Surface Pro 2 Vs 3 - Power User

[daveyp]

Thanks, GreyFox7,
my true workload is im a geek. bit hard to describe, i wish it was summer so i could trial the device properly although for winter it a max of 22 out side, i would proberbly end up playing games even after convincing myself i dont need to.

when you say "*possibly* be stuck with SP2 thermally" you mean as a better device out of the two for my situation? or is it just as bad
since i never got to fully utilise the EP121 due to its thermal issues ( i sware it used to throttle just from booting up a fresh install, it was proberbly just stuffed)
i was wary of getting a SP3, but the geek in me keeps yelling but its the latest and greatest.

if i had a choice i would wait till next year but they will require i deal with it now.
the surface pro 3 hasnt been released here yet, and i would have to wait till the 28th to find out if its right or not.

You shouldn't feel that the SP2 is 'old'. If you'll typically be using it docked or rarely taking notes or using in portrait mode, it would be the way to go in my opinion. I say this because of the price and because the i5 pro2/pro3 are more or less the same devices placed in different shells, save for the slightly more prominent throttling on the 3. In either case you shouldn't experience throttling like you did on your Asus. Web browsing and office use won't tax the processor all that much, nt sure about game development.

 

[xn1337]

Thanks daveyp, ctitanic and daniielrp,
the SP2 8gb 256, here in store has the new revision with the 4300u processor, so its the same as the i5 SP3,
i was all set for a SP3 till i watched :
Returning the Surface Pro 3

i know the i7 will throttle to about 1ghz wich is still decent.

i think it might be best to get the SP2 i5 4300 for the $200 less then the exact same spec SP3 i5 4300, as if the 3 wasnt going to be release soon, and accept it as a better device than my ASUS EP121.

 

[GreyFox7]

Thanks, GreyFox7,
my true workload is im a geek. bit hard to describe, i wish it was summer so i could trial the device properly although for winter it a max of 22 out side, i would proberbly end up playing games even after convincing myself i dont need to.

when you say "*possibly* be stuck with SP2 thermally" you mean as a better device out of the two for my situation? or is it just as bad
since i never got to fully utilise the EP121 due to its thermal issues ( i sware it used to throttle just from booting up a fresh install, it was proberbly just stuffed)
i was wary of getting a SP3, but the geek in me keeps yelling but its the latest and greatest.

if i had a choice i would wait till next year but they will require i deal with it now.
the surface pro 3 hasnt been released here yet, and i would have to wait till the 28th to find out if its right or not.

Re *possibly* stuck... I meant that you may have to live with an SP2 for a couple years IF SP3 won't handle your workload AND they use the Broadwell U series processors in SP4 (speculative future product) because the Broadwell U series has the exact same Thermal Design Point as the Haswell U series (same heat, same problem). On the other hand I can envision a couple of 3rd party compact cooling enhancements that could come to market (highly speculative) that would solve or mitigate the SP3 Thermal issue.

Possible consideration depending on mobile needs. IF your mobile needs tend to be more modest AND you have an alternate solution available for high end work such as RDP connection to a power workstation then you could use the SP3 as your main machine and togo machine. Which is pretty much how I use mine. I have a power workstation for the heavy lifting but I don't do heavy lifting while mobile but if I needed to id just connect back to the Beast.

 

[ctitanic]

Thanks daveyp, ctitanic and daniielrp,
the SP2 8gb 256, here in store has the new revision with the 4300u processor, so its the same as the i5 SP3,
i was all set for a SP3 till i watched :
Returning the Surface Pro 3

i know the i7 will throttle to about 1ghz wich is still decent.

i think it might be best to get the SP2 i5 4300 for the $200 less then the exact same spec SP3 i5 4300, as if the 3 wasnt going to be release soon, and accept it as a better device than my ASUS EP121.

This is the thing. People assume that the next generation of any thing is "better" than the previous. It's like me thinking that the Prius 2015 will be faster. Now it comes the Prius 2015 and it's does more mpg, it's more comfortable and in all the other aspects is better than the 2014 but it is slower than the 2014. Should I be disappointed?

Each new version of any product may get or not the specs of the previous version. SP3 is a different machine than the SP2. The processor is the same but the body and cooling system are different and as result their behave different.

The question for you is, does the sp3 cover your needs? The question should not be, is the SP2 better than the SP3? at any case you may ask yourself, which of the two is better for me? Each of them have Pros and Cons. I personally won't change my Sp3 for a Sp2 but for me the SP3 is more than enough. In another hand, lets be realistic, there is not too much of difference between the two. Also, if throttling is an issue just blow some air into your SP3 while it's in the cradle.

 

[xn1337]

Thanks Frank, great perspective,
im seeing the SP3 has all the things i want, but the 2 has the sustained performance.
maybe
microsoft may update the firmware for the thermal gear, the unit supposedly runs allot cooler than the 2. they apparently did this with the SP2?

the choice was easier way back at the beginning of the windows 7 tablets.
Panasonic tough - too expensive, samsung slate 7- screen lift issue, asus - some reports of throttling which i didn't find till after i had the device and started experiencing it.

Well i am currently living with my Dell Optiplex 745 running a core 2 duo 6400 Radeon 7550 and 8gb ram. running OSX due to being bored one day. it seems to handel my workload but it also has decent cooling. My custom pc is hogged by my wife for Photoshop and working with raws (AMD Phenom X6 1090T 6 core, 16Gb ram, Radeon 7850, processor Over-clocked to 4ghz per core water-cooled)

Now that you made me look at it that way, am i asking too much of a tablet?
If its not to intrusive, as a Surface MVP like surfacegeek is,
What has been your experience and what sought of workload do you place on your device?
Also sorry to see you were ill recently, i hope you are recovering well.

Sometimes i wish i was ignorent to tech like my brother, he seems really happy with his ACER Icona w700 which always feels really sluggish when not connected to power, it even has a delay when typing.

 

[ctitanic]

@xn1337, I use my Surface in a different way, mostly email, browsing, some art work, watching videos and REMOTE DESKTOP. And I wrote Remote Desktop in uppercase no by accident. Since the UMPC were released around 2006 I got used to the idea that a Tablet is a companion PC no a replacement for your desktop PC. What that means is that whenever I will do anything that I believe is too much for whatever tablet I'm using I just connect to my Desktop and do that there. An example. Video editing. Why should I edit video on my Surface Pro 3 if I can do it faster in a more powerful machine. I have a very fast Internet connection at home and anywhere I go thanks to a 4G Phone. So I can connect remotely to my desktop anywhere I go even when I don't do it that often when I'm not at home. The same applies to my job. I have my PC at work all time on and available to me.

So far, throttling have been an issue reported by gamers. I'm not one of them. Also, throttling is triggered by the temperature of the sp3 body and no by the CPU temperature. So using VS won't be an issue to give you an example.

Summarizing, know your tablet limitations and go around them. This applies to any Tablet. Again, in your specific case I recommend again to buy the SP3 from a store with a return policy. Use it for a week and keep it if it works for you.

 

[ctitanic]

One point that I have avoided to mention, there are two programs that I consider to be the worst optimized for PC: iTunes and Chrome. In both cases I believe that Google and Apple do that to push people to use these applications in their own OS. Chrome is a resource sucker.

 

[GreyFox7]

One point that I have avoided to mention, there are two programs that I consider to be the worst optimized for PC: iTunes and Chrome. In both cases I believe that Google and Apple do that to push people to use these applications in their own OS. Chrome is a resource sucker.

Chrome tries to do a lot of work behind the scenes to give the user the *illusion* that's its fast. All this behind the scenes work uses a lot of resources AND drains the battery on laptops and tablets. That leads me to assume they develop and test using desktops on a LAN. In any case its representative of an immature organization with a myopic view.

ITunes is just a pig, no other way to put it.

 

[megatronium]

I have no experience with the SP2. I don't game on my SP3 i7. For multimedia development and 3D, the SP3 performs great. So far I have edited a commercial, a 30 min. web show, and kicked the tires on zBrush and Rhino 3D. Great results! As always, YMMV. Good luck!

 

[xn1337]

I just finished reading http://surfacegeeks.net/surface-pro-3-and-the-team-that-built-it.html
seems like the surface team is trying to be active, Asus left all us EP121 users to put up with it.
The bios update that killed our tablets with throttling was released 2012/10/30 and no attempt was made to reverse the damage.

It is going to be painful, but i will find a way to convert from chrome,
if i run Freebsd i use chromium, linux -> chromium, osx86 -> chrome, windows - > chrome.
Hell i even installed chrome on the ipads due to the bookmark and history sync.

i think google owns me

I want this to be the device I launch my first cross platform app with and to be my assistant on onsite computer work.

You have all almost pushed me to the point of getting the SP3, i must commend you all on this.

Megatronium : do you see any advantage getting the i7 model 256Gb over the i5 for mobile game and app development and PC technician assistant?

 

[megatronium]

I just finished reading http://surfacegeeks.net/surface-pro-3-and-the-team-that-built-it.html
seems like the surface team is trying to be active, Asus left all us EP121 users to put up with it.
The bios update that killed our tablets with throttling was released 2012/10/30 and no attempt was made to reverse the damage.

It is going to be painful, but i will find a way to convert from chrome,
if i run Freebsd i use chromium, linux -> chromium, osx86 -> chrome, windows - > chrome.
Hell i even installed chrome on the ipads due to the bookmark and history sync.

i think google owns me

I want this to be the device I launch my first cross platform app with and to be my assistant on onsite computer work.

You have all almost pushed me to the point of getting the SP3, i must commend you all on this.

Megatronium : do you see any advantage getting the i7 model 256Gb over the i5 for mobile game and app development and PC technician assistant?

I don't have any experience with the SP3 i5 either, unfortunately. For mobile game and app development and PC technician assistant the i5 would appear to be adequate and should perform fine. The only differences between the i5 and i7 is that the i7 has more L3 cache per core, an additional instruction set, and higher turbo boost frequency. In theory, it should be a little bit snappier (quicker to respond) in some situations due to the higher clock speed. The L3 cache is additional RAM built into the CPU core.

*)If data is in the L1 cache, the CPU can get to it in about 1-2 clock cycles
*)If data is in the L2 cache, the CPU can get to it in about 10-20 clock cycles
*)If data is in the L3 cache, the CPU can get to it in about 50-80 clock cycles
*)If data is in RAM, the CPU can get to it in about 80-100 clock cycles
*)If data is on the HDD, the CPU can get to it in about 100,000 clock cycles [see why more RAM helps performance?]

 

[grumpy]

i know the i7 will throttle to about 1ghz wich is still decent.

Don't even bother with the i7. It offers no practical advantage over the i5 (unless, possibly, if you rig up some external cooling apparatus)

i think it might be best to get the SP2 i5 4300 for the $200 less then the exact same spec SP3 i5 4300, as if the 3 wasnt going to be release soon, and accept it as a better device than my ASUS EP121.

Really, you need to determine if the added screen real estate and higher price of the SP3 is worth the performance hit. You mentioned that you'll be using two external monitors when docked, so the screen size may be less important. Also, the SP2 is a more mature product and most of the bugs have been fixed.

Either way, get a 8GB/256GB Surface Pro.