Microsoft launches Surface Pro 6, Surface Laptop 2 and Surface Studio 2 and more | What a shame

[Drak3]

6 minutes ago, Pascal... said:

Once again they have released new devices that really look good and if you see them out in the wild you think to yourself: damn, what a nice device but then immediately comes to mind that these new devices are already obsolete at their launch and that for some reason MS doesn't include Type C with TB3 or HDMI, which are normal standards unlike mini DP. IMO

Slightly outdated maybe, but they're far from obsolete.

[Car712]

3 hours ago, AluminiumTech said:

$999 for i5, 8GB RAM and 256GB SSD

Quite expensive for what your getting, but you are paying for the name, and support, so I guess it evens out.

[GoodBytes]

54 minutes ago, Sniperfox47 said:

You act like just because not everyone device has USB-C it doesn't have value add.

No. I am all for USB Type-C. I was for it way before Apple put it on their systems.

But acting like the Surface Pro is this flop because it doesn't have it, is ridiculous, which is what I am trying to bring to light.

 

Previously, the CPU lack PCIe lanes for the Surface Pro to offer USB Type-C, not to mention consumer feature that they expect from it: TB3 support and secondary charging the device takes up precious room on the device. Now, the CPU support enough PCIe lanes to support everything, if I am not mistaken, space may still be an issue for charging and TB3. So I don't know if the Surface Pro 7 will just replace mini DP with USB Type-C, and not have TB3 or charging (which people will complain about), or they make it work, but need more time, or as suggested, it is simply that MS wants to empty its stock metal bodies, because it is a new design, and probably they assume that the design must last a minimum of 2 generations (which is something that MS is following. Pro 1 / Pro 2, Pro 3 / Pro 4, Pro 5 / 6)

 

 

54 minutes ago, Sniperfox47 said:

I don't agree with, but can understand, keeping the surface connect port. It's functionality overlaps pretty cleanly with Thunderbolt 3, but it does have some extra bandwidth and ensures compatibility with older chargers.

The Surface connector is a requirement for this device. What is an adapter cost compared of you having to buy a new Surface Pro i5/i7 model because it was on the floor as you/someone (or some object like a chair pulling on the cable as you move on the chair while holding it) trip/pull on the cable.

 

[GoodBytes]

21 minutes ago, bobbyd52 said:

Quite expensive for what your getting, but you are paying for the name, and support, so I guess it evens out.

.... and Touchscreen, form factor, and really good digitizer (pen support).

I still stand, don't get a Surface Pro if you don't plan to use the pen, unless the form factor has immense value for you, but you have OEM alternatives to consider.

[dylanthompson2]

I think it looks pretty nice. I actually own a surface laptop.

[Curufinwe_wins]

I'd much rather still have USB-A over C if I had to choose only one. Not even a close competition.

 

But it is disappointing you have to choose at all, one port is always a disappointment. Sure the surface dock exists and that's probably why microsoft doesnt see the need to put more on, but that is such a stupid product to force upon people.

 

The studio looks like a good choice in upgrade. Using an refreshed 6 core would be dumb given the cooling constraints of the tiny base, and clock for clock the performance is going to identical anyways. It's a pointless argument to have. The system comes with a dGPU, it isnt relying on QuickSync or any other improvements that sorta exist between the two 'generations'. All this does is slightly lower the cost to manufacture, which helps everyone. Sure Turing would be nice, but mobile chips are still a ways out, and even if they weren't, we haven't even seen the 2070 yet along a 2060. We know this has quite the lead time being such a unique product, so it's rather reasonable to go with what's more proven instead.

[mr moose]

4 hours ago, The Benjamins said:

That makes no sense at all, Ray Tracing is useful for design work and the 2000s has a lot better compute performance which is also useful for a design work.

 

maybe not a 2080 but 2060 & 2070

There would be a very small market for people who run computations at that level on a laptop,  it is either more basic stuff or they use a desktop for more intense computational work.  Trying to cater for that market would be like trying to wedge an epic or xeon into a laptop for data centre employees. 

 

2 hours ago, Trixanity said:

On-topic: You'd almost think Microsoft has a deal with Intel and Nvidia so that they'll pick up lots of last gen chips for pennies in exchange for getting rid of their stockpiles. They keep shipping outdated hardware. I can't explain it any other way.

Or maybe they choose the most common hardware instead of the latest because that is what they optimise windows for with bulk of the patches and updates being for older/new hardware.

[Dabombinable]

Isn't Dolby's version of premium audio 48KHz through pretty much any DAC?

[Trixanity]

22 minutes ago, mr moose said:

Or maybe they choose the most common hardware instead of the latest because that is what they optimise windows for with bulk of the patches and updates being for older/new hardware.

Yeah, that makes no sense.

I get why they didn't go Turing. It's a paper launch, no low TDP SKU and price is through the roof while Nvidia is sitting on a mountain of Pascal chips they desperately want to get rid of. It's a no brainer.

 

However going 7th gen Intel there is no justification for. There is no optimization, no patches, no common hardware angle you can use. 

 

This isn't the first time either. I remember when they put a very slow 940MX into one of them despite a much better Pascal chip being readily available. 

[AlTech]

1 hour ago, GoodBytes said:

No. I am all for USB Type-C. I was for it way before Apple put it on their systems.

But acting like the Surface Pro is this flop because it doesn't have it, is ridiculous, which is what I am trying to bring to light.

 

Previously, the CPU lack PCIe lanes for the Surface Pro to offer USB Type-C,

I think you're confused. You don't need PCI-E for USB-C.

1 hour ago, GoodBytes said:

 

The Surface connector is a requirement for this device.

I'm assuming you mean the Surface Charger. They could replace that with USB-C.

[The Benjamins]

19 minutes ago, mr moose said:

There would be a very small market for people who run computations at that level on a laptop,  it is either more basic stuff or they use a desktop for more intense computational work.  Trying to cater for that market would be like trying to wedge an epic or xeon into a laptop for data centre employees. 

 

Or maybe they choose the most common hardware instead of the latest because that is what they optimise windows for with bulk of the patches and updates being for older/new hardware.

The surface studio is a all in one desktop.

 

I don't get how waiting to release a product with the latest hardware is bad.

 

music creating tools can use GPU acceleration, Graphics applications, 3D modeling application, ect. which are all target audiences. 

[mr moose]

7 minutes ago, The Benjamins said:

The surface studio is a all in one desktop.

 

I don't get how waiting to release a product with the latest hardware is bad.

 

music creating tools can use GPU acceleration, Graphics applications, 3D modeling application, ect. which are all target audiences. 

If you snooze you lose.  A product not sold today is only revenue lost for any company.  Majority of consumers don't know or care about the difference between last gen or this gen, that 5% potential performance gain is not seen by most end users in laptops or all-in-ones.  In fact I dare say even power users would struggle to tell you if their PC had a this gen or next gen CPU just from using it.

 

Music generation can be done on 15 year old CPU's

[captain_to_fire]

Looks pretty especially the black one. Sucks that it doesn't have USB C and one would need a proprietary dongle. The price however is way too steep.

 

If I was a graphic designer, I'd probably just get an iMac 5K + Wacom tablet over the Surface Studio 2 because you get i7-7400 up to an i7-7700K which is an unlocked desktop processor vs the i7-7820HQ of the Surface Studio 2.

Edited October 3, 2018 by captain_to_fire

[S w a t s o n]

[Drak3]

12 minutes ago, captain_to_fire said:

Looks pretty especially the black one. Sucks that it doesn't have USB C and one would need a proprietary dongle. The price however is way too steep.

 

If I was a graphic designer, I'd probably just get an iMac 5K + Wacom tablet over the Surface Studio 2 because you get i7-7400 up to an i7-7700K which is an unlocked desktop processor vs the i7-7820HQ of the Surface Studio 2.

You can't overclock reliably on a Mac, the top GPU is a Radeon Pro 580, and the base model costs 1600 and the 24" Cintiq Pro touch (closest analogue to the Studio) is 2500, 4100 total.

 

Also, the 7820HQ is powerful enough for graphic design.

[Nowak]

1 hour ago, AluminiumTech said:

I think you're confused. You don't need PCI-E for USB-C.

He probably confused it with Thunderbolt 3, which needs at least 2 PCIe lanes allocated to it to work.

[GoodBytes]

1 hour ago, AluminiumTech said:

I think you're confused. You don't need PCI-E for USB-C.

0 confusion. USB 3.0 and 3.1 Gen 1 has peek performance of 5Gbps. It needs 1x PCIe 3.0,

For USB 3.1 (which I assume this is what you really want) needs 10Gbps. It needs 4x PCIe connector.

 

With Intel U series CPUs and with Surface connector (which is PCI-E connector, hence why the Surface connector to USB Type-C box is big and bulky, especially that it adds video output and charging support), it lacks PCIe lanes to deliver USB 3.1 Type-C connector. And that bandwidth is also needed for TB3 as well. Or you can get USB 3.0 or 3.1 Gen 1, and you'll complain on how you are not getting the nice speed you expect and doesn't support TB3.

 

Remember, USB, SATA, etc.. doesn't use itself PCIe, but the controller does. It is the way the controller communicates with the system.

[Sniperfox47]

3 hours ago, GoodBytes said:

0 confusion. USB 3.0 and 3.1 Gen 1 has peek performance of 5Gbps. It needs 1x PCIe 3.0,

For USB 3.1 (which I assume this is what you really want) needs 10Gbps. It needs 4x PCIe connector.

 

With Intel U series CPUs and with Surface connector (which is PCI-E connector, hence why the Surface connector to USB Type-C box is big and bulky, especially that it adds video output and charging support), it lacks PCIe lanes to deliver USB 3.1 Type-C connector. And that bandwidth is also needed for TB3 as well. Or you can get USB 3.0 or 3.1 Gen 1, and you'll complain on how you are not getting the nice speed you expect and doesn't support TB3.

 

Remember, USB, SATA, etc.. doesn't use itself PCIe, but the controller does. It is the way the controller communicates with the system.

Umm no...

 

Intel PCH Chipsets have a USB controller built into them. In the case of U- and Y- series processors that's on the CPU package itself.

 

They can provide up to 6 USB 3.1gen1 connections right off of the PCH, no need for a PCIe link.

 

And for the record it also provides up to 12 PCIe 3.0 lanes... So I'm not sure what you're talking about... You can definitely use U-series CPUs with Thunderbolt 3...

 

Here's the data sheet: https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/docs/processors/core/8th-gen-core-family-datasheet-vol-1.html

 

Flexible IO means that you need to pick and choose what IO you want out of the PCH and can't have it all, but there's more than enough lanes to have Thunderbolt 3, much less a second USB port.

 

Also P.S. USB 3.1 doesn't mean 10Gbps, it only means 5.

[TopHatProductions115]

@GoodBytes @Sniperfox47 Is this post related to the issue at hand?:

From what I saw there, there appear to be at least 3 ways to have USB 3 ports in a given device:

• an IC chip passes one or more ports through PCI-e
• the chipset passes the ports through PCI-e (similar to how Ryzen supposedly handles it)
• the chipset uses a similar protocol/connection in addition to or over PCI-e to pass the ports through (like Intel's DMI)

In the last two options, the chipset manages the ports, in opposed to sending the ports straight through via raw PCI-e. And from what I remember, Threadripper has a different chiset setup entirely...

[Sniperfox47]

47 minutes ago, TopHatProductions115 said:

@GoodBytes @Sniperfox47 Is this post related to the issue at hand?:

From what I saw there, there appear to be at least 3 ways to have USB 3 ports in a given device:

• an IC chip passes one or more ports through PCI-e
• the chipset passes the ports through PCI-e (similar to how Ryzen supposedly handles it)
• the chipset uses a similar protocol/connection in addition to or over PCI-e to pass the ports through (like Intel's DMI)

In the last two options, the chipset manages the ports, in opposed to sending the ports straight through via raw PCI-e. And from what I remember, Threadripper has a different chiset setup entirely...

Basically yeah.

 

Laptop chips work a little different because the "chipset" part of that equation is built into the CPU package itself.

 

The "PCIe" layer between the Chipset and CPU is inside the CPU chip/package, and really isn't true PCIe, just a protocol based on it.

[LAwLz]

I'm looking for a pair of noise canceling headphones (server rooms are horrible to be in without them) so the Surface headphones was a pleasant surprise. I am currently waiting for the Sony 1000XM3 to become widely available in Sweden, but who knows. If reviews for these are good I might go for them instead. I would have preferred the Google assistant over Cortana though, if I had to pick to pick one (and preferably I'd have neither).

 

 

Edit: Interesting piece of info I saw in the comments for the headphones. Apparently the Xbox doesn't support Bluetooth audio. So Microsoft's headphones won't work with their gaming console (unless you plug in the 3.5mm cable).

 

11 hours ago, mr moose said:

Or maybe they choose the most common hardware instead of the latest because that is what they optimise windows for with bulk of the patches and updates being for older/new hardware.

Nope.

That's not how software works.

Windows doesn't have that specific optimizations or patches written for it. They don't code one patch for a specific CPU model, and as for GPU drivers that is entirely done by other companies like Nvidia and Intel.

[AlTech]

8 hours ago, GoodBytes said:

0 confusion. USB 3.0 and 3.1 Gen 1 has peek performance of 5Gbps. It needs 1x PCIe 3.0,

For USB 3.1 (which I assume this is what you really want) needs 10Gbps. It needs 4x PCIe connector.

That is factually incorrect. USB-C does not require PCI-E lanes. Only TB3 does which is totally independant of USB-C.

 

Also, you're still not addressing the rest of what I said.

[Sniperfox47]

24 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

Nope.

That's not how software works.

Windows doesn't have that specific optimizations or patches written for it. They don't code one patch for a specific CPU model, and as for GPU drivers that is entirely done by other companies like Nvidia and Intel.

I mostly agree, but it's my understanding the Windows task scheduler *does* handle different processor families a little different and there are a few other optimization on the low level kernel scheduling and resource management side for specific families of chips.

 

With the surface lineup Microsoft also manages their firmware for it, so using a chipset with a more tested firmware base means they should have less stability issues. At least a perfect ideal dream world where their firmware doesn't have constant issues.

 

That being said I am not a Windows dev so feel free to correct me if I have a misunderstanding

[GOTSpectrum]

If I was Microsoft personally I would introduce a surface studio Max. this device will have a much larger stand or base station where the hardware is housed and use this extra size for more cooling. The screen is massive so if you want to tip it back would you are going to have to place it far from the wall anyway. I would have to do with adding extra inch to the back of the square base and you could easily increases heat dissipation by a vast amount. 

[LAwLz]

4 hours ago, LAwLz said:

I'm looking for a pair of noise canceling headphones (server rooms are horrible to be in without them) so the Surface headphones was a pleasant surprise. I am currently waiting for the Sony 1000XM3 to become widely available in Sweden, but who knows. If reviews for these are good I might go for them instead. I would have preferred the Google assistant over Cortana though, if I had to pick to pick one (and preferably I'd have neither).

 

 

Edit: Interesting piece of info I saw in the comments for the headphones. Apparently the Xbox doesn't support Bluetooth audio. So Microsoft's headphones won't work with their gaming console (unless you plug in the 3.5mm cable).

I just learned that the Microsoft headphones only supports SBC audio. No support for AAC, aptX, LDAC or any other decent/good audio codec.

So no... I won't be considering these headphones anymore. What a stupid decision from Microsoft.

 

 

 

4 hours ago, Sniperfox47 said:

I mostly agree, but it's my understanding the Windows task scheduler *does* handle different processor families a little different and there are a few other optimization on the low level kernel scheduling and resource management side for specific families of chips.

 

With the surface lineup Microsoft also manages their firmware for it, so using a chipset with a more tested firmware base means they should have less stability issues. At least a perfect ideal dream world where their firmware doesn't have constant issues.

 

That being said I am not a Windows dev so feel free to correct me if I have a misunderstanding

Well we will never know for sure since Windows is closed source, but from what I've seen in the Linux kernel platform specific configurations seem to be kept to a minimum. For example there is a fairly generic implementation for handling SMT in Linux which will work on any processor. However, when Ryzen was released it presented the clusters in an unexpected way which caused the scheduling to be less than optimal. A platform specific patch was added to address that.

 

My guess is that it's the same in Windows. Keep all the stuff as generic as possible and use HALs. Then hardware specific things are implemented in drivers.

 

I strongly doubt that Windows is specifically optimized for some particular CPU or chipset. It doesn't make sense to design an OS to function that way.

Not even MacOS, which people often believe to be super optimized for the particular hardware Apple choose, is.

 

Anyhow, it shouldn't be any difference between those processors from the OS's POV. Maybe if it introduced some brand new processor feature (like Ryzen's SMT implementation) or some new instruction set then I could see the scheduler and maybe some other parts needing patches to handle it, but none of that has happened between these generations.