lukeskymac
Member
Not really, no.
Using an eGPU, your CPU gets more thermal headroom, which is a particularly significant boon for thin notebooks like SBs and MBPs.
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Microsoft's Surface Book 2
- Thread starter Dead Prince
- Start date
Not really, no.
Using an eGPU, your CPU gets more thermal headroom, which is a particularly significant boon for thin notebooks like SBs and MBPs.
Shogmaster
Member
All I'm saying is if you already have 1060 in your laptop, 1070 or 1080 in a eGPU is a shitty return on your investment, and getting marginal improvements over the 1060 experience. If you have an Intel GPU in your laptop, that's another thing altogether and eGPU becomes arguably a decent option.
Shogmaster
Member
Sure, but it's still a clumsy and wasteful solution since 1080 + eGPU is like over $800. Might as well spend $500 more and build a proper gaming desktop.
Dreams-Visions
Member
Nah man. Lots of people need a laptop as their primary computer and don't want to own or have to deal with a second desktop computer. That's why home docks have been a thing. That's why external GPUs have been a thing for a decade as people have tried creative methods to find ways to use external GPUs with their laptops (I used to frequent Notebookreview.com's forums and they had a whole section dedicated to this dating back to at least 2009).
If you can have the mobility you want and the power available at home on your external monitor when you need it...well, it's what a lot of people have been waiting for for a long time. Proper external GPU support like what we're seeing in TB3 can altogether eliminate the need for a desktop tower in ways only dreamed of before. Another reason why it's disappointing it is missing on this very nice Surface Book 2.
Just feels like a missed opportunity. One feature that many people would have really appreciated both today and tomorrow as more hardware supports the feature set.
Oh well I guess.
hipbabboom
Huh? What did I say? Did I screw up again? :(
You probably need not look any further than the price of a comparable MBP spec.
Shogmaster
Member
Is it a space issue or just too lazy to maintain 2 computers issue? I love laptops and I have like 4 of them I use. But if I felt the urge to game on PC again, I would build a proper desktop.
Also, as a rule, I would NEVER game on a machine I rely on to make money with. Terrible terrible idea. First of all, Steam and modern games are fucking storage hogs. I don't want to spend $$$ on fast PCIe SSD on my laptop and have Steam and few games kill most of the space on it.
The Samsung T5 goes up to 540 MB read. Thats saturated the 3.0 real life spec. So its no wonder it uses 3.1 gen 2.
I guess (hell, I still dont really agree), but then there are models of this with Intel graphics and 1050s, so thats still applicable to this machine!
This is both more money and less convenient, since you now have an entire second computer to deal with.
lukeskymac
Member
Like Guess Who and Dreams-Visions have said, a lot of people (me included) would rather have one, capable computer than multiple computers for multiple scenarios. Besides, if you're going to spend money on a premium notebook like this, might as well have it be capable of being your main.
This is why the lack of Thunderbolt and the use of an inferior CPU (U quad core at $2.5K) make Microsoft's comparisons to the MBP all the more baffling to me. They clearly have different priorities than Apple as the 15" MBPs actually have HQ CPUs - with the fortunate side effect of being able to keep decent Turbo speeds for extended periods of time when paired with an eGPU due to the extra thermal headroom provided by the lack of dGPU utilization.
The idea of a premium, thin and light notebook with a powerful CPU (for a notebook) that I can plug into an eGPU when I want to game and be less CPU-limited than by your average notebook is appealing to me, and is why I'm moving away from my desktop rig and to a MBP (or whatever notebook checks the boxes I want better than it) when I graduate and have the money. By that time it'll probably have PCIe 4.0-based Thunderbolt 4, making the bottlenecks even less of a concern.
Shogmaster
Member
Yeah, USB does have a lot of CPU dependency that eats from the theoretical bandwidth limit.
Personally, instead of getting a full SATA 3 speed external SSD, I would probably build my own external SSD from 2242 M.2 drives for less speed, but much smaller and cheaper.
Shogmaster
Member
Why are folks so against maintaining more than one computer? Am I crazy for thinking that redundancy is not only good, but crucial? If you depend on your computer for a living like I do, having only one functional machine is like playing with fire IMO.
lukeskymac
Member
Considering a 1080 is nearly twice as fast as a 1060 and that notebook 1060s aren't clocked as fast as the desktop counterparts as far as I know, I find it hard to believe in that "marginal" descriptor, even when considering TB3 bottlenecking.
¯\_(ツ
_/¯ I could give multiple, small reasons but I know most of them have some kind of solution. You could say it's something irrational and just feels right.twentytwo22
Member
D....damn.
Eppy Thatcher
God's had his chance.
Uhm yah ... this might just be where I jump in on a surface...
Looks real good
Looks real good
Shogmaster
Member
I tend to judge all performance gains in terms of value. I just simply can't justify the cost of eGPU for the gains. If enclosures were like $100~$150, I would be in your camp probably. but $300~500 is a none starter IMO.
Shogmaster
Member
There will be 3rd party 2 in 1 with 1050 or 1060 and quad core Kaby-R i7 for around $1500 soon. Don't be a brand whore if you don't have to.
But look at the quality of the build hnnnnnnngggg
Skel1ingt0n
I can't *believe* these lazy developers keep making file sizes so damn large. Btw, how does technology work?
Shogmaster
Member
Going by track record, Surface line has too much reliability issues. Lenovos, HP and Dell for instance are much more reliable in the 2 in 1 space.
SCULLIBUNDO
Banned
Now announce a properly-spec'd Surface Studio 2 that isn't $6.5k.
Shogmaster
Member
you just jinxed it on price didnt you...
Ok 😔
SCULLIBUNDO
Banned
First one already costs that much in Aus.
chaosmaster(1)
Member
That's one sexy looking laptop but I'm too poor to afford that price lol.
lukeskymac
Member
Yeah, the enclosure price is definitely something I hope drops by the time I make my switch - it will likely happen as eGPUs become more popular and because Intel is making Thunderbolt available to third parties with no royalties.
Haloid1177
Banned
Just speaking from an IT perspective, we bought Lenovo Thinkpads for everyone four years ago, and the amount of repairs that had to be done dropped drastically when we swapped them with Surface Pro 3s or 4s. A small test group for sure. Dell is the only PC maker with the XPS line that has put out computers that my users are as happy with as they are with Surfaces.
idunno. Im sitting here with my person laptop, a Dell XPS 15 connected to two 27" 4k monitors, then i have my other jobs laptop which is a HP elite book and then some side work gave me a laptop and its a really old hp elitebook. I dont have any problems with this many laptops
yea i spent years supporting hp, dell & lenovo equipment in Operating System Deployment scenarios with MS SCCM, Dell is the best for driver support, HP a distance second and Lenovo might as well be a did not compete. I dont know that you could pay me to use a lenovo. My main job sent me one, i use my dell instead.
Skel1ingt0n
I can't *believe* these lazy developers keep making file sizes so damn large. Btw, how does technology work?
Work just took my old workhorse of a Dell and replaced it with a Lenovo T460s.
Garbage. My two connected monitors work only about 80% of the time, lol
Hello? This is Hailun!
Member
No sale then.
Zaraki_Kenpachi
Member
Gourgeous machine but holy fuck at those prices.
Huw_Dawson
Member
This eats Wacom's Mobilestudio line for breakfast, damn. Only reason to get one of those devices instead of the equivalent MS device is if you have to have a Wacom pen rather than the perfectly decent Ntrig tech...
Hello? This is Hailun!
Member
Where are the prices?
ElMexiMerican
Member
They're on the site now https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/surface/devices/surface-book-2/overview
Honestly, the price is pretty good considering the prices for the previous model. $3,300 gets you the highest end 15", and even the base model for that size comes with the 1060 w/6gb as well as 16gb of ram. I think I'm going to end up going with the base once I can spend the money on one.
shacklesmcgee
Member
The MS site doesn't seem to have the 15" up yet, but $1979 for the lowest spec 13.5" model, then almost $700 dollars more for an i7 and a 2gb GTX 1050? Yikes, that's way too much
ElMexiMerican
Member
Uhhh, everything's up. Check the link I posted above and click the configure button. 1499 for the base 13.5 inch, but that only comes with an intel gpu. The 15 is certainly better priced imo.
shacklesmcgee
Member
oohh, may have had to scroll down a tad, thanks!
LukasTaves
Member
They probably hook up to their own connector, the base is essentially an egpu for this thing.
The fuck up for me is Ms not selling the bases only.