Which Surface Pro 3 should I buy?

[totom]

Hi, I'm going to buy the new SP3, but I'm not sure which one to buy... I'm going to use it most in school, so I need office, programming and compiling in eclipse, CodeBlocks and VisualStudio and VirtualBox.
Because of VirtualBox I have to buy the 8Gigs of Ram version, but I'm not sure if I need the i5 or the i7.
I really don't need to play games on the SP3 (except maybe some 2D games I developed to test them, but they would even run on an Atom).
What do you guys think?
Thanks, Tom.

 

[GreyFox7]

The Stockholder in me says buy the i7 512 Seriously though, it wouldn't help.

An i5 would get you through however from your stated uses it seems an i7 would give a little extra pep especially with virtualization.

Next decision is how much storage.

A good external USB 3.0 SSD (Samsung Evo) will perform 50 - 80% as well as an Internal SSD but still blows away any HDD. Its not as portable although more flexible. Tested using a Pluggable USB drive dock and USB hub with 256gb Samsung Evo SSD and USB Gig Ethernet connection. There's enough USB bandwidth to run this without any problems.

 

[totom]

Thanks, about the storage: 256 GB is absolutely fine, I don't need more than 100GB on Windows and 50 with the Virtualization. And if its not enough I'd buy a 128GB MicroSD. So you think the i5 is fine for the stated task and also maybe HEVC (H.265) video playback?

 

[GreyFox7]

Thanks, about the storage: 256 GB is absolutely fine, I don't need more than 100GB on Windows and 50 with the Virtualization. And if its not enough I'd buy a 128GB MicroSD. So you think the i5 is fine for the stated task and also maybe HEVC (H.265) video playback?

Just thought you'd sneak in that H265 requirement eh. it all depends on the encode/decode sw, resolution and frame rate.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Efficiency_Video_Coding
On February 29, 2012, at the 2012 Mobile World Congress, Qualcomm demonstrated a HEVC decoder running on an Android tablet, with a Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 dual-core processor running at 1.5 GHz, showing H.264/MPEG-4 AVC and HEVC versions of the same video content playing side by side.[35] In this demonstration HEVC reportedly showed almost a 50% bit rate reduction compared with H.264/MPEG-4 AVC.[35]

On November 14, 2013, DivX developers released information on HEVC decoding performance using an Intel i7 CPU at 3.5 GHz which had 4 cores and 8 threads.[41] The DivX 10.1 Beta decoder was capable of 210.9 fps at 720p, 101.5 fps at 1080p, and 29.6 fps at 4K.

September 9, 2014, Apple announced the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus which supports H.265 for FaceTime over cellular.[51]
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Yep, it will handle it.

 

[totom]

Just thought you'd sneak in that H265 requirement eh. it all depends on the encode/decode sw, resolution and frame rate.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Efficiency_Video_Coding
On February 29, 2012, at the 2012 Mobile World Congress, Qualcomm demonstrated a HEVC decoder running on an Android tablet, with a Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 dual-core processor running at 1.5 GHz, showing H.264/MPEG-4 AVC and HEVC versions of the same video content playing side by side.[35] In this demonstration HEVC reportedly showed almost a 50% bit rate reduction compared with H.264/MPEG-4 AVC.[35]

On November 14, 2013, DivX developers released information on HEVC decoding performance using an Intel i7 CPU at 3.5 GHz which had 4 cores and 8 threads.[41] The DivX 10.1 Beta decoder was capable of 210.9 fps at 720p, 101.5 fps at 1080p, and 29.6 fps at 4K.

September 9, 2014, Apple announced the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus which supports H.265 for FaceTime over cellular.[51]
============

Yep, it will handle it.

Perfect, thanks. So I think I'll buy the i5 since I don't see any reasons to spend 250€ more on the i7.

 

[malberttoo]

i5 256GB is your sweet spot.

 

[cemian]

Simple Answer .... Any one you can afford

 

[totom]

Simple Answer .... Any one you can afford

Well, I can afford both, but I don't want to spend 250€ mor if I don't need it
So what do you think?

 

[cemian]

My sweet spot was the i7 256GB..didn't need the extra space of 512GB and if I did I could always upgrade it with an sdcard

 

[castemic]

Did some test. I7 and i5 are equals or there is no such difference that 250€ can justify. Return to i5.
I prefere to buy the docking station with that money.

 

[totom]

Did some test. I7 and i5 are equals or there is no such difference that 250€ can justify. Return to i5.
I prefere to buy the docking station with that money.

Thanks, which tests did you do? Benchmark, gaming or just your personal feeling?

 

[cemian]

What kind of tests are going to show i5 and i7 as equals besides the power button test...in the power button test ..when the power button is depressed both of the models would be equal as they would both turn off, sleep, or hibernate depending on how they were configured