Is the I7 worth it?

Blairpoll

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Just got the I7 middle because I thought the iris graphics would be good for a bit or light gaming ever now and then and it does really well in gems for like the first 30 seconds then it throttles so hard is it even worth keeping the i7 version or taking it back and exchanging it for the i5 version which seems to not throttle so much.

What's the point in paying extra for the i7 performance when you can't use it anyway.
 

boltman2013

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Get the m3 no worries...if given the choice of i5 or i7 on the bases of worth it...at those price levels go i7 the i5 is mass produced

M3 is by far the one to get (Fanless) at MUCH lower cost

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<GamingScore>9.9</GamingScore>
 
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ioaniro

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Try to make a max. power profile with the CPU and GPU at max, active cooling etc for gaming. It should not throttle. I'd ask other i7 users if they see this throttling maybe is a bad unit? Also check what background apps you have on and try to close some while gaming. I had (on the i5) some weird behavior where if I have the python console and the mail ap opened the fan will start at max speed and the processor would go to 40-50% usage. The moment I close mail it would go to 2% and fan would instantly stop. On the other hand with mail+word+edge and many other programs open in the same time it would work fine. So maybe there are some bugs when some apps are in the bg with others?
 

krabby

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I'm mobile right now so I cant look it up but if you search for "surface pro 4 i7" on youtube you wont have to look hard to find a video where a fellow compares the throttling and frame rate of the I7 and I5... It isn't pretty. While the I5 does not throttle as quickly as the i7 it is not far behind and once they are both throttled your frame rate on the I5 will be about 2/3 of what you are seeing on the I7. Iris it seems is much more powerful than its little brother so be aware that if you are not happy with your gaming now you're really not going to be happy on the I5.

I'm not saying go one way or the other, in my case I would have ponied up a lot more ching in a heartbeat if I knew the thing would play games but it isn't at my own personal minimum even in the highest configurations. For this reason I went I5, I would have considered the M3 but 256 megs is my minimum internal storage need. :(

It should be kept in mind that the following is supported only by the weight of my own opinion, the SP4 is an outstanding small form factor mobile utility PC but it is not a very good gaming machine in any configuration.
 

boltman2013

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be advised that person is pushing the M3 model at all costs.

Not that its without reason, but it may be a bit much.

Not at all costs... but it is BY FAR the best buy in SP4 no doubt...and the perfect solution for THIS SP# form factor.
My theory and expert recommendation is IF M3 is not "good enough"...go elsewhere Surface Book or other

Encourage MS that the SP# always be fanless! Like ipad from here on out. Let the SB get the stupid fan.
Its the correct thing to do with this form factor. Silence is golden! The performance hit is minimal. Perfect cpu for the SP-whatever.
 
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krabby

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Not at all costs... but it is BY FAR the best buy in SP4 no doubt...and the perfect solution for THIS SP# form factor.
My theory and expert recommendation is IF M3 is not "good enough"...go elsewhere Surface Book or other

Encourage MS that the SP# always be fanless! Like ipad from here on out. Let the SB get the stupid fan.
Its the correct thing to do with this form factor. Silence is golden! The performance hit is minimal. Perfect cpu for the SP-whatever.

I've an I5 and have almost never heard the fan and when I did it was barely discernible. Nor can a best buy be picked out without qualification because needs, desires, the willingness to compromise or balance between the needs and desires, cant be known by any particular respondent. I've been reading these forums for months and you respond to every single post where even remotely possible evangelizing the M3 which is OK when given as a simple presentation of objective fact but you presume to know what people need and want.

I'll give you a couple things to think about. When these things first hit I was at Best Buy when the doors open and outside of myself there were a half dozen customers and several employees playing with two SP4s, one an M3 and one and I5/8/256 and of course we began comparing them. When various drawing programs were opened up it soon became obvious that the I5 performed better with less lag, not huge but better. It also performed better with multiple apps open. I'm not talking about benchmark .0000001 better, I'm talking about noticeable stuttering with the M3 while the I5 was still chugging along.

In my previous post you might notice I said I would have considered getting the M3, that was because while it was without question a weaker part it was also not that much weaker and in most scenarios that I could imagine using the device in my day to day life would have been comparable in performance. But then it didn't matter, I need more storage than it can provide so it was never an answer for me. Even if it had the storage however I still wouldn't have bought it, I can afford to pay slightly more and enjoy the extra performance.

Before you start running on about your expertise you might want to be aware that I owned and sold my own PC company which is how I now enjoy the benefits of retirement. Then again I'm not nearly as smart as you are, I'm not even sure what I want or need sometimes, let alone what someone else should need or want.
 

Blairpoll

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I didn't get it for gaming just I use my surface 2 as a tblet 95 % of the time but ike to fire up the odd game or 2 when I'm away nothing demanding, mostly play supreme commander and war thunder both of which surface pro 2 can play apart from supreme commander after you get about 4000 units on the maps.

I see that the i7 will probably give more performance than the i5 even when throttled and the i5 is out of stock so prob keep the i7 just a bit annoying when its not throttled it capable of playing some really good games like battlefield 4 and battlefront both of which my pro 2 cant.

Just seems a bit naff you pay for the performance and its there its capable of it but you cant use it like you can see it but cant reach it lol
 

Blairpoll

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Sorry double post couldn't see last post to edit most annoying thing so far is the coil whine and a small amount of backlight bleed at the bottom but not really noticeable when in normal use.
 

krabby

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While you're looking at those I7 youtube videos you will also see one where a fellow sets up a fan to cool the back of the device. It would seem that there is a thermo measuring device installed back there that the firmware is using to adjust power throttling. Get a fan and and use it as shown and you will get your first thirty seconds back. I am still packing multiple device with me and looking forward to next year when hopefully eGPU and the devices themselves will give us true small form factor gaming devices.
 

onlysublime

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First off, have you actually measured this across multiple games? What game are you playing? Also, have you actually measured the temperature? There are many programs out there to do this.

You need to determine whether it's a configuration program, a driver problem, a throttling problem, etc. What resolution are you running the games at? Most gamers run at 1080P and below. Unless you have a powerful midrange desktop, you're pretty much stuck to 1080P and below at medium details. It's not realistic to run Battlefront or Call of Duty or Far Cry 3 at 2736x1824. Also, there will be growing pains as drivers for the Intel graphics mature. The Iris graphics have 64 MB of really fast eDRAM but it still uses system RAM. There is no dedicated video RAM for this system. So until Intel (if they ever) finetunes the graphics driver, games are going to have to be tweaked to take into account how the Intel design is. And from the gamer perspective, this is through adjusting resolution. The Xbox 360 had 10 MB of eDRAM while it used the unified 512MB GDDR3 RAM. The Xbox One has 32 MB of eSRAM while having 8GB of system RAM DDR3.

If you're not happy with the gaming performance on the i7, there's zero chance you would like the M3.
 

DuStU

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Blair I have the surface Core i7 and I am an avid gamer (pc and android games setup on my surface) and I will tell you even with the throttling this machine kicks butt! There are already some fixes for the throttling but let me tell you I play alot of steam games on this machine and it is very enjoyable. I play CS:GO on almost the highest settings and I get about 80 frames. I play Rocket League on middle settings with the same frames I get on my computer with a gtx 970 on all high settings. Since the screen is smaller the lower settings are almost negligible. There are GTA V videos and some other next gen games running too if you youtube it. I also play Plants vs zombies and Royal Revolt 2 on my tablet (android games) and with an android emulator the experience is surprisingly better than my galaxy note 10.1 2014 edition or my phone.

Are there driver issues that need to be solved due to the product being launched too early? Sure there are but I am still extremely happy that I can play any steam game I like as long as I tweak the settings. I would stay with the i7 if I where you.
 

boltman2013

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I've an I5 and have almost never heard the fan and when I did it was barely discernible. Nor can a best buy be picked out without qualification because needs, desires, the willingness to compromise or balance between the needs and desires, cant be known by any particular respondent. I've been reading these forums for months and you respond to every single post where even remotely possible evangelizing the M3 which is OK when given as a simple presentation of objective fact but you presume to know what people need and want.

I'll give you a couple things to think about. When these things first hit I was at Best Buy when the doors open and outside of myself there were a half dozen customers and several employees playing with two SP4s, one an M3 and one and I5/8/256 and of course we began comparing them. When various drawing programs were opened up it soon became obvious that the I5 performed better with less lag, not huge but better. It also performed better with multiple apps open. I'm not talking about benchmark .0000001 better, I'm talking about noticeable stuttering with the M3 while the I5 was still chugging along.

In my previous post you might notice I said I would have considered getting the M3, that was because while it was without question a weaker part it was also not that much weaker and in most scenarios that I could imagine using the device in my day to day life would have been comparable in performance. But then it didn't matter, I need more storage than it can provide so it was never an answer for me. Even if it had the storage however I still wouldn't have bought it, I can afford to pay slightly more and enjoy the extra performance.

Before you start running on about your expertise you might want to be aware that I owned and sold my own PC company which is how I now enjoy the benefits of retirement. Then again I'm not nearly as smart as you are, I'm not even sure what I want or need sometimes, let alone what someone else should need or want.

You are missing the point... the i5 and the i7 are far overpriced in this SP4 form factor ($1500-3000 for 8GB ones) there are MUCH better options at those price points rather than a tablet. One is called Surface Book

My point is Microsoft should nix the i5/i7 on the Surface Pro 5 and consumers should force them too. Put ALL effort into M processors with minimum 8GB RAM for future Surface Pros. That way they could further the line by not worrying about cooling as much and use that reduction in complexity to say add more battery life (Maybe 15 hours) or other tech.

I am pushing the future design and cannot do that if you all waste money and overpay like drunken fools on i5 and i7 in a tablet and keep paying APPL pricing ($1500-3000 for a tablet). Think for once, its about making the Surface Pro amazing and you cannot do that with i5/i7..the M# is awesome and is the test bed trial for Surface Phone (which the will miniaturize my M3)...not the i5/i7..Get with the future of this form factor people. You all should be freaking ecstatic they made and offered at $899 (I paid $809) the SP4m3 fanless with a new cpu design and not work about a millisecond of lag..give me a break.

But typically the consumer thinks with the stat sheet..They quickly dismiss wrongly the biggest change to surface line ever...missing the point entirely. Typical consumer not surprised..I was in Retail too I saw it all the freaking time.

Main point you should not waste north of $1500 on a SP4..no way in hell this is not APPL you all know I am correct on this you just don't want to believe you wasted money this year and picked the wrong product.
 
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Blairpoll

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it was star wars battlefront which I think has some driver issues too as its really buggy to get it to run will try more games out later.

wish the fan would come on less though sometimes it never comes on and other times its just sat there doing nothing and comes on.

loving the keyboard compared to the touch cover one on surface pro 2 and I'm actually using the mouse was unsuable on the pro 2 now its amazing.
 

krabby

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You are missing the point... the i5 and the i7 are far overpriced in this SP4 form factor ($1500-3000 for 8GB ones) there are MUCH better options at those price points rather than a tablet. One is called Surface Book

My point is Microsoft should nix the i5/i7 on the Surface Pro 5 and consumers should force them too. Put ALL effort into M processors with minimum 8GB RAM for future Surface Pros. That way they could further the line by not worrying about cooling as much and use that reduction in complexity to say add more battery life (Maybe 15 hours) or other tech.

I am pushing the future design and cannot do that if you all waste money and overpay like drunken fools on i5 and i7 in a tablet and keep paying APPL pricing ($1500-3000 for a tablet). Think for once, its about making the Surface Pro amazing and you cannot do that with i5/i7..the M# is awesome and is the test bed trial for Surface Phone (which the will miniaturize my M3)...not the i5/i7..Get with the future of this form factor people. You all should be freaking ecstatic they made and offered at $899 (I paid $809) the SP4m3 fanless with a new cpu design and not work about a millisecond of lag..give me a break.

But typically the consumer thinks with the stat sheet..They quickly dismiss wrongly the biggest change to surface line ever...missing the point entirely. Typical consumer not surprised..I was in Retail too I saw it all the freaking time.

Main point you should not waste north of $1500 on a SP4..no way in hell this is not APPL you all know I am correct on this you just don't want to believe you wasted money this year and picked the wrong product.

It isn't me who is missing the point. I understood your opinion the first time I read it, I agree with some of your thoughts and disagree with others. My point was you have no idea what people need or want and presuming to think so is a mistake. Other people have their own desires and needs along with opinions based on them. You have just put forth your subjective opinion of what you think this product should be and where it should go. That people should be as you said ecstatic to have the M3 and are drunken fools to buy something else and on and on. All opinion.

You end specifically telling me I don't want to admit I bought the wrong product and wont admit I wasted my money? Really? You have no idea what my needs are but let me help you out. I go often to places where there is no cloud and 128 gigs of storage combined with the largest possible SD card is below my minimum need for storage. This alone makes the M3 a non starter. Then you have the fact that I don't want a larger form factor device because the SP4, 12.2 Note Pro, etc. are the largest devices that will fit in a typical hotel safe. I travel frequently and getting the easily stolen electronic device in the safe is an important plus for me. Larger form factors are a no go for me in the intended usage I have for this device. I could go on for a while here talking about my own personal needs for battery life, computing power, etc but I think you get the idea. My needs are not the same as yours and my opinions based on those needs are not going to be shared by you or probably many. Just as others have their own needs and opinions. Mine isn't wrong, they're not wrong, yours is not wrong. It is after all an opinion, there is no right and wrong. That is where you are missing the point. You have mistaken your opinion for fact and think that it is therefore correct. It is not fact and it is not correct, it is an opinion and nothing more.

I'll give you the last word as I don't have anything to add other than I feel foolish for trying to explain something to someone who almost certainly isn't listening.
 

DuStU

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it was star wars battlefront which I think has some driver issues too as its really buggy to get it to run will try more games out later.

wish the fan would come on less though sometimes it never comes on and other times its just sat there doing nothing and comes on.

loving the keyboard compared to the touch cover one on surface pro 2 and I'm actually using the mouse was unsuable on the pro 2 now its amazing.

Ya I use my Logitech gaming mouse it feels pretty good! You know what is funny about star wars is it is almost the same engine as battlefield 4 (same developers) and that runs with 100 frames no problems. It's totally drivers as we still don't have true dedicated Iris 540 drivers yet for this device. That is tricky because who knows when that game will be stable for you.

Posted via the Windows Central App for Android
 

Blairpoll

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Ya I use my Logitech gaming mouse it feels pretty good! You know what is funny about star wars is it is almost the same engine as battlefield 4 (same developers) and that runs with 100 frames no problems. It's totally drivers as we still don't have true dedicated Iris 540 drivers yet for this device. That is tricky because who knows when that game will be stable for you.

Posted via the Windows Central App for Android

Intels got beta drivers out that says are optimised for battlefront and other games for the iris 540 but I cant install them it says no compatible device found and intels driver updater tool says no intel devices seems lie Microsoft doesn't want people to be able to install drivers themselves.

For some reason holding the pens button down to bring up Cortana isn't working properly it brings up Cortana but its not listening I have to go and press the microphone button to get it to work properly.
 
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ioaniro

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It isn't me who is missing the point. I understood your opinion the first time I read it, I agree with some of your thoughts and disagree with others. My point was you have no idea what people need or want and presuming to think so is a mistake. Other people have their own desires and needs along with opinions based on them. You have just put forth your subjective opinion of what you think this product should be and where it should go. That people should be as you said ecstatic to have the M3 and are drunken fools to buy something else and on and on. All opinion.

You end specifically telling me I don't want to admit I bought the wrong product and wont admit I wasted my money? Really? You have no idea what my needs are but let me help you out. I go often to places where there is no cloud and 128 gigs of storage combined with the largest possible SD card is below my minimum need for storage. This alone makes the M3 a non starter. Then you have the fact that I don't want a larger form factor device because the SP4, 12.2 Note Pro, etc. are the largest devices that will fit in a typical hotel safe. I travel frequently and getting the easily stolen electronic device in the safe is an important plus for me. Larger form factors are a no go for me in the intended usage I have for this device. I could go on for a while here talking about my own personal needs for battery life, computing power, etc but I think you get the idea. My needs are not the same as yours and my opinions based on those needs are not going to be shared by you or probably many. Just as others have their own needs and opinions. Mine isn't wrong, they're not wrong, yours is not wrong. It is after all an opinion, there is no right and wrong. That is where you are missing the point. You have mistaken your opinion for fact and think that it is therefore correct. It is not fact and it is not correct, it is an opinion and nothing more.

I'll give you the last word as I don't have anything to add other than I feel foolish for trying to explain something to someone who almost certainly isn't listening.

Boltman has a problem since the SP4 came out and he doesn't even realize that he's losing all credibility on most technical matters by pushing this M3 only option. There's a post a bit more down where he implies the hinge has a defect because is the i5, the m3 would have been perfect. Not to mention the many times he said the M3 has no issues (unlike the i5) but then listed on different threads fixes for the battery drain in sleep (turning off hibernate and sleep completly on the m3) among other things. Maybe he blames the i5 and i7 variants for the lack of decent memory and SSD in the M3 version and he's still bitter about it after two months?
Anyway, back on topic, I agree with the previous posters, the I7, even throttling down, would win against the i5 and especially the m3 variants. If intensinve gaming is one of the reasons to go with the SP4 then i7 was the way to go. Just know the limits of the tablet form factor and adjust the graphics settings accordingly.
 

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