AMD vs. Intel in the 15-Inch Surface Laptop 3: Both Models Benchmarked

[Admin]

We put 15-inch Surface Laptop 3’s with Intel and AMD chips head-to-head to see which is the better buy.

AMD vs. Intel in the 15-Inch Surface Laptop 3: Both Models Benchmarked : Read more

 

[larkspur]

Well the $100 is worth it for Win 10 Pro alone... but I wasn't expecting a slaughter-fest when comparing these systems with identically-priced hardware. I also figured that Vega 9 would at least have an edge on Iris Plus. But yeah, clearly until Zen 2 hits mobile, Intel still owns mobile. At least AMD should drop prices to make these current mobile chips competitive. This particula comparison isn't even close!

 

[alextheblue]

Why isn't the memory clock listed for the Intel model? Because AnandTech has a chart that seems to indicate LPDDR4X is used in the 15" Intel models too.

https://www.anandtech.com/show/15008/the-microsoft-surface-laptop-3-15-inch-review

Well the $100 is worth it for Win 10 Pro alone... but I wasn't expecting a slaughter-fest when comparing these systems with identically-priced hardware. I also figured that Vega 9 would at least have an edge on Iris Plus. But yeah, clearly until Zen 2 hits mobile, Intel still owns mobile. At least AMD should drop prices to make these current mobile chips competitive. This particula comparison isn't even close!

The main issue is how these are priced by MS. The Ryzen 7 model should be sold at the same price as the i7, and the Ryzen 5 model should drop accordingly. I think the Ryzen models are just being offered to help deal with the Intel shortages, and for leverage with Intel.

 

[alextheblue]

If you choose to get the 13.5-inch version, which only uses Intel CPUs, you can also get faster LPDDR4x RAM, but that’s not available at all on the 15-inch laptop no matter which version you get.

Well turns out this was completely bogus.

AnandTech just did a comparison, the 15 inch Intel models use the much faster memory. This is AMD's fault for falling behind on memory tech, for the record. But it still seems really shady to make it seem like they're on equal footing as far as memory bandwidth is concerned... especially when you don't read comments or bother following up for confirmation of such minor details as DDR4 2400 vs LPDDR4X 3733.

To upgrade to a Ryzen 7, you’d have to pay a minimum of $2,099, so we’re comparing here on price.

This is also a bit misleading. The Ryzen 7 at $2,099 is a 512GB model. The equivalent Intel 512GB model still uses the 1065 but costs $2,199. I have no idea why MS doesn't offer a Ryzen 7 with 256GB of storage. So in Anandtech's comparison, the Ryzen model still gets beat out of it on the CPU side (Zen+) but even with the bandwidth disadvantage, it manages to narrowly stay ahead on the GPU side.