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[bomblord1]

Yeah, honestly they didn't make it easier by offering both the SP4 and the SB. I thought the whole point was replacing your laptop .

They had a Tablet that could replace your laptop so just to cover all their bases they made a laptop to replace your tablet

 

[BigTnaples]

Damn.


Finally.


Either going to pick up the Surface Pro 4 or Surface Book at the max spec.


Have they said what GPU is in the SB aside from "Nvidia GPU"?

Regardless, should make a rather large difference having a dedicated GPU no?


Wanted to buy this right away, but have a 3 vacations, a move, and the holidays between now and January, and I splurged on some firearms a couple weeks back. This will have to wait until early next year, but definitely pumped.


Only bummer for me is lack of fingerprint reader. But I will deal.

 

[Yaari]

I went with the surface book (top end). I'm sure it's going to be awesome for gaming.

You went for the 512GB / 16GB one?

I am looking forward to learning a bit more about the benchmarks this thing will pull when running games. I really have no idea what to expect as far as games go. That Gears of War presentation looked nice but does not tell me much.

Damn.


Finally.


Either going to pick up the Surface Pro 4 or Surface Book at the max spec.


Have they said what GPU is in the SB aside from "Nvidia GPU"?

Regardless, should make a rather large difference having a dedicated GPU no?


Wanted to buy this right away, but have a 3 vacations, a move, and the holidays between now and January, and I splurged on some firearms a couple weeks back. This will have to wait until early next year, but definitely pumped.


Only bummer for me is lack of fingerprint reader. But I will deal.

No details are given. I do think it should make a massive difference in performance yeah.
I'm looking forward to finding out more about the GPU.

 

[Cleve]

Damn.


Only bummer for me is lack of fingerprint reader. But I will deal.

I believe the new models are all windows hello compatible via the camera, no need for a fingerprint scanner. Fingerprints have 60 to 70 points of identification. Iris scanners have over 200.

 

[Tregard]

What sort of quality do you think the Surface book will be able to handle? I'm very very tempted by it.

 

[bomblord1]

What sort of quality do you think the Surface book will be able to handle? I'm very very tempted by it.

What are you aiming for? Surface Pro 3 will play just about anything released around 2011 or older fine and less demanding newer games.

 

[Lucifon]

What sort of quality do you think the Surface book will be able to handle? I'm very very tempted by it.

Honestly, I think some people may be overestimating the potential of it from a gaming perspective. If i'm not mistaken the processor is inside the screen, wheras the dGPU is in the keyboard base.

That dGPU is unlikely to be anything that powerful, you're realistically looking at 950m level at best I'd guess (probably 940m). With the processor being in the screen it'll come down to how good their new hybrid cooling system is. During intensive tasks I would be surprised if it didn't start to throttle somewhat.

So to answer your question, it'll definitely be able to run and handle a large amount of modern games. But it depends to what quality you're expecting those things to run. A SP3 can run things like Battlefield 4, but only at a much lowered resolution, low quality, and with pretty poor framerates unless you're using a USB fan to try cool the thing down (and even then it's not great).

 

[Luigiv]

Have they said what GPU is in the SB aside from "Nvidia GPU"?

Nope. All they will tell us about it is that it's a "custom" Maxwell chip with 1GB GDDR5, so really it could be anything. That being said, we do know the GPU in the i7 SP4 is an Iris 540, so we can realistically expect it to be measurably more powerful than that. How much more remains to be seen.

 

[DistortionOfReality]

Anybody Pre-order the 4? I'm on the fence if this really does solve the throttling problem and also has a 30% boost in raw power it could be worth it.

If it doesn't solve the cooling problem it's not IMO though.

Preordered the i5 256/8 model. Did a weight up based on heat/battery efficiency from the SP3 and decided the i7 wasn't going to be worth the extra cash. In a perfect work I would have been able to buy a fully tricked out Surface Book though hehe

To answer your question the new heat sink and fan look to be an improvement over the 3, guess we won't know for sure until it's in the wild though

 

[Yaari]

With those GPU specs known, can you compare it to any console at all? What would it be like then?

 

[Loxley]

What sort of quality do you think the Surface book will be able to handle? I'm very very tempted by it.

Hard to say at the moment without benchmarks, especially since we don't quite know what kind GeForce chip they're using. Though some folks in the OT thread hypothesized that it's at least similar to a 940m due to the 1gb of GDDR5 memory.

 

[bomblord1]

With those GPU specs known, can you compare it to any console at all? What would it be like then?

Without benchmarks it's not really known however it's rumored to be a 960m or equivalent.

Which is roughly on par with a 750ti in real world performance http://gpuboss.com/gpus/GeForce-GTX-960M-vs-GeForce-GTX-750-Ti (note 750ti outperforms it in benchmarks across the board just games run about the same FPS at the same settings)

750ti is close to the PS4.

However, without benchmarks we can't know

 

[BigTnaples]

Without benchmarks it's not really known however it's rumored to be a 960m or equivalent.

Which is roughly on par with a 750ti in real world performance http://gpuboss.com/gpus/GeForce-GTX-960M-vs-GeForce-GTX-750-Ti

750ti is close to the PS4.

However, without benchmarks we can't know

That would be absolutely amazing and well above my expectations.

Was just hoping to run games like Sins of a Solar Empire, Starcraft II, Wasteland II, etc on it.


If it ends up being able to run PS3/PS4 level titles, that will be a dream scenario for me.

 

[Owari]

That would be absolutely amazing and well above my expectations.

Was just hoping to run games like Sins of a Solar Empire, Starcraft II, Wasteland II, etc on it.


If it ends up being able to run PS3/PS4 level titles, that will be a dream scenario for me.

The SP1 runs those games. I expect the i7 SB to run modern AAA games flawlessly, at least at lower than full res

 

[bomblord1]

The SP1 runs those games. I expect the i7 SB to run modern AAA games flawlessly, at least at lower than full res

Which games are you referring to?

 

[Owari]

Which games are you referring to?

Starcraft and the ones he mentioned

 

[Fallout-NL]

Wonder how much of a jump the new i7 model will mean over the i5s in terms of gaming performance.

 

[bomblord1]

Wonder how much of a jump the new i7 model will mean over the i5s in terms of gaming performance.

I don't think it will be huge but it will probably be somewhat noticeable.

 

[Shozuki]

I have the top end Surface Pro 3 (i7 512). Blown away by the surface book though.

Any news on UK availability?

 

[Roberto Larcos]

I have the top end Surface Pro 3 (i7 512). Blown away by the surface book though.

Any news on UK availability?

Everyone asking about new Microsoft devices in UK:

Surface Pro 4: November 12th
Microsoft Band 2: November 19th
Surface Book: who knows

Source.

 

[Shozuki]

damn, thanks. that sucks.

 

[Pics_nao]

Thinking about going all the way and getting the SP4 i7 with 16GB. How much of an improvement would that be over my i5 8GB SP2?

 

[doowrah]

I went for the i7 8gb. Couln't justify the massive jump in price for 16 gb. Though I've never had an issue with dropping setting for smooth gameplay.

Big game I'm hoping it can handle well is Overwatch

 

[Spiritwalker]

I'd totally buy a SP4 or a Book if I had da munny

 

[Shozuki]

sorry to hijack the thread, how would I go about getting a US one and sent to the UK?

I don't suppose Microsoft ship worldwide...?

 

[Pyros_Eien]

I went for the i7 8gb. Couln't justify the massive jump in price for 16 gb. Though I've never had an issue with dropping setting for smooth gameplay.

Big game I'm hoping it can handle well is Overwatch

Generally Blizzard is pretty good at scaling down graphics so it runs on older stuff, though HotS had a bunch of issues(I guess because it used the SC2 engine and stuff so they didn't have as much time to optimize it to do things differently). Overwatch with the cartoon-y graphics and stuff should also scale down fairly nicely, even though it'll probably look a lot worse.

 

[Luigiv]

I don't think it will be huge but it will probably be somewhat noticeable.

Actually it's a pretty big gap. The i5's are only equipped with an HD 520 whilst the i7 has an Iris 540. That's about double the FLOPS and not to mention the inclusion of EDRAM too, which should alleviate memory bandwidth bottlenecks.

 

[bomblord1]

I'm in the market for a new laptop. I'm not particularly impressed with OSX these days, Finder just feels old and creaky compared to Windows 10 (except for how wonderful text looks).

I'm big on keyboard feel and build quality, so I tend to lean Macbook or Thinkpad for my laptop buys. For now, Macbooks are out, I want a Windows 10 machine.

Obviously you guys are gonna be biased towards the Surface in here but I'd like to hear from you all anyway. How's the keyboard situation? Do you guys play stuff like Civ with the touchscreen? Would I be able to play something like Baldur's Gate completely with my finger or the stylus?

Right now I'm leaning towards the Thinkpad Yoga. $850-1100 range, touchscreen, folds for tablet-esque use, I love their keyboards, and it has a DGPU at that price (840m available most places, 940m from Lenovo direct). The drawbacks are the screen being pure touch, so no proper stylus support, and I can't fully detach the screen part so tablet use will be slightly unweildy.

Should I be taking the surface seriously for work and games like Civ, Divinity OS, and old stuff off GOG? I saw a review of the Yoga where Metro: Last Light ran on low settings at 1080p, 30-50 FPS, for some context.

Can't comment on any of those games for the newer hardware but just refer to the OP to get an idea of what each one runs.

As for me personally I don't even use a keyboard if I need one I plug it in. I mainly game by setting the Surface on a flat surface (har har) and use a wired 360 controller into the USB port that's IMO is the ideal way to play games on the Surface Pro.

 

[Jeels]

Will my Surface Book be able to handle games like FFXIV and Dota 2 at max setting?

 

[Roberto Larcos]

How's the keyboard situation?

I really like the keyboard on the Surface Pro 3. I know a handful of people don't, but it's come a hell of a long way from the gen 1. The keys are backlit, the trackpad is behind a Mac, but solid for a Windows machine (if not a little on the small side). The keys don't feel too shallow, and it's comfortable to use for a long amount of time.

That said, there's a new keyboard in town, with a larger trackpad which is made of glass, so likely to be a step above 99% of Windows machines, and equivalent to that of a Macbook Air. It's also moved to island-style keys, which I know a lot of people prefer, but it's not something that I care about in all honesty.

Do you guys play stuff like Civ with the touchscreen? Would I be able to play something like Baldur's Gate completely with my finger or the stylus?

Depends on the game. Most have elements that you need a keyboard for - or it just becomes a chore to play woithout one. I have Civ V, and reverted to using it with the keyboard attached - it's just a nicer experience (especially when you're playing for a while at a time). The trackpad is good enough that I play some simpler real-time games (such as FTL) without a mouse plugged in.

Should I be taking the surface seriously for work and games like Civ, Divinity OS, and old stuff off GOG? I saw a review of the Yoga where Metro: Last Light ran on low settings at 1080p, 30-50 FPS, for some context.

Depends on the model you get. I have an i3, and don't really put it to the sword. It runs FTL, Hotline Miami, Race the Sun, Super Hexagon, Fallout 1/2/Tactics, Apotheon, Crusader Kings, Civ V and Football Manager without any fuss. I generally turn games down to lowest settings because I hate dropped frames.

Will my Surface Book be able to handle games like FFXIV and Dota 2 at max setting?

At native (3000 x 2000) resolution? Highly doubt it.

 

[bomblord1]

Will my Surface Book be able to handle games like FFXIV and Dota 2 at max setting?

No

Recommended
CPU: Intel Core-i5 2.66GHz or AMD Equivalent
CPU Speed: Info
RAM: 4 GB
OS: Windows Vista/7/8
Video Card: NVIDIA Geforce GTX 660 or higher, AMD Radeon HD 7950 or higher
Sound Card: Yes
Free Disk Space: 20 GB

 

[gAg CruSh3r]

Thinking about going all the way and getting the SP4 i7 with 16GB. How much of an improvement would that be over my i5 8GB SP2?

I'm in the same boat as you too and wondering the same thing.

 

[cackhyena]

Has anyone tried streaming games from XB1 to a Surface? I keep thinking about getting the lowest end Surface 4. Just wondering if that's a smooth enough experience.

 

[Spukc]

surface pro 1 gamer here..

i can run diablo 3 starcraft 2 left 4 dead half life 2 wow alien isolation . gamecube emulator ps2 emulator.

about 40 fps settings mid
but ffs i game on a tablet !

hell allot ... with throttlestop activated.
my battery won't last longer than 1:30 hour.. if i put it in battery save . (5 hours)
but what is the point in that ?

anyway .. i'm thinking to upgrade... is it time yet to do the upgrade?

 

[Roberto Larcos]

anyway .. i'm thinking to upgrade... is it time yet to do the upgrade?

I upgraded from Pro 1 to Pro 3.

Yes.

I loved the Pro 1, but the battery life has come on leaps and bounds since. The newer models are less unweildy, run hot occasionally but don't scald you, the charger was redesigned so it doesn't fall out almost by itself, and the 3:2 aspect ratio makes using it a whole lot nicer.

 

[bomblord1]

I'm in the same boat as you too and wondering the same thing.

The integrated GPU assuming it doesn't throttle should trade blows with a GTX920M

Here's the benches and breakdown for that http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-920M.138763.0.html

It should be able to play GTA5, Battlefield Hardline, and Far Cry 4 on low @ 720p

As for how that compares with the 3

Here's the benches for that GPU http://www.notebookcheck.net/Intel-HD-Graphics-4400.91979.0.html

920M gets a 5656 in 3d mark vantage
the HD 4300 in the Surface Pro 3 gets a 3005.2

That's about a 188% increase.

 

[Spukc]

also i'm really interested in the surface book .. in tablet mode what will it's power be ?

 

[leeh]

also i'm really interested in the surface book .. in tablet mode what will it's power be ?

Same as a SP4 with the relevant specs. The dGPU is in the keyboard.

Really want a Surface Book, although I'm not dipping into my mortgage deposit to do it.

 

[Spukc]

Same as a SP4 with the relevant specs. The dGPU is in the keyboard.

Really want a Surface Book, although I'm not dipping into my mortgage deposit to do it.

wait is this confirmed officially ?
than i would buy it day one... got any proof?
i can't find any proper data

 

[Philtastic]

Obviously you guys are gonna be biased towards the Surface in here but I'd like to hear from you all anyway. How's the keyboard situation? Do you guys play stuff like Civ with the touchscreen? Would I be able to play something like Baldur's Gate completely with my finger or the stylus?

Right now I'm leaning towards the Thinkpad Yoga. $850-1100 range, touchscreen, folds for tablet-esque use, I love their keyboards, and it has a DGPU at that price (840m available most places, 940m from Lenovo direct). The drawbacks are the screen being pure touch, so no proper stylus support, and I can't fully detach the screen part so tablet use will be slightly unweildy.

Should I be taking the surface seriously for work and games like Civ, Divinity OS, and old stuff off GOG? I saw a review of the Yoga where Metro: Last Light ran on low settings at 1080p, 30-50 FPS, for some context.

I have a Surface Pro 2 with the Type Cover 2. I'm moderately picky about my keyboards and I'd say the keyboard feels quite good for a portable device (which is to say it's obvioualy not as good as a full-sized mechanical but is way better than any membrane/dome keyboard).

In terms of games, I've played Civ 5 and XCOM: Enemy Unknown while standing up on a subway purely using touch and Diablo 3 on long bus rides tethered to my phone and using the stylus for a mouse. That said, on the Surface Pro 2, I can play modern 3D games at 720p low/lowest settings at somewhere around 30 fps. The Surface Pro 4 has the Intel HD 520 which is probably just a bit better than the HD 4400 in the SP2, so you'll probably be using similar settings but with a slightly smoother frame rate.

Productivity-wise, it's the real deal. Other than the usual Office stuff, I do my scientific iterative curve fitting on it using Origin (curve fit software, not EA's client) and visualize protein structures using Pymol and Swiss PDB Viewer. I even recently edited a stop motion video on it using qStopmotion and VSDC Video Editor and edited the audio with Audacity. The pen is great for taking notes or for when you don't want to take out a mouse either because you're lazy or there's limited space/no table.

Because it's a tablet, it's also incredibly light which I really like for the portability. In my opinion, the Surface Pro is one of the best mobile computing platforms available. I'm probably going to replace my relatively bulky SP2 with an SP4.

 

[leeh]

wait is this confirmed officially ?
than i would buy it day one... got any proof?
i can't find any proper data

Well, not officially so to speak. All the components, like your i5/i7 are in the tablet itself and the dGPU is in the keyboard. The only main difference between SP4/Book really is the form factor and the optinal dGPU. I'd see no reason for why they'd perform differently when they're both a tablet with the same specs.

The screen won't detach from the keyboard if the GPU is in use, as its a software controlled detach method.

 

[ss_lemonade]

Has anyone tried streaming games from XB1 to a Surface? I keep thinking about getting the lowest end Surface 4. Just wondering if that's a smooth enough experience.

I've done it once with my 1st gen Surface Pro and it worked pretty good. Probably even better than 1 laptop I have here because that laptop can't connect to my 5ghz network.

Because it's a tablet, it's also incredibly light which I really like for the portability. In my opinion, the Surface Pro is one of the best mobile computing platforms available. I'm probably going to replace my relatively bulky SP2 with an SP4.

I'm planning on maybe getting the Pro 4. I hope they've made improvements to weight with every revision though because I thought my Surface Pro 1 was way too heavy for its size.

 

[Spukc]

Well, not officially so to speak. All the components, like your i5/i7 are in the tablet itself and the dGPU is in the keyboard. The only main difference between SP4/Book really is the form factor and the optinal dGPU. I'd see no reason for why they'd perform differently when they're both a tablet with the same specs.

The screen won't detach from the keyboard if the GPU is in use, as its a software controlled detach method.

so basically .. you have 0 proof..
oh well damn i got my hopes up.. guess i have to wait for it ugh..
attleast i can play any game i want now on high in full hd .. 60 fps.. with steam home sharing

 

[Unicorn]

I bought a Depth four pack on Steam before even knowing if my surface pro 2 could handle it.

I just loaded it up and dropped all the settings to lowest and started a bot match. Seems playable here at 720, but I'm going to fiddle more after work to see how it goes in action and if I can bump some settings up.

I just really need to repair my desktop :/

 

[Jeels]

No

So which part won't it meet?
I see ram and processor are ok.. Is it the video card?

 

[VanquishUK]

Cool thread good job.

 

[bomblord1]

I bought a Depth four pack on Steam before even knowing if my surface pro 2 could handle it.

I just loaded it up and dropped all the settings to lowest and started a bot match. Seems playable here at 720, but I'm going to fiddle more after work to see how it goes in action and if I can bump some settings up.

I just really need to repair my desktop :/

Let me know what you end up getting and at what settings so I can add it to the OP.

So which part won't it meet?
I see ram and processor are ok.. Is it the video card?

Yea the GPU barely meets the recommended don't expect to max it. Should play it fine if the rumors are true but no way it will max it.

 

[Owari]

Will my Surface Book be able to handle games like FFXIV and Dota 2 at max setting?

At 1080p? Yes.

 

[bomblord1]

At 1080p? Yes.

Max though? High? Sure but max? Speaking specifically of ffxiv

 

[ILoveBish]

At 1080p? Yes.

How can you possibly say yes when the hardware is unreleased? The surface pro 3 has a i7 model which should play tons of games and emulators at full speed, but does not due to throttling and overheating. Should really not tell people what will and will not work till the equipment is in people's hands and been tested. There is NO reason to give Microsoft the benefit of the doubt after their last hardware performances.