Are Surface Book 2 Specs questionable?

[J Pirolo]

I have been reading a lot of articles about the new Surface Book 2 and no one yet has commented on the fact that the RAM used is LPDDR3 1866Mhz. Does this not bother anyone, seeing as to other ultrabooks being released are using newer and faster DDR4 2400Mhz? Or is it because the SB2 has a powerful GPU making the kind of RAM used somewhat irrelevant?

Would like to know your guys' thoughts. Thanks.

 

[wynand32]

That's a good question. I wonder though if it isn't related to limits with the Core i7-8550U. That handles slightly less memory bandwidth than, say, the 7700HQ (34.1GB/s vs 37.5GB/s), so maybe there's not as much advantage in putting in DDR4 with that CPU. I'm pretty sure DDR4 can hit much higher bandwidth...

Maybe putting DDR4 in wouldn't provide much performance benefit, but it would definitely use more power. Seems like battery life is a real key for Microsoft in the Surface line.

 

[FXi2]

Bandwidth increase comes with higher latency and higher power consumption. Likely MS tested both variations and found the performance difference didn't warrant the higher latency and lower battery life. Honestly you are quite unlikely at that high a bandwidth to find much difference in real world use. And if you gain something in battery life you will notice that.