Review Microsoft Surface Laptop 3 (15-inch) Review: AMD Inside

[Admin]

The Microsoft Surface Laptop 3 (15-inch) is an attractive, thin 15-inch notebook -- and it finally has USB Type-C. But what about performance and battery life?

Microsoft Surface Laptop 3 (15-inch) Review: AMD Inside : Read more

 

[jimmysmitty]

AMD really needs to push their newer CPUs to mobile. Intel heavily invests in there and this is all last gen stuff for them. They are pushing out ther 10nm products which currently perform better than the existing stuff and have massively improved iGPUs.

AMD is not the best option in mobile currently.

 

[weilin]

The Microsoft Surface Laptop 3 (15-inch) is an attractive, thin 15-inch notebook -- and it finally has USB Type-C. But what about performance and battery life?

Microsoft Surface Laptop 3 (15-inch) Review: AMD Inside : Read more

Psst... Under Specifications, it's 1 USB-C, 1 USB-A, not 2x USB-C.

Also, I think these are USB 3.1 Gen2 (10GB/s) ports?

 

[AndrewFreedman]

Psst... Under Specifications, it's 1 USB-C, 1 USB-A, not 2x USB-C.

Ack, thanks for the catch. That's being fixed.

 

[w_barath]

TY for fixing the battery life chart.

 

[gaborbarla]

The battery life chart has no scale on the X axis, the vertical graduations are meaningless, and the relative lengths of the lines are meaningless.

As a result, the chart paints a grossly misleading picture, resulting in an impression of poor journalism and poor reviewership, not what I expect from THG.

Please fix it so I can remove this public service notice.

Absolutely. This is very disappointing.

 

[AndrewFreedman]

The battery life chart has no scale on the X axis, the vertical graduations are meaningless, and the relative lengths of the lines are meaningless.

You're right - we had an error in Excel. That's regrettable, and it has been fixed.

 

[refillable]

Not the best laptop there is. Sure, it might look cooler against other laptops from Dell and Lenovo, but that performance and the battery life you're getting for that just kills it. AMD needs to up their game. Zen+ might still be better than lntel's current gen in desktop, but it's not the case in mobile. It seems that Zen 2 will only achieve parity as opposed to killing it entirely in mobile. I hope they can change my mind.

 

[jimmysmitty]

Not the best laptop there is. Sure, it might look cooler against other laptops from Dell and Lenovo, but that performance and the battery life you're getting for that just kills it. AMD needs to up their game. Zen+ might still be better than lntel's current gen in desktop, but it's not the case in mobile. It seems that Zen 2 will only achieve parity as opposed to killing it entirely in mobile. I hope they can change my mind.

The issue is Intel already is pushing 10nm CPUs that are showing decent performance gains. So even if they do put out Zen 2 its not going to be as easy of a battle as it is on desktop. Intel has been doing very well in the mobile market since the Pentium M, the predecessor to Core, and they are not going to give up easily.

 

[RodroX]

What are the specs of the other two laptops compared in the article?

What is the performance of Cinebench for those laptops, cause only the Surface results was writen?

I wasn't expecting much from Microsoft anyways. This is like buying a car from Shell, just beacuse they do the fuel doesn't mean they will know how to build a car.

 

[NightHawkRMX]

AMD needs to get 7nm to mobile. They have a good Igpu, but Intels new igpus are gaining on them and Intel's 10nm CPUs win hands down.

 

[jimmysmitty]

What are the specs of the other two laptops compared in the article?

What is the performance of Cinebench for those laptops, cause only the Surface results was writen?

I wasn't expecting much from Microsoft anyways. This is like buying a car from Shell, just beacuse they do the fuel doesn't mean they will know how to build a car.

They linked the two used with reviews of them and the specs used.

https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/dell-xps-15-2019,6223.html

https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/lenovo-thinkpad-x1-carbon-7th-gen,6333.html

The only thing the Dell had was a dGPU. The Lenovo used a low power U series CPU with iGPU. Thats why the Vega 9 performed so well against it.

AMD needs to get 7nm to mobile. They have a good Igpu, but Intels new igpus are gaining on them and Intel's 10nm CPUs win hands down.

Yup. AMD is lacking in the mobile front. Intel offers better CPU performance with better battery life and thier 10nm is even better. I am surprised AMD is not being and bit heavier in the mobile laptop market.

 

[RodroX]

They linked the two used with reviews of them and the specs used.

https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/dell-xps-15-2019,6223.html

https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/lenovo-thinkpad-x1-carbon-7th-gen,6333.html

The only thing the Dell had was a dGPU. The Lenovo used a low power U series CPU with iGPU. Thats why the Vega 9 performed so well against it.



Yup. AMD is lacking in the mobile front. Intel offers better CPU performance with better battery life and thier 10nm is even better. I am surprised AMD is not being and bit heavier in the mobile laptop market.

Thanks, I probably missed those cause of reading on my phone. Too many adds on a small screen, gets hard to read.

 

[refillable]

The issue is Intel already is pushing 10nm CPUs that are showing decent performance gains. So even if they do put out Zen 2 its not going to be as easy of a battle as it is on desktop. Intel has been doing very well in the mobile market since the Pentium M, the predecessor to Core, and they are not going to give up easily.

I agree with the main outline of your post, no doubt AMD will have a hard time competing in the market even with Zen 2's desktop and server superiority. But I don't agree with the 10nm "performance gains". 10nm is the same or worse than the 14nm 10th gen Intel just released. Intel core's 10th gen mobile CPUs shows impressive gains despite being on the same node.

 

[jimmysmitty]

I agree with the main outline of your post, no doubt AMD will have a hard time competing in the market even with Zen 2's desktop and server superiority. But I don't agree with the 10nm "performance gains". 10nm is the same or worse than the 14nm 10th gen Intel just released. Intel core's 10th gen mobile CPUs shows impressive gains despite being on the same node.

Every review I have seen shows the 10nm CPUs at lower clock speeds than their 14nm counter parts performing better. More so in graphics than applications. Even if it performs the same as 14nm its still currently a lower clock speed and using less power to do the same thats better. Once Intel gets 10nm more refined and can up clocks where will AMD be? Will they still have 14nm+ (wont call it 12nm cuz its not) parts or will they be barely rolling out their "new" 7nm based chips?

Laptops are a much larger market than desktop. I am just surprised AMD is not focusing on mobile and HPC over desktop which seems to be where they have been focusing. If you look at Intels history their biggest focus is laptops and HPC. Core came from the Pentium M. Intel pushed Ultrabooks and now has their new project Athena. AMD is labeling older designs current generation naming. They really need to put more into the laptop market than they are.

 

[RodroX]

mmmm 10nm its probably at lower clocks speeds cause theres a more powerfull iGPU to feed with energy. So Im not that sure you will see a huge lower power consumption compared to 14nm parts.
Most likely around the same power consumption with lower clocks with a stronger iGPU.
But of course a new node will bring new optimizations a some small gains in computer performance, we will see, when the independent reviews comes out.

By going withthe 7nm node AMD should have some important improvements in IPC and maybe/probably more cores than today intel's 10nm. And AMd already have a powerful iGPU (who knows they may update it to Navi).

Intel will most likely have the lead in raw performance since core architecture have over 10 years of development.

In any case the "today" and the "future" feels awesoem for consumers with soo many good options and somehow better prices to pick from!!!!

 

[NightHawkRMX]

I doubt the IGPU has anything to do with CPU clockspeed.

More that these CPUs are new and the 10nm process hasn't matured.

 

[StewartHH]

As an owner of original Surface Pro, I think last couple of years Microsoft is falling behind in technology, it sounds like lake they are more opt to getting company influence in to future plans. Windows for ARM which is actually only for Qualcomm came out likely because deal with Qualcomm. And this notebook sounds like AMD trying to push itself in the notebook business by providing speech version just for Microsoft. But one thing interesting is that 15 in Intel 10nm version is only intended for business customers. It would be very interesting to compare that version performance compare to this one. One thing for sure is that battery life would be better than this laptop.