Intel Skylake / Kaby Lake

[Sweepr]

Compared to the iPad Pro (and Macbook 12'') it's a much better bang for the buck.

Surface Pro 4 (Core i5 + 4GB/128GB) + Cover (Keyboard) = ~$1130
iPad Pro (128GB WiFi) + Pencil + Smart Keyboard = ~1220

I just wish the entry-level Core i7 model was a bit cheaper, I'd pay $1300 for a (hypothetical) Core i7 (GT3e)/8GB/128GB.

 

[tenks]

Can someone tell me why the higher-end surfaces and 2in1s and larger tablets in general are over $2k?

Why in general are they more expensive then equivalent specced laptops? Because of the materials they use? I know form factor has a lot to do with it but for $2k the performance you get compared to $2k spent on a normal laptop or small desktop is absurd. Just for a low powered i7?

I'm sure there is a need for it, but still I can get over the price/performance.

 

[frozentundra123456]

Yea, talking about "bang for the buck" in these devices is pretty ironic. For 2k you could get a basic gaming laptop and a powerful desktop. Or if you must sacrifice performance to get mobility, get a sub thousand ultrabook and a tablet (edit- or just use your phone when on the go). I also think the ultrabook would have a better keyboard than the surface.

 

[khon]

I love the design of both the SP4 and the Surface Book, but I'm not sure some of the configurations really make sense:

1. It costs $200 to go from 8gb to 16gb of memory (no other changes) on the SP4. Why would anyone pay that ? And what sort of program needs 16gb or memory to go with a 15W processor anyway ?

2. The Surface Book doesn't have any exhaust ports on the keyboard, so it must be passively cooled, but if that is the case, then what's the point of having a discrete graphics card ? It will have to run at sub 5W anyway, so the performance is going to be very limited.

They're cool devices, but I think I'll stick with the Lenovo MIIX 700, which is very similar and MUCH cheaper ($700 including keyboard).

 

[ShintaiDK]

Can someone tell me why the higher-end surfaces and 2in1s and larger tablets in general are over $2k?

Why in general are they more expensive then equivalent specced laptops? Because of the materials they use? I know form factor has a lot to do with it but for $2k the performance you get compared to $2k spent on a normal laptop or small desktop is absurd. Just for a low powered i7?

I'm sure there is a need for it, but still I can get over the price/performance.

Its all about the size and quality needed. There is a hefty margin too tho.

Its no different that an iPhone/S6 etc phone costing 600-900$ over a 200$ random phone. They dont offer that much either compared. But they are leading edge. You can say we build devices currently on the wrong side of reason(cost). But as long as people are willing to pay.

 

[R0H1T]

Its all about the size and quality needed. There is a hefty margin too tho.

Its no different that an iPhone/S6 etc phone costing 600-900$ over a 200$ random phone. They dont offer that much either compared. But they are leading edge. You can say we build devices currently on the wrong side of reason(cost). But as long as people are willing to pay.

Except you're also paying for the iOS & Apple ecosystem, with SP4 the rage is mostly centered around this cool/hip trend called (ultra)convertibles. You could just as well get any windows machine at half the price, minus touchscreen & all the cool exclusive features of SP4, & yet it'd perform better than the overpriced thing that it is.

 

[ALIVE]

Its all about the size and quality needed. There is a hefty margin too tho.

Its no different that an iPhone/S6 etc phone costing 600-900$ over a 200$ random phone. They dont offer that much either compared. But they are leading edge. You can say we build devices currently on the wrong side of reason(cost). But as long as people are willing to pay.

its a hype and you pay a premium for that
half kilo more weight is not that much too make the computer more portable

you better get a more normal solution
that will cost less and smoke that out in performance

because in the end of the day it is all about performance
that why putting atom and brazos at notebooks was a complete failure

 

[khon]

its a hype and you pay a premium for that
half kilo more weight is not that much too make the computer more portable

you better get a more normal solution
that will cost less and smoke that out in performance

because in the end of the day it is all about performance
that why putting atom and brazos at notebooks was a complete failure

It might be all about performance for you, but for many people it isn't. What we care about are things like screen quality, weight and battery lifetime.

I know I am going to use my next computer as a tablet 90% of the time, with very limited performance requirements, so I want something that is designed primarily for this purpose. However, I want the possibility to use it as a labtop at times, which an android tablet just can't do, so I'll get something like the SP4 or Lenovo MIIX 700.

 

[Sweepr]

Intel Skylake-S Celeron Specs

Intel Celeron G3900 2,8GHz 2MB 2/2 47W 49,99
Intel Celeron G3900T 2,6GHz 2MB 2/2 35W -
Intel Celeron G3920 2,9GHz 2MB 2/2 47W 64,90

http://tweakers.net/nieuws/105657/specificaties-van-skylake-celerons-komen-online.html

http://pc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/column/kaigai/20151007_724408.html


Surface Book - Core i5 6300U Geekbench Score

https://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench3/3710262

And a Core i7 6600U score from an (unknown) OEM PC:

https://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench3/3714232

It might be all about performance for you, but for many people it isn't. What we care about are things like screen quality, weight and battery lifetime.

I know I am going to use my next computer as a tablet 90% of the time, with very limited performance requirements, so I want something that is designed primarily for this purpose. However, I want the possibility to use it as a labtop at times, which an android tablet just can't do, so I'll get something like the SP4 or Lenovo MIIX 700.

+1
I'm fine with a 2C/4T laptop. I'm looking for battery life, weight, screen, build quality, design and (less) noise.

 

[Sweepr]

Surface Pro 4 cooling is apparently much more robust than Surface Pro 3 (from B3D):

Surface Pro 4

Surface Pro 3

Good, I want to see Skylake-U GT3e at its best.

Video of the internals.

I'm tempted to pick the entry-level Core i7 model if I can get the student and retail discount.

 

[mrklaw]

Hi,

So with MS sneaking in yet another non-U CPU in the entry level surface pro, do we have any information yet on how the core m3 will perform?

HD515 sounds a little behind HD520 but will it be enough for minecraft? That and CS:GO are basically the only games it'll need to play (anything else I'll stream from my desktop)

And the CPU specs seem a lot better than broadwell's core m, but I assume the clock speeds can't be used as a direct comparison to skylake-u so I'd welcome any estimates of performance.


Generally a very annoyingly well-calculated range. Intel don't cripple the i3 this time so MS decide to go to core m to save money. Core i5 should be a decent bump in CPU, but the GPU sounds similar to last gen. Only i7 gets the iris graphics which, combined with the 64MB edram, should be around 2x the performance of the i5 for graphics.

If they'd only gone for the i5 with iris graphics that would have been a solid sweetspot in the range. As it is, they have clearly designed it to upsell you as far as possible.

 

[crashtech]

^ Love what they have done with the low-profile cooling system.

 

[Sweepr]

Hi,

So with MS sneaking in yet another non-U CPU in the entry level surface pro, do we have any information yet on how the core m3 will perform?

HD515 sounds a little behind HD520 but will it be enough for minecraft? That and CS:GO are basically the only games it'll need to play (anything else I'll stream from my desktop)

I think you will be fine. First-gen Core M performance varies a lot depending on the device and cooling.

The Surface Pro 4 has a fan so Microsoft could easily use the cTDP up config (7W) to improve performance. Fanless Core M-5Y10 devices already handle CS: GO and Minecraft pretty well, an actively-cooled Core m3-6Y30 should be more than adequate.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=082UeXwIlZ0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vv8xnFrfZaQ

Generally a very annoyingly well-calculated range. Intel don't cripple the i3 this time so MS decide to go to core m to save money. Core i5 should be a decent bump in CPU, but the GPU sounds similar to last gen. Only i7 gets the iris graphics which, combined with the 64MB edram, should be around 2x the performance of the i5 for graphics.

If they'd only gone for the i5 with iris graphics that would have been a solid sweetspot in the range. As it is, they have clearly designed it to upsell you as far as possible.

I agree. The base model is tempting, but then you got better sustained CPU/iGPU performance for an extra $100. Then you need more RAM because 4GB isn't much these days, another $300. Want to try the first 'U' series device with Iris (HD Graphics 540) and eDRAM? Another $300.

Could have very well used Skylake-U GT3e for the Core i5 model as well, like Apple will probably do with their next Macbook Air, but then again most wouldn't spend a lot more for the Core i7 model.

 

[pantsaregood]

Has anyone attempted BCLK overclocking on non-K Skylake SKUs yet? If it works, I want to get one of the new Celerons, delid it, and push it until it catches fire.

 

[mrklaw]

thanks for that, very helpful. and if the skylake core m is a 40% improvement on graphics and 10-20% on CPU compared with Broadwell, that should be decent for low-end gaming.

I think they should have included iris in the i5 model - people will buy the i7 just because its an i7 and they want the best. Maybe a compromise so the i5/4GB is the standard HD520, and the i5/8GB/256 has iris. Then at least you're getting something more for your $300 than a little bit of ram and SSD

Personally I think I'll stick with either the core m or the 4GB i5 depending on benchmarks. I can live with 4GB for what I use it for.

Curious about whether the iris will handle sustained gaming without throttling. I expect the i5 won't stress the 15W TDP but the i7 definitely will if you're using both CPU and GPU at the same time, so that improved cooling will be put to the test..

 

[Be1n]

I think you will be fine. First-gen Core M performance varies a lot depending on the device and cooling.

The Surface Pro 4 has a fan so Microsoft could easily use the cTDP up config (7W) to improve performance. Fanless Core M-5Y10 devices already handle CS: GO and Minecraft pretty well, an actively-cooled Core m3-6Y30 should be more than adequate.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=082UeXwIlZ0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vv8xnFrfZaQ



I agree. The base model is tempting, but then you got better sustained CPU/iGPU performance for an extra $100. Then you need more RAM because 4GB isn't much these days, another $300. Want to try the first 'U' series device with Iris (HD Graphics 540) and eDRAM? Another $300.

Could have very well used Skylake-U GT3e for the Core i5 model as well, like Apple will probably do with their next Macbook Air, but then again most wouldn't spend a lot more for the Core i7 model.

The worrying thing that bench shows is that even the 5200u throttles heavily when both the cpu and gpu are loaded. Will the new 6100u and 6200u suffer the same problems?

One more thing, is the memory controller inside the desktop i3 series overclockable? Can they run DDR4 beyond 2133mhz?

 

[mrklaw]

The worrying thing that bench shows is that even the 5200u throttles heavily when both the cpu and gpu are loaded. Will the new 6100u and 6200u suffer the same problems?

One more thing, is the memory controller inside the desktop i3 series overclockable? Can they run DDR4 beyond 2133mhz?

The primary thing that article showed was how important it is for manufacturers to design products around the expected heat production of the chips they select.

Although the yoga had a higher class core m, it was often beaten by the ux305 because Lenovo had set a lower max temp so it throttled earlier. This was suggested to be because the tablet mode meant the external surface of the device was designed to be handheld, rather than the more standard laptop form factor of the zenbook which could therefore have a higher capacity for heat before throttling. Combined with the metal chassis to act as a passive heatsink, that meant the zenbook simply worked to the CPUs full potential, allowing it to out punch stronger CPUs.

From what we've seen, the SP4 has improved cooling (a much larger passive heatsink on top of the active cooling). That should mean the core m has no issues, and the i5 will hopefully be fine too. The only question mark for me is the i7 - does the addition of iris graphics need to power twice as many EUs plus edram mean that it will risk throttling in scenarios where both the CPU and GPU are stressed (I.e. Games)? We'll have to wait and see. Hopefully MS have designed the cooling to handle the full 15W TDP sustained.

 

[khon]

I wonder what will actually improve the performance more, going from Haswell to Skylake, or improving the cooling to avoid throttling ? (assuming a sustained workload)

For normal usage the move to Skylake is obviously more important, but if you really stress the CPU+GPU for a sustained period, I think there is some chance the cooling will make more of a difference.

 

[dahorns]

So nearby Microsoft Store had the Surface Book. The model displayed had the i5-6300u with no discrete GPU.

Very cool device. I was a bit worried that the gap caused by the hinge would make the device feel too bulky or might be a structural weak point when closed. However, it felt really solid and certainly didn't feel like a bulky device. The tablet portion is astonishingly light. And the way it disconnects is slick(press and hold a button, then wait for the greenlight to remove).

I went ahead and ran Google (or is it Alphabet?) Octane in Edge for kicks and grins. It scored just under 29,000. For comparison, my SP3 with i7-4650u (1.7/3.3/2.9 GHz) (base, single turbo, dual turbo) scores 27,293 in Edge.

 

[Sweepr]

Some benchmarks results comparing Core i5 SP3 (Haswell-U) vs Core i5 SP4 (Skylake-U), both 4GB RAM:

Finally, I had a chance to run some CPU and RAM benchmark tests (using PC Benchmark from the Windows Store) for which you can find the results below. To give you some idea of the performance, I compared the results to a SP3 sporting the older Core i5 CPU and 4GB of RAM. The results below are the average of 5 different test runs.
Test
CPU (Single Threaded)
SP3: 267
SP4: 291
CPU (Multi-Threaded)
SP3: 465
SP4: 587
RAM Test
SP3: 1926
SP4: 2281

www.lovemysurface.net/surface-pro-4-hands-on-review

9% better ST score but 26% better MT score in this particular benchmark. Higher sustained Turbo clocks due to better cooling? Some merit goes to Skylake-U though.

Apparently the Surface Book is using a custom Maxwell chip (1:06). I wonder what that means.

So nearby Microsoft Store had the Surface Book. The model displayed had the i5-6300u with no discrete GPU.

Very cool device. I was a bit worried that the gap caused by the hinge would make the device feel too bulky or might be a structural weak point when closed. However, it felt really solid and certainly didn't feel like a bulky device. The tablet portion is astonishingly light. And the way it disconnects is slick(press and hold a button, then wait for the greenlight to remove).

I went ahead and ran Google (or is it Alphabet?) Octane in Edge for kicks and grins. It scored just under 29,000. For comparison, my SP3 with i7-4650u (1.7/3.3/2.9 GHz) (base, single turbo, dual turbo) scores 27,293 in Edge.

Nice to know. Very innovative device, looking forward to the reviews, though I will probably pick the SP4.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Apparently the Surface Book is using a custom Maxwell chip (1:06). I wonder what that means.

Interesting. A completely custom chip just for MS. MS must expect to sell Surface Book in droves or use it in multiple devices.

 

[Sweepr]

Dell refreshes XPS 13 and XPS 15, and debuts XPS 12 tablet hybrid

Dell launched some serious notebooks when it came out with the XPS line, and now the company continues to improve on already solid products. The Dell XPS 13 and XPS 15 are getting a refresh, updating their processors and packing more storage into their thin frames. In addition, Dell announced the much-rumored XPS 12, a 2-in-1 which seems to be the first of what will likely be many Surface Pro 4 competitors.

The biggest differences, however, are under the hood. Both the XPS 13 and 15 are now powered by Intel's new 6th generation Skylake processors, available in Core i3, i5, and i7 versions, and come with up to 16GB of RAM and up to 1TB of PCle SSD storage. Still, the base model of the XPS 13 comes with just 4GB of RAM, so you'll have to pay extra for the upgrade to 16GB.

The XPS 15 still comes with a 4K display option, while the 13 sticks to QHD at 3200 x 1800 resolution. Dell told Ars the company wanted to make the XPS 15 an all-purpose notebook that appealed to creatives and gamers, so they added an optional Nvidia GDDR5 GPU to the notebook. Also, the display will show a minimum of 100 percent of the sRGB color gamut scale, which means the rendered colors will be vibrant and always accurate. All of the new models will come with USB 3 with Type-C connectors, as well as a bit of battery boost. Dell claims the XPS 13 can get 18 hours on a single charge, while the XPS 15 will get up to 16 hours of life depending on the model.

As for the tablet itself, the XPS 12 boasts 12.5-inch full HD display, and you can upgrade to a sharp, 3840 x 2160-resolution 4K touchscreen as well. The tablet also has an 8-megapixel rear camera and a 5MP front-facing camera, and support for Dell Pen Active although the device itself doesn't come with a stylus. It has not one, but two USB 3 Type-C connectors, so you can easily charge the XPS 12 while still using it with a connected peripheral or while charging another device of yours.

Both the Dell XPS 13 and XPS 15 will replace the previous models that were released earlier this year. The XPS 13 starts at $799 and the XPS starts at $999, and they're available to order today.

The XPS will start at $999, bundled with its keyboard and a protective case, and is available in two configurations in mid-November: one with an FHD display, a 2.7GHz Intel Core m5-6Y54 processor, 8GB of RAM, and 128GB SSD storage, and another with a 4K display and 256GB SSD storage with the same processor and RAM.

www.pcworld.com/article/2990320/lap...-xps-15-and-better-with-all-skylake-cpus.html

Love the thin bezels. This new wave of Windows 10 devices is really impressive.

 

[f2bnp]

I can't find any benchmarks for Skylake, other than 6600K and 6700K. Are the rest of the CPUs out yet?

 

[tential]

Lol at people not understanding the premium for the Surface products.

Prices will be normal once they get the first round adopters...

 

[386user]

hopefully those platter drives can be changed out on the lower end models