people that the device is optimized for casual usage, and letting people wrongly conclude the choosing an i7 or even an i5 is equates to much more usable computing power, when I fact it doesn't except for casual and bursty needs.

I will probably return the i7 and see what comes up in a year with the sp4..

 

[ramit]

These discussions are good, even if they are tiring. I know it sounds like I'm bitching over esoteric points, but I don't think I am. Today I ran a program to convert a file from one format to another, and got the throttling issue again. After 1.5 hours, it still had not finished, because the processor was at a crawl. Converting files, and doing other similar tasks, is not that much of a stretch for a desktop os user and as time goes on I think were going to see a more and more users find this pitfall.

The more I use the sp3 the more I feel that it was designed with a certain kind of user profile in mind..a user I would call "casual" or "light". It's not a crime for MS to create a device for such a user profile. The crime, so to speak, is that they haven't been forthcoming and telling people that the device is optimized for casual usage, and letting people wrongly conclude the choosing an i7 or even an i5 is equates to much more usable computing power, when I fact it doesn't except for casual and bursty needs.

I will probably return the i7 and see what comes up in a year with the sp4..

I really hope that other manufacturers pickup on the great design features of the SP3, in particular the screen aspect-ratio and the overall build quality.

As it stands, the SP3 lay between an iPad/Android tablet and an MBA, I think the analysis made by some regarding the fact that the SP3 was designed for a Broadwell chip makes a lot of sens.

Let hope 2015 brings us our dream machine .

 

[dman27]

Michael, to answer your original post Statement: You are 100% correct about your findings. If you do a brief search on the forum and internet in general, you will find this issue has been discussed to confirm that there is a major throttling issue with the SP3.

There are two facts about the SP3 that are indisputable:
1. The SP3 is slower than the sp2 in Sustained cpu processing.
2. There has to be modifications to the notifications, background apps and brightness to achieve anything near 8 how battery life, much less 9 hour as stated by MS.

A special thanks to malberttoo for his acknowledgement of why this is getting repeatedly asked. Apparently, this is an issue with those that actually purchased the SP3 falsely believing the performance was as good as the previous model.

You are one of the only Staff members to publicly see the concern that Some used have without blaming then for having too high of an expectation.