Broadwell chips launching in Holiday 2014, will early adopters of SP3 be punished?

[Y2HBK]

Here is a good article

Microsoft's Surface Pro 3 Could Age Quickly Due To Its Year-Old Processor - Forbes

Meh, its ok. When Apple announces an updated Macbook Air at WWDC in a few days that is running Haswell everyone will praise it despite having the same processor issues the SP3 has.

As an Apple fan that has been leaning more and more toward Microsoft over the last year or so, competition is great. But if Apple winds up doing exactly what I posted above I can't wait to read how many blogs praise Apple but continue to frown on Microsoft. It's as if they want Microsoft and the rest of the competition to lose.

 

[mparker]

Here is a good article

Microsoft's Surface Pro 3 Could Age Quickly Due To Its Year-Old Processor - Forbes

I think it will age quickly. But then all cutting-edge tech ages quickly. Presumably Microsoft will introduce a Surface Pro 4 with Broadwell just in time for the holiday shopping season.

 

[blehblehbleh]

I think it will age quickly. But then all cutting-edge tech ages quickly. Presumably Microsoft will introduce a Surface Pro 4 with Broadwell just in time for the holiday shopping season.

You think so? I think they'd wait another refresh next year at the same time as they did this time for the Pro 3. Assuming Intel can stay the course timeline wise it'll be Skylake.

 

[onlysublime]

The mobile version of Broadwell will not make into laptops before the end of the year. It takes months to design around a new chip. They may ship chips to the OEMs by the holidays, but that won't be enough time to be in the machines. The normal timeframe is to make the back-to-school PCs, for example, you have to release to the OEMs by May. It's possible that there might be some laptops that might get it (the big 17" ones with a more modular design and lots of space) but not a compact design like the SP3.

Here's the desktop roadmap (just released a few days ago):



The bottom line is newer processors are always around the corner. If you wait, you'll always have a better system but at some point, you need to actually get a computer.

 

[Squachy]

Tech usually follows a 6 month cycle. Either something new comes out in 6 months or its a refreshed. Regardless there's always something new after 6 months.

Graphics cards and CPU's had been like this for a long time. This is also essentially Intel's 'tick tock' strategy, new release (tick) followed by a refresh approx. 6 months later (tock). Then another 6 months we get a new 'tick'.
Smartphones and smartphone SoC's are also ongoing like this. But I think they may be on a longer 1 year cycle.

It eventually reaches a point where the laws of diminishing returns start to take effect. I think we're starting to reach that point in smartphones now. CPU's and GPUs have long been at that point until the new game consoles come out (since they're on far longer life cycles like 5+ years, they get saddled with outdated hardware pretty quickly compared to the PC market).

Lower end devices and combined CPU/GPU hardware have much more headroom in that regard cuz they perform much slower than the high end counterparts (which is pretty much at its dimishing return point already)

In the end what this all means is you just have to take the jump at some point or you're just going to be waiting forever. the closer to your predicted dimishing return point the better as you'll maximize its longevity.

 

[imz]

I'm personally waiting for Broadwell since i'll be spending a lot of money on Surface Pro 3 (I want the i7 version) and I'd rather buy it when it has the latest and greatest recently released. Haswell is old.

Agree, and considering I'll be spending around ?1500+ for the i7 + keyboard, I'd rather wait it that bit longer, but as time passes I keep reading Broadwell just won't be included in the Pro 3 at all.

 

[maflynn]

I don't expect MS to rollout a broadwell model this year, even though intel will make the chipset available late 4Q. This is probably something that will get rolled into the SP4.

As for the early adopters comment, how can we be early adopters when this is the third model of the surface pro?

 

[James8561]

well SP4 doesn't sound bad either more improvements are always welcomed

 

[Gken]

With that mentality you would be waiting forever. I have learned to just be happy with what was currently available because..... guess what reports have been coming in saying that the "true" Broadwell chip that Intel has been promising has been delayed and its going to be more of a Haswell refresh if anything, only a little better. So I wouldn't get my hopes up.