How far have you pushed your Surface?

[Mercule]

Straightforward question: What's the most taxing thing you've run on your Surface?

I don't have mine, yet, but I'll end up running:

• CIV 5
• Diablo 3
• LOTR Online
• Visual Studio 2013 w/ ReSharper
• SQL Server 2008

Anyone else? How's it performed? What specs do you have? (I'm debating between the i5/128GB and the i5/256GB versions, which is a factor to asking my question.)

 

[hopmedic]

Well, this morning I pushed it back about 8" on the table to make room in front of me for my bowl of cereal...

Seriously, the hardest I've pushed has been Asphalt 8. Gets pretty warm running that.

 

[xboxonthego3]

I have ran Civ 5 without any problems. It runs smooth. I have ran Skyrim on medium to low settings plays smoothly. Also ran Borderlands 2 on lowest settings and runs smoothly. Keep in mind this will cut 9 hours of battery life in half if not more. It also kicks in the fan and is really warm almost hot to the touch. I have i5/256. The 8gb is nice to have. But it is funny that some games still complain about memory even though I'm not using it all.

 

[berfles]

I ran SuperPi on it to see how it compared to my Xeon X3350@3.6GHZ when calculating pi out to 1 million digits :unhappysweat:

It's actually faster somehow.

 

[Mercule]

Keep in mind this will cut 9 hours of battery life in half if not more. It also kicks in the fan and is really warm almost hot to the touch.

I expected the battery hit, but was hoping it ran cooler, based on marketing speak.

My Surface Pro 1 could have doubled as a hotplate when running Civ 5. I didn't want to set it on anything flammable, including my lap.

 

[hopmedic]

I expected the battery hit, but was hoping it ran cooler, based on marketing speak.

My Surface Pro 1 could have doubled as a hotplate when running Civ 5. I didn't want to set it on anything flammable, including my lap.

Your lap probably isn't all that flammable. Think about it - you're more than 70% water. It'd be a pain to keep you lit.

 

[fc000]

I haven't run any of these titles, but I have tried World of Tanks. It runs at about 60-70 fps with the CPU hitting full turbo at 2.9 GHz, but after a few minutes, it throttles down to 1.1 to 1.3 GHz, and the frame rate hits 30-40 fps, the same level of performance as my Surface Pro 1 on the same settings. It's rather disappointing, and naturally it destroys the battery life.

 

[muneshyne21]

I read a great article about the Pro 3 but cant find the damn link. Basically it discovered that the CPU throttles a lot more than the Pro 2. They actually found that the Pro 2 got better benchmarks (using the same core i5) because it throttled less than the Pro 3 after programs settled down. They speculated that the reason why it does this is because of the slim form factor which would get too hot if it didn't throttle down more than the Pro 2. Also to squeeze a little more battery life out. Although a little disappointing I think the compromise was necessary to have such a slim tablet.

 

[Poirots Progeny]

You must have read that on the anandtech review!

 

[muneshyne21]

You must have read that on the anandtech review!

Ah yes. You are correct sir.

 

[Aetherius]

 

[mylumia928]

Played Far Cry 3 on it. Lowered the res to 1200 x 800. Runs great, but the Surface gets hot.

 

[nasellok]

I'll be getting the i7 version next week, plan to run Revit 2014 on it, which is probably one of the most non-game gpu taxing software you can have. I work on some serious Architecture projects (think 1+ million SF 70+ story bldg). If the SP3 i7 can handle it, I plan to keep it, if not, 30 day trial from MS store for me. I really do hope it works

 

[muneshyne21]

That seems quite taxing on an intel gpu. I used Revit on fairly large projects on dual quad core Mac Pro's and they seemed to show signs of fatigue when panning in 3D mode. Rendering seems like it would melt the tablet. I'm VERY curious to see how the Surface Pro 3 holds up. If it can handle large Revit files without freezing, it can handle anything...

Definitely keep me updated nasellok!

 

[rkarolak]

Here are probably the two most intense games I've tested so far:

Defiance: With shadows off and resolution brought down runs okay.

Infinite Crisis: Runs okay at lower resolution and low graphics settings.

 

[Jas00555]

I found this interesting.....

Played GTA4 - no issues
Played Far Cry - no issues
Played Despicable Me -

 

[muneshyne21]

I heard Minesweeper runs pretty well with the graphics setting maxed out :winktongue:

 

[nasellok]

That seems quite taxing on an intel gpu. I used Revit on fairly large projects on dual quad core Mac Pro's and they seemed to show signs of fatigue when panning in 3D mode. Rendering seems like it would melt the tablet. I'm VERY curious to see how the Surface Pro 3 holds up. If it can handle large Revit files without freezing, it can handle anything...

Definitely keep me updated nasellok!

Will do, T- 3 days til I get it. MS demo'd Revit during the release press conference, but I am skeptical of the performance. it meets all spec requirements for Autodesk balanced performance, so we shall see. I wouldn't even try to render on the thing. We have external consultants that do the renderings, that being said, if I had to process an animation or something, I'd RDP into my office workstation.

 

[boo516]

I too have this issue. Made a tread about it. My SP3 with i5 gets throttled down to .8Ghz as soon as Dota starts a game. FPS drops to about 10. On my SP2 I could maintain about 30fps with the same hardware specs. I've found that 80 degrees is the throttling point.

 

[spanolor]

Hi, I was curious to know if you tested revit on the SP3. I use Revit for work and I'm not sure if buying a powerful laptop or the i7 SP3..
Thank you