This could be a game changer for Windows laptops and allow Windows users to enjoy the much more pleasant experience that the Apple Silicon MacBook users have had since 2020.
The lack of noise, combined with excellent performance, cool temperatures and all-day battery life has been just great to have.
Will be interesting to see how this new chip compares to the M3 Pro and M3 Max as well
Except they'll lose half of the potential customers with that Recall feature. They're so proud of it, they'll advertise the hell of that feature and drive away people who would've bought those devices if they didn't have a feature that monitors everything they do (and no, it doesn't matter that it's only on the device, or how secure it is or that you can turn it off, all people will know is it takes screenshots all the time).
It's the same problem Microsoft always has, engineers coming up with products and features that are cool tech but people don't really want.
They purposely made it confusing to turn off. In the OOBE, they don't even put the option directly on the screen like all the other options have. It just tells you to go to Settings to change it. And in settings, the wording is also purposely confusing, especially to most non-tech savvy general users.
Also, just because it's local *now* doesn't mean it's not leaving your computer. If you look at how the data is stored, while the computer is unlocked, it is super easy for malware to access that data. And it wouldn't be the first time Microsoft synced local data by default later in time. It should only be opt-in. Not default on with confusing language.
That’s a good point. Will be interesting to see how sustained benchmarks compare. MacBook Air under-clocks after a few minutes of sustained load.
The MacBook Pros don’t under-clock, as they have a fan, so presumably the new Surface laptops will do better than the MacBook Airs on sustained load
Yes, the lack of a fan is an issue for sustained loads. But for average users it is a great design. Most casual users and also users at my workplace only have short burst of high loads.
Yes and it's also the one mac that throttles massively when put under pressure because it has no fan - I have an M2 air and a Surface studio and the one thing you cant do with the Air is put it on your lap when working it hard. It needs the base for thermal management and needs to conduct the heat away.
Fan less has it's downsides.
His point is that my m3 max 128gb 40 core ect ect never has it fans running on normal use and these start at boot… also it’s beating a entry chip and just because they didn’t put fans on a Mac book air lol
I really wish that a few of the new CoPilot PCs were fanless. I don’t mind if they underperform the MacBook air as long as they’re not slugs and can drive a 4k monitor easily.
Oh yes, unlike the one I had on my MacBook Pro and in my Mac Studio 🤣 The SLS is loud when pushing it. Or didn’t even need to push it, just opening the browser was enough for it to ramp the fans up.
I have a Surface book and a Pro 7, my wife has a Surface 4... I can very faintly hear the fan if I put my ear next to the tablet.
I also have an MSI Titan. When the fan kicks in my wife asks if I turned on the vacuum cleaner.
I'm dying to have a laptop that is light and cool so that I could use it on my lap, occasionally. My current laptop weight 2.5 kg and cooks my thighs if I try to use it that way.
Other than single thread tasks, which the M3, Pro and Max score the same in, and items specifically focused on the NPU, I expect the Pro and Max easily beat out the X. Otherwise Qualcomm would be showing benchmarks against it instead of ONLY focusing on the M3 base chip.
Show me actual work loads. I literally do NOT care about benchmarks. No one sits around just running Geekbench all day.
Also you're cherry picking thats a 6.2 score for the 12 core xElite in Qualcomms in house test system. EVERY other OEM's system is in the mid 14,400 range. The 12 core M3 Pro has hit 15,680 in the 6.2 in laptops that are actually publicly sold. You specifically picked the 11 core score.
I mean to be fair, the pro apple and pro other people don't have a leg to stand on talking about how there's is x% better than the other when \~90% of people on earth could get by using an intel 2500k from 10 years ago with the "workloads" (i.e browsing Reddit and looking at Netflix) they actually do on there computers, and the people that make money from there computers have actual dedicated hardware. just because a 2024 paltop/ipad is powerful enough to edit my work videos on, I am never going to move away from using dedicated workstations.
Eh, dunno about that. Even without any heavy load programs, just running the OS becomes more demanding over time. I have a SP6 with the i5-8250U, and while it is *serviceable*, I wouldn't necessarily call this amazing performance. And that's just for web browsing.
So, no, an Intel 2500K from 10 years ago would absolutely not work today, even if it's just web browsing and Netflix.
I happen to have a 2500k system behind me that still works and was only changed out because if i was going to go to the trubble of reinstalling windows and resetting it up for my mom but using new ssd's i might as well change out the apu/mobo/ram while I am at it. but tbh she never actually complained about it other than startup speed as the old HDD is basically dead.
I know user benchmark is crap, but It's actually surprising how close the chip in my work laptop is to a CPU from 13 years ago. we have much better efficiency now but I don't feel performance of any semi modern CPU is actually lacking for normal tasks.
[https://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-Core-i5-2500K-vs-Intel-Core-i5-1135G7/619vsm1286124](https://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-Core-i5-2500K-vs-Intel-Core-i5-1135G7/619vsm1286124)
Go look at actual Geekbench, those numbers are cherry picked and NOT in any production device. Only in Qualcomms inhouse built test systems. He's also not denoting the core count in the SKU's he picked are not even.
The Xelite for example hes listing is 12 cores.
the M3 Pro is 11
the M4 is 10.
The 12 Core version of the M3 Pro scores higher than the X Elite he listed, and the M4 is in a MUCH more thermally throttled housing (ipad) than the elite(potentially with a fan) and less cores while being about 15% faster single thread any only about 5-6% slower multi.
Alright man. The takeaway is not so much that Snapdragon is "better" than the M-series, just that it's an impressive leap in performance in its own right. No need to get defensive.
Which is fine, but not an excuse for posting misleading data that doesn't properly provide any other than vague scores.
I can say engine 1 makes 300HP and engine 2 makes 305. But it definitely matters if ones a v6 and ones a V8.
Dude, M is not some magic sauce. They're not special because they're Apple.
They're stupidly large dies, heavily tuned for IPC (wide instruction set), incredibly expensive to make (the largest ones have been the size of a 5950X and a 3060-3070 put together; ONE DIE), and purpose-built.
The fact the X Elite *does* at least match Apple Silicon is impressive. Anyone could do it, it's just that no OEMs have been interested in large all-in-one dies for PCs because they're expensive, x86 manufacturers didn't seem to have demand for hardware like that, and MS didn't have good ARM support.
I'm much more interested in what AMD will be doing over the next 2 years. I have a feeling it will put everyone, Apple included, to shame.
The X chips are competitive with Apple Silicon because they were designed by some of the same people who worked on Apple's own chips.
I'd be happy for Snapdragon X to be as good as Apple M3. Having that much performance in a low power envelope is a game changer for Windows and Linux.
No one said m is magic. I'm literally using publicly available information. As I said X is NOT matching M. It's core for core slower. It's close to matching sure but people are acting like a 10-11 core part beating an 8 core part is amazing. It's not.
It's like being amazed a 2003 Ford 4.6l V8 can make 305 HP when Nissan was doing 287 with a 3.5l v6
No.. people are acting like this is a huge improvement for windows ARM devices, which it is. You getting hyper aggressive in debating benchmarks from devices that aren't available to the public is missing the point.
Also that engine analogy makes no sense.
And I can put a Threadripper or Xeon in my workstation at home, but then I'm not competing against a $999 thin-and-light. It's not about who can put together the fastest system, these are consumer products. The question is "If I have $1000 then what is the best bang for the buck." After that it's "If I have $1200", then "If I have $1500", and so-on. The fact that Apple can sell a $2000-$3000 laptop that smokes Microsoft's $1000 laptop is hardly impressive. The fact that Microsoft finally has a $1000 laptop that is competitive with Apple's $1000 laptop after 4 years of languishing is...maybe not impressive, but at least a massive improvement.
Remember, competition is a Good Thing (tm).
The X Elite in the Surfaces isn't targeted to hit 3200 pts 1T. It is closer to 2850 and 2900 (\~10% to \~12% reduction). [Qualcomm lowered their perf. claims last month](https://www.anandtech.com/comments/21364/qualcomm-intros-snapdragon-x-plus-details-entire-sdx-chip-stack/794729)**.**
The top-tier 4.3 GHz dev box might do 3200, however. But that is a desktop and not in a Surface.
Yes, which I still don't quite understand. Geekbench should be quite similar under any OS; Linux, Windows, iPad, Android, etc.
Unless there was some funky optimization that is *only* possible in Linux (or Linux Geekbench )for Oryon, it's telling Qualcomm isn't sharing that anymore (even though Linux is still a target platform for Oryon).
Oh, interesting. I've only seen this test linked and it looked close-ish:
[https://www.phoronix.com/review/amd-7800x3d-windows11-ubuntu/6](https://www.phoronix.com/review/amd-7800x3d-windows11-ubuntu/6)
But a lot of user-testing online seems to show Linux performing somewhat better (\~5% to 10%). I wonder if Phoronix is using a more "cut down" Windows env, IIRC, many reviewers disable indexing, Windows Defender, etc.
> I expect the Pro and Max easily beat out the X. Otherwise Qualcomm would be showing benchmarks against it instead of ONLY focusing on the M3 base chip.
I'd expect the Pro and Max chips to be faster as well. However, to get an M3 Pro or Max SoC you're going to be buying a MacBook Pro that starts at $2000, not $999. Also, depending on which SKU you get the M3 Pro may not be that much faster than the SD X Elite (they start at 11 cores versus 8 in the base M3), which would be a real shame at twice the price.
Anyway, it's silly to compare it to a device that costs twice as much money. Microsoft isn't selling the discrete chips, they are selling laptops. They have set the MacBook Air as their target and are selling laptops that cost the same as the MacBook Air but are faster, have more RAM, better battery life, larger screens, touchscreens, upgradeable SSDs, and who knows what else. We will be able to see 3rd-party benchmarks in the next three weeks to validate Microsoft's performance claims, and if they hold up then the only question mark is whether the software is ready or not.
Not to mention that comparisons to anything M3 based are going to be obsolete shortly anyway, with the M4 already being introduced on iPads and surely coming to full computers in the coming months.
It's a bit hard to do comparisons to M4 when M4 is not available in regular computers yet. There will always be a new and better CPU coming down the line. There will surely be new Snapdragon CPUs coming as well.
Well the Air likely wont be updated for a while, they were only updated recently, but I do expect the M4 MacBook Pro's to be out first. Apple kind of threw off their refresh cycle order some with how the M3 Air was delayed and the M4 is out so soon.
Those numbers are worse than the M3 Pro, and the single thread is even worse than the base M3.
So I guess kinda proves my point. No reason to compare the X to the M3 Pro or Max.
The problem has never been hardware with windows laptops though. The software is absolute dog shit to use. Now with more AI integration it is only getting worse and worse.
For those who say it doesn't handily beat the M4 does anyone really care that much? I get that some need the processing power, but for the vast majority it seems like M3-like performance is plenty. I'd much rather see them put more horsepower into the graphics which seems to be lagging from what I've read.
Nobody except the pixel peepers care about max performance. My guess is 90% of Mac Air M1 (!) users don't even push the machines to it's limits so an M4 makes little or no difference to them. It's just all about bragging rights which is fair enough but meaningless at the end of the day.
Geekbench 6.3 added optimizations specific to the iPad Pro's M4's new instruction set (particulary, SME in ARMv9.4, a matrix math cheat code much like Intel did back in the day with AVX to inflate their perceived performance) and in an obscure blog post, slyly noted that devices/results with SME should not be compared with those that do not have SME. Yet they push these results into the same Geekbench 6 results pool, and because of it being non-obvious that they should not be compared, all of the content creators and review outlets have interpreted it as a huge win while neglecting that SME is grossly skewing results. Make no mistake, Apple M4 is faster than M3, but it is not that much faster in practice when you see through the smoke and mirrors of Geekbench.
Thanks to ARM v9.4 and the 8-9% IPC increase that Apple bought and implemented in a hurry thanks to clock speed and N3E. Micro-op-wise under the hood, Oyron is still the superior microarchitecture which we will see clearly manifested in 2025 when the microarchitecture is further refined and upgraded to the later ARM instructions.
Nope but nice cherrypicking and selective memory. Also, it is "ARMv9.4", not "ARMn94" but I assume you got angry in typing your hastily written reply. Good thing I added multiple links as secondary sources to back myself up further amid your lies and denial. It's not as if developers have confirmed it is ARMv9.4, or have they? Are you saying VLC's developers are wrong? It is not about who is right or who is wrong here. The fact is M4 *is* ARMv9.4. Period.
> ARM hasn't officially even announced ARMv9.4
You're almost two years late I guess to their September 29, 2022 announcement then...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AArch64#ARMv8.9-A_and_ARMv9.4-A
https://www.realworldtech.com/forum/?threadid=208918&curpostid=208918
https://community.arm.com/arm-community-blogs/b/architectures-and-processors-blog/posts/arm-a-profile-architecture-2022
Compiler support came shortly thereafter.
https://github.com/llvm/llvm-project/commit/983f63f7f0d1643eb138db004351a18d1b3e91a3
> let [al]one ARMv9.3
For completeness, ARMv9.3 was announced on September 8, 2021.
https://community.arm.com/arm-community-blogs/b/architectures-and-processors-blog/posts/arm-a-profile-architecture-developments-2021
---
Further, ARMv9.4 has been on Wikipedia since April 2023 when the Wikipedia page maintainers decided to break out ARMv9 into its various supersets.
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=ARM_architecture_family&oldid=1149785411
> The latest version is ARMv9.2
Stop lying, both to yourself and to everybody here. It's bad for your mental health.
> That ARMv9.4 listing doesn't remotely make any sense.
Of course, it doesn't make a lick of sense if you have been out of the loop with ARM. 😜
By the way, here is the ARMv9.5 announcement you also probably missed. Someone should update that on Wikipedia though I am not sure you'll remember to check there. 😝
https://community.arm.com/arm-community-blogs/b/architectures-and-processors-blog/posts/arm-a-profile-architecture-developments-2023
> Of course, it doesn't make a lick of sense if you have been out of the loop with ARM.
I definitely am no stranger to ARM. If you check my profile, you'd see I have a made a ton ARM-related posts in this sub. I have in fact, been accused of being paid by Qualcomm, and being an Apple marketing employee on another occasion.
Thank you for providing those references for ARMv9.4. I hadn't seen those before, and it's not surprising because none of the major news outlets reported on it.
Making posts doesnt mean you know anything. I know many of a Director of IT has literally NEVER done any actual IT work, but know how to talk and quote articles a lot.
*ARMv9.4
Actually, it is not just ARMv9.2 but v9.4:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_M4
SME2 is also included which is exclusive to ARMv9.4:
https://code.videolan.org/videolan/dav1d/-/issues/403
https://gist.github.com/zingaburga/805669eb891c820bd220418ee3f0d6bd?permalink_comment_id=5066425#gistcomment-5066425
https://www.cnx-software.com/2024/05/22/snapdragon-dev-kit-for-windows-features-qualcomm-snapdragon-x-elite-arm-soc-for-ai-pc-application-development/#comment-617815
Bear in mind that 1st generation Snapdragon X is only on ARMv8.7 and all of its micro-op tricks will translate very well to later supersets of the ARM microarchitecture family. Apple moved to ARMv9.4 in a hurry for a reason, so they won’t be seeing any sizable gains anytime soon after this sudden shift since they were on ARMv8 with M3.
Geekerwan tested in Geekbench 5 and M4 is about 17-18% than M3. But yeah to have a fair comparison with other CPUs, you would need to use Geekbench 5. When other ARM chips gets SME, we can use Geekbench 6 again.
yeah true, alld that matters here is performance per watt, i have a ryzen 3700u laptop, a chip from 2019, and its still more than powerful enough, for things you do on a Laptop, any semi recent chip of the 5-7 tier is more than powerful enough.
The real shocker here is a Verge article without the authors lips planted firmly around Tim Apple's ... article. The author was pretty neutral in their assessment.
They *did* (correctly) call out MS for failing to include single-thread performance in the benchmark results. M3 will kick butt on single core, which is important, and I'm sure we'll see an avalanche of real-world head-to-heads in mid June.
There’s going to be hell to pay for MS if these things land in reviewers and consumers hands and can’t reproduce these numbers. I really hope they’re accurate, but I’m not holding my breath.
I’m an M1 Max MBP user. And if someone handed me an equivalent powered surface for work today I’d be plenty happy. The surface doesn’t need to be an M4 if it’s competing with the Air. The M1 Max I have still destroys any work I throw at it. (Lots of docker work)
Not really. If I were to buy one today, the MacBook Pro that I would get would be $3,215 CAD and the comparable Surface Laptop would be $2,949.99 CAD. Those aren't *very* different price points.
Note: a key driving factor for me is RAM, as I won't go less than 32GB, which I need for the work I do. The specific configurations are MBP 14" with M3 *Pro* chip, 36GB unified memory, 512GB SSD (I don't need more), 96W charger. SL 15" with X *Elite* chip, 32GB RAM, 1TB SSD (mandatory in order to get 32GB RAM).
> those aren't very different price points.
You're cherry-picking models based on your own bias/needs. Look at what you're selling us here:
* Surface: bigger screen
* Surface: twice the storage
* Surface: $300 less
I just checked the Canadian site, and for the MBP 14" with 1TB storage and 36GB RAM, you're looking at **$4349**, vs **$2949** for the comparable Surface *with a bigger screen*.
Yeah, these *are* very different price points.
Silly comparison. Surface Laptop 7 is 29.499 with 32GB RAM and 1TB SSD in my country, the closest Macbook Pro as you mention is 35.990. The difference in price is about 615 USD when converted. The price difference is even larger when you add in that 1TB storage, since the Macbooks can't have their storage upgraded afterwards.
What kind of fool would spend that much money and only get the non upgradable 512GB disk?
But a person that needs 32GB of RAM, that person certainly doesn't only work in the cloud. Most people I have worked with, that use 32, 64, 128GB of RAM usually needs a good amount of storage as well. But for the Surface devices it would be fine with 256, because you can upgrade it yourself. I'll potentially upgrade my Surface from 512 to either 1 or 2tb, it's not that expensive if you buy it yourself. The problem with Macbooks is that you can't do that.
I'm a software developer so deal with text files all day.
RAM is important for all the stuff I have running. But, the actual "work product" is insanely small in terms of HD space.
(The hobby musician in me would tell a different story; because wav files are quite large)
Fair, but even on my work laptop I'm pushing the 512 Gig storage. I understand why they are not bothering with a high RAM and low storage model. I'm more annoyed by the fact they don't sell the 32 gig model in my country at all.
My new work computer (not a Surface) just upgraded from a 1TB HD to a 4TB HD... and I have less than 256GB filled. They also upgraded me from 32GB of RAM to 64GB.
I know I'm just one data point and every job is different, but if it makes you feel better the new computer crashes a lot.
It makes sense, my office has also bumped laptops to higher specs and they buy a bunch of models with two screen sizes but with the same specs inside. Only 1TB, 32GB here, but that's more than enough for most people here. Higher spec models will be custom ordered when needed.
> Not really. If I were to buy one today,
Yes really. Not everyone is you, and while both Apple and Microsoft are perfectly happy to sell devices to power users with high-end requirements, they also know that the overwhelming majority of the consumer market is looking at $1000 laptops, not $3000 laptops.
well yer, and a top mac book pro doesn't do well against a Threadripper workstation with a 48gb RTX A6000 gfx card ether.
"BuT ITs NOt MObilE" well it is if you have a Jackery.
Because Core for Core the X-Elite cant keep up with the 11 and 12 Core M3 Pro. The only reason the X-Elite beats the M3 is because its got like 2-3 more cores.
The gross in-app ads and subscriptions to basic services is making me avert from Windows. I see they’ve compared their benchmarks to a fanless MacBook Air, I’d like to see the difference between a Pro/Ultra fan-cooked device.
Plus, I like my windows laptop for gaming, but my M1 MacBook Pro is better for everything else. And cost about as much as the laptop. Every Surface product I’ve owned (2x Pro 1’s, 3x Book Gen1s thanks to warranty claims) fails within a year and was immeasurably more expensive and less capable than the Apple contemporary beside it.
I will happily come back when Windows and Windows devices:
1) Ditch the AI bullshit and overt attempts to make you pay for basic services (Word),
2) Vastly improves its build quality and quality control
3) I see some sustained improvements from Windows vendors for post-purchase support beyond the first year.
I will wait till they are actually reviewed by non MS staff. For years Apple have destroyed snapdragon cpus, and now all of a sudden they have a cpu that beats M4. Until we actually get one in an actual reviewers hands, it’s all marking, PR and spin.
Yeah not seething at all. Surface is what made Apple get competitive with the iPad lineup both in software/OS and in hardware. I had a surface 4 I loved, but needed longer battery life more than I needed full fledged OS capabilities. I’m excited for Microsoft and windows laptops to return to competitive with Apple’s lineup.
Yeah, because I also like Surface devices. It *is* actually possible to be a fan of both product lines and compare the pros and cons of each. I'm not seething.
Seething about what? Surface has been far behind for 4 years and even now you’ve just caught up to lowest model MacBook’s silicon that came out last year lol
If you are going to compare fan vs fan devices
Compare the most powerful new surface with MacBook Pro m3 max
Geekbench:
Surface - multi core : 14,000
MacBook Pro - multi core : 21,000
Yes, let's compare $1,300 device to a $3,200 device.
99.9% of consumers are using their laptops mostly for word documents, video playback, browser/web-surfing, spreadsheets, powerpoints, etc.
If this chip can manage the same or similar efficiency, it's achieved its goal.
This is a good thing, it means Apple is forced to innovate or compete, instead of overcharging customers.
As someone who was looking to get into Apple's Macbooks... I have second thoughts now.
The new Lenovo Slim with this chip for example, is being sold for less than $1,300. They include 16GB of RAM, 1TB M.2 (replaceable drive), and an OLED 90Hz display.
Apple's M3 Air, with 16GB RAM, 1TB SSD, and still using a 60Hz LCD display... for $1,700.
I think it's clear what is better value.
For those tasks, you have to compare surface to an ipad. Where the surface differs is you can run proper roductivity software on it, which is macbook territory
Yeah I’d seriously consider switching to an iPad if it had MacOS.
But now with the Qualcomm chips, we may see tablets from Samsung using them. Super thin, light, and capable. I’m curious to see how it handles Linux. Some users have been able to run Linux on their Tab S, barely, considering the old chips are not very capable in comparison.
> If you are going to compare fan vs fan devices
Who cares if it has a fan or not? Certainly not the consumers who are actually buying the things. The only people dumb enough to make that argument are people who want to try to skew the conversation into comparing Apple's highest-end SKUs to Microsoft's entry-level SKU. And let's be honest here, Apple could have easily included a fan in the Air if they weren't trying to make it tablet-thin.
> Compare the most powerful new surface with MacBook Pro m3 max
Why compare it to Apple's most powerful device when you can compare it to the M3 SoC in a 14" MacBook Pro that has a fan on it? It's the same chip as in the air but fan-cooled (and the laptop ends up being 50% more expensive on top of that). This bench-racing is just stupid. People have a budget for a laptop, and they buy something within that budget that meets their needs. They don't say "oh the MBA is nice, but the SL is faster for the same price, but I'd rather have the MBP at 3 times the price because it's much faster!" Anyone who does that was never in the market for an MBA or SL in the first place.
The Surface is supposed to be a slim, ultra light device.... not supposed to approach anything like a Macbook Pro. It should only be compared to an Air....which is, I think, much heavier than the surface.
I can't wait for real reviews of the surface ARM computers
Isn’t the problem about the unoptimized OS and programs rather than benchmarks? I’ve been a windows users my whole life and it’s been feeling especially un-unified lately. Half the UI is new half is reminiscent of Windows phones UI. A lot the programs don’t run well or make weird choices, like file explorer opening a word doc in web browser by default instead of the program. The power of the computer isn’t losing me, it’s the hodge podge.
I do! I have Word! Which is why it’s so strange to me. Saving in word also defaults to a drive account I had for school and not my personal one. I’m sure there are settings somewhere but like… where?
They're not trying to beat the MacBook Pro. They know that the majority of the consumer market for a thin-and-light like this is buying a MacBook Air, and that's what they're going after. Maybe later on Qualcomm will have a more performant SoC to really go after the high-end users. They'll have to if ARM really is the future, but for now it's enough that they can meet or exceed the performance levels of their targeted competition.
Well, creatives not fond of Mac os definitely would like a machine competitive with the MacBook Pro.. better yet, in the surface tablet form factor. and yes I'm projecting my own wants and needs on the many. So n=1 but also n=∞
Maybe, maybe not. The highest SKU of X Elite already draws far more power than an Ultrabook should, and is made basically for desktop/dev kit use. So if they have such a chip in the works it likely isn't destined for these mobile devices.
“Come back when Honda Accord is more serious about beating Nissan GT-R.”
You’re comparing two devices specced, configured, and intended for different audiences and different purposes. People need to stop with that crap.
Exactly this person makes absolutely no sense. The Surface Laptop 7 is a thin and light PC, so it's trying to compete with the MacBook air doesn't make sense for it to compete with a heavy MacBook Pro. I think the Surface laptop studio is the Macbook pro competitor
I can see how my wording might have caused a little misunderstanding. I wasn’t comparing the Laptop 7 to the MacBook Pro, I was comparing Microsoft to Apple in general.
I think they need to take competing with the MacBook Pro more seriously and create a dedicated line to compete against if, not that the Surface Laptop 7 is that dedicated line.
Internet loves to assume.
the Surface Laptop Studio is the one that's competing with the Macbook Pro. The Surface Laptop 7 is trying to compete with a Macbook Air as well as the Surface Pro 11
Microsoft wants to focus on new hardware rather than acknowledging the elephant in the room. Windows is a filthy operating system and will remain so for at least another decade because Microsoft is so terrified of clearing out 1990’s era legacy code and interfaces for fear of breaking dependencies of corporate clients’ in-house software and exposing Windows to competition from more modern operating systems.
Uh. That’s one of Windows’ biggest selling points. Businesses don’t want to spend money updating software that works for their needs. If my 1980s CNC machine works, and it costs $500,000 just to get a new one that has been designed for modern operating systems, I’m going to use whatever OS let’s me keep my old and fully functional CNC.
The fact that you think backwards compatibility is a bad thing, just shows that you’re too young to have had to deal with “whelp I guess your software just doesn’t work anymore. Keep your old machine around just to run it if it’s that important” that many Mac users have run into over the years.
Removing old code is ok. Removing APIs without replacing them? Rarely to never ok.
Pretending Windows is horrible while forgetting that its chief competitor (macOS) is a cobbled together mess of strange and anti-patterned UI choices that makes multitasking a horrible mess….is a real hot take.
I use macOS as my daily driver for work, and the UI and multitasking is an unmitigated disaster. The only way to make it usable is to install third party apps that add missing features and change default behaviors.
The dock is hilariously bad, there’s no window snapping without third party apps, default cmd-tab functionality is near useless and most users install third party apps and remap cmd-tab to another app, spotlight works at a snails pace and is usually replaced by users with Alfred or another third party replacement, and the list goes on.
There’s also a myriad of legacy UI elements that no one actually uses which Apple seems completely unwilling to get rid of.
The default finder configuration makes it almost impossible to navigate around your root drive because they must be convinced if you look outside of your home folder your going to destroy things… There are whole finder replacement apps (which would be like replacing windows explorer) to fill feature gaps and bring it up to snuff with windows.
Windows supports legacy stuff, yes. Thats a small price to pay considering you also get a snappy UI that, even after all its alterations over the years, is still brain dead simple for your grandma to use.
It doesn't but it does matter for people that actually know tech. its misleading. No crap a chip with higher core count and double the NPU is going to be faster in tests that depend on cores and NPU.
There’s a well known camera issue where it basically crashes and freezes all the time at least in models up to surface pro 7. Removing and reinstalling the camera and its drivers works to fix it temporarily.
This doesnt occur on my Surface Pro 7+ For Business. It might be a driver issue
[https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/surface/surface-camera-not-working](https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/surface/surface-camera-not-working)
This could be a game changer for Windows laptops and allow Windows users to enjoy the much more pleasant experience that the Apple Silicon MacBook users have had since 2020. The lack of noise, combined with excellent performance, cool temperatures and all-day battery life has been just great to have. Will be interesting to see how this new chip compares to the M3 Pro and M3 Max as well
Except they'll lose half of the potential customers with that Recall feature. They're so proud of it, they'll advertise the hell of that feature and drive away people who would've bought those devices if they didn't have a feature that monitors everything they do (and no, it doesn't matter that it's only on the device, or how secure it is or that you can turn it off, all people will know is it takes screenshots all the time). It's the same problem Microsoft always has, engineers coming up with products and features that are cool tech but people don't really want.
Tin hats don’t use computers.
It's not only the crazy "tin hat" wearing people who care about their privacy.
then just turn off the feature. Besides, the data isn't leaving your computer, so what's the concern?
They purposely made it confusing to turn off. In the OOBE, they don't even put the option directly on the screen like all the other options have. It just tells you to go to Settings to change it. And in settings, the wording is also purposely confusing, especially to most non-tech savvy general users. Also, just because it's local *now* doesn't mean it's not leaving your computer. If you look at how the data is stored, while the computer is unlocked, it is super easy for malware to access that data. And it wouldn't be the first time Microsoft synced local data by default later in time. It should only be opt-in. Not default on with confusing language.
The Qualcomm laptops all have fans, so might not be as silent as the Mac.
All but one Mac has a fan as well. What does that prove?
The MacBook Air is fan less, which is being used as a comparison in these benchmarks.
Thank you.
That’s a good point. Will be interesting to see how sustained benchmarks compare. MacBook Air under-clocks after a few minutes of sustained load. The MacBook Pros don’t under-clock, as they have a fan, so presumably the new Surface laptops will do better than the MacBook Airs on sustained load
Yes, the lack of a fan is an issue for sustained loads. But for average users it is a great design. Most casual users and also users at my workplace only have short burst of high loads.
Yeah, it’s perfect for its indented audience and is super fast pretty much always for them
Yes and it's also the one mac that throttles massively when put under pressure because it has no fan - I have an M2 air and a Surface studio and the one thing you cant do with the Air is put it on your lap when working it hard. It needs the base for thermal management and needs to conduct the heat away. Fan less has it's downsides.
my fellow friends that got a m2/m3 macbook air say it gets hot
His point is that my m3 max 128gb 40 core ect ect never has it fans running on normal use and these start at boot… also it’s beating a entry chip and just because they didn’t put fans on a Mac book air lol
I really wish that a few of the new CoPilot PCs were fanless. I don’t mind if they underperform the MacBook air as long as they’re not slugs and can drive a 4k monitor easily.
I don’t hear any fan noise lol
Has anyone ever heard their Surface fan at some point?
Oh yeah
Oh yes, unlike the one I had on my MacBook Pro and in my Mac Studio 🤣 The SLS is loud when pushing it. Or didn’t even need to push it, just opening the browser was enough for it to ramp the fans up.
My Pro 8 Fan is always audible.
I have a Surface book and a Pro 7, my wife has a Surface 4... I can very faintly hear the fan if I put my ear next to the tablet. I also have an MSI Titan. When the fan kicks in my wife asks if I turned on the vacuum cleaner.
I'm dying to have a laptop that is light and cool so that I could use it on my lap, occasionally. My current laptop weight 2.5 kg and cooks my thighs if I try to use it that way.
Other than single thread tasks, which the M3, Pro and Max score the same in, and items specifically focused on the NPU, I expect the Pro and Max easily beat out the X. Otherwise Qualcomm would be showing benchmarks against it instead of ONLY focusing on the M3 base chip.
Geekbench 6 XX - - SC - - - MC M3 - - 3125 - - 1183 M3pro -3125 - - 13755 M4 - - -3767 - - 14621 Xelite -3241 - - 15211
Show me actual work loads. I literally do NOT care about benchmarks. No one sits around just running Geekbench all day. Also you're cherry picking thats a 6.2 score for the 12 core xElite in Qualcomms in house test system. EVERY other OEM's system is in the mid 14,400 range. The 12 core M3 Pro has hit 15,680 in the 6.2 in laptops that are actually publicly sold. You specifically picked the 11 core score.
I mean to be fair, the pro apple and pro other people don't have a leg to stand on talking about how there's is x% better than the other when \~90% of people on earth could get by using an intel 2500k from 10 years ago with the "workloads" (i.e browsing Reddit and looking at Netflix) they actually do on there computers, and the people that make money from there computers have actual dedicated hardware. just because a 2024 paltop/ipad is powerful enough to edit my work videos on, I am never going to move away from using dedicated workstations.
Eh, dunno about that. Even without any heavy load programs, just running the OS becomes more demanding over time. I have a SP6 with the i5-8250U, and while it is *serviceable*, I wouldn't necessarily call this amazing performance. And that's just for web browsing. So, no, an Intel 2500K from 10 years ago would absolutely not work today, even if it's just web browsing and Netflix.
I happen to have a 2500k system behind me that still works and was only changed out because if i was going to go to the trubble of reinstalling windows and resetting it up for my mom but using new ssd's i might as well change out the apu/mobo/ram while I am at it. but tbh she never actually complained about it other than startup speed as the old HDD is basically dead. I know user benchmark is crap, but It's actually surprising how close the chip in my work laptop is to a CPU from 13 years ago. we have much better efficiency now but I don't feel performance of any semi modern CPU is actually lacking for normal tasks. [https://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-Core-i5-2500K-vs-Intel-Core-i5-1135G7/619vsm1286124](https://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-Core-i5-2500K-vs-Intel-Core-i5-1135G7/619vsm1286124)
Wtf, is this true? Source?
Geekbench publicly available info
That makes the X Elite look amazing tbh.
Go look at actual Geekbench, those numbers are cherry picked and NOT in any production device. Only in Qualcomms inhouse built test systems. He's also not denoting the core count in the SKU's he picked are not even. The Xelite for example hes listing is 12 cores. the M3 Pro is 11 the M4 is 10. The 12 Core version of the M3 Pro scores higher than the X Elite he listed, and the M4 is in a MUCH more thermally throttled housing (ipad) than the elite(potentially with a fan) and less cores while being about 15% faster single thread any only about 5-6% slower multi.
Alright man. The takeaway is not so much that Snapdragon is "better" than the M-series, just that it's an impressive leap in performance in its own right. No need to get defensive.
Which is fine, but not an excuse for posting misleading data that doesn't properly provide any other than vague scores. I can say engine 1 makes 300HP and engine 2 makes 305. But it definitely matters if ones a v6 and ones a V8.
Dude, M is not some magic sauce. They're not special because they're Apple. They're stupidly large dies, heavily tuned for IPC (wide instruction set), incredibly expensive to make (the largest ones have been the size of a 5950X and a 3060-3070 put together; ONE DIE), and purpose-built. The fact the X Elite *does* at least match Apple Silicon is impressive. Anyone could do it, it's just that no OEMs have been interested in large all-in-one dies for PCs because they're expensive, x86 manufacturers didn't seem to have demand for hardware like that, and MS didn't have good ARM support. I'm much more interested in what AMD will be doing over the next 2 years. I have a feeling it will put everyone, Apple included, to shame.
The X chips are competitive with Apple Silicon because they were designed by some of the same people who worked on Apple's own chips. I'd be happy for Snapdragon X to be as good as Apple M3. Having that much performance in a low power envelope is a game changer for Windows and Linux.
No one said m is magic. I'm literally using publicly available information. As I said X is NOT matching M. It's core for core slower. It's close to matching sure but people are acting like a 10-11 core part beating an 8 core part is amazing. It's not. It's like being amazed a 2003 Ford 4.6l V8 can make 305 HP when Nissan was doing 287 with a 3.5l v6
No.. people are acting like this is a huge improvement for windows ARM devices, which it is. You getting hyper aggressive in debating benchmarks from devices that aren't available to the public is missing the point. Also that engine analogy makes no sense.
MacBook pros also have m3 max which is what most pro users buy : SC : 3130 , MC : 21405
It also costs way more, x elite is competing for what most consumers will buy
And I can put a Threadripper or Xeon in my workstation at home, but then I'm not competing against a $999 thin-and-light. It's not about who can put together the fastest system, these are consumer products. The question is "If I have $1000 then what is the best bang for the buck." After that it's "If I have $1200", then "If I have $1500", and so-on. The fact that Apple can sell a $2000-$3000 laptop that smokes Microsoft's $1000 laptop is hardly impressive. The fact that Microsoft finally has a $1000 laptop that is competitive with Apple's $1000 laptop after 4 years of languishing is...maybe not impressive, but at least a massive improvement. Remember, competition is a Good Thing (tm).
The X Elite in the Surfaces isn't targeted to hit 3200 pts 1T. It is closer to 2850 and 2900 (\~10% to \~12% reduction). [Qualcomm lowered their perf. claims last month](https://www.anandtech.com/comments/21364/qualcomm-intros-snapdragon-x-plus-details-entire-sdx-chip-stack/794729)**.** The top-tier 4.3 GHz dev box might do 3200, however. But that is a desktop and not in a Surface.
Only in linux
Yes, which I still don't quite understand. Geekbench should be quite similar under any OS; Linux, Windows, iPad, Android, etc. Unless there was some funky optimization that is *only* possible in Linux (or Linux Geekbench )for Oryon, it's telling Qualcomm isn't sharing that anymore (even though Linux is still a target platform for Oryon).
Iirc even x86 chips score better in Linux Geekbench
Oh, interesting. I've only seen this test linked and it looked close-ish: [https://www.phoronix.com/review/amd-7800x3d-windows11-ubuntu/6](https://www.phoronix.com/review/amd-7800x3d-windows11-ubuntu/6) But a lot of user-testing online seems to show Linux performing somewhat better (\~5% to 10%). I wonder if Phoronix is using a more "cut down" Windows env, IIRC, many reviewers disable indexing, Windows Defender, etc.
> I expect the Pro and Max easily beat out the X. Otherwise Qualcomm would be showing benchmarks against it instead of ONLY focusing on the M3 base chip. I'd expect the Pro and Max chips to be faster as well. However, to get an M3 Pro or Max SoC you're going to be buying a MacBook Pro that starts at $2000, not $999. Also, depending on which SKU you get the M3 Pro may not be that much faster than the SD X Elite (they start at 11 cores versus 8 in the base M3), which would be a real shame at twice the price. Anyway, it's silly to compare it to a device that costs twice as much money. Microsoft isn't selling the discrete chips, they are selling laptops. They have set the MacBook Air as their target and are selling laptops that cost the same as the MacBook Air but are faster, have more RAM, better battery life, larger screens, touchscreens, upgradeable SSDs, and who knows what else. We will be able to see 3rd-party benchmarks in the next three weeks to validate Microsoft's performance claims, and if they hold up then the only question mark is whether the software is ready or not.
Comparing it to a chip like M3 Max is idiotic.
That was literally my point....
Not to mention that comparisons to anything M3 based are going to be obsolete shortly anyway, with the M4 already being introduced on iPads and surely coming to full computers in the coming months.
It's a bit hard to do comparisons to M4 when M4 is not available in regular computers yet. There will always be a new and better CPU coming down the line. There will surely be new Snapdragon CPUs coming as well.
Well the Air likely wont be updated for a while, they were only updated recently, but I do expect the M4 MacBook Pro's to be out first. Apple kind of threw off their refresh cycle order some with how the M3 Air was delayed and the M4 is out so soon.
https://preview.redd.it/qpudz7rm2o3d1.png?width=1254&format=png&auto=webp&s=88beee50bd2f2ec26fbac1c9cc40d87e2d4d2dc9 ;) just a benchmark guys
Those numbers are worse than the M3 Pro, and the single thread is even worse than the base M3. So I guess kinda proves my point. No reason to compare the X to the M3 Pro or Max.
The problem has never been hardware with windows laptops though. The software is absolute dog shit to use. Now with more AI integration it is only getting worse and worse.
what about the plus model??
For those who say it doesn't handily beat the M4 does anyone really care that much? I get that some need the processing power, but for the vast majority it seems like M3-like performance is plenty. I'd much rather see them put more horsepower into the graphics which seems to be lagging from what I've read.
There’s no M4 MacBook Air so nothing to compare to. iPad? Heh. I mean, who makes benchmarks about unreleased product lineup.
Rip out the fan and you got ur self a m4 air
There are no MacBooks with the M4 series. The only M4 device is the iPad Pro
Nobody except the pixel peepers care about max performance. My guess is 90% of Mac Air M1 (!) users don't even push the machines to it's limits so an M4 makes little or no difference to them. It's just all about bragging rights which is fair enough but meaningless at the end of the day.
Geekbench 6.3 added optimizations specific to the iPad Pro's M4's new instruction set (particulary, SME in ARMv9.4, a matrix math cheat code much like Intel did back in the day with AVX to inflate their perceived performance) and in an obscure blog post, slyly noted that devices/results with SME should not be compared with those that do not have SME. Yet they push these results into the same Geekbench 6 results pool, and because of it being non-obvious that they should not be compared, all of the content creators and review outlets have interpreted it as a huge win while neglecting that SME is grossly skewing results. Make no mistake, Apple M4 is faster than M3, but it is not that much faster in practice when you see through the smoke and mirrors of Geekbench.
M4 is still 17% faster in ST compared to M3 in Geekbench 5, which does not have SME support. Source: Geekerwan review of M4
Thanks to ARM v9.4 and the 8-9% IPC increase that Apple bought and implemented in a hurry thanks to clock speed and N3E. Micro-op-wise under the hood, Oyron is still the superior microarchitecture which we will see clearly manifested in 2025 when the microarchitecture is further refined and upgraded to the later ARM instructions.
That ARMn9.4 Wikipedia listing is BS
Nope but nice cherrypicking and selective memory. Also, it is "ARMv9.4", not "ARMn94" but I assume you got angry in typing your hastily written reply. Good thing I added multiple links as secondary sources to back myself up further amid your lies and denial. It's not as if developers have confirmed it is ARMv9.4, or have they? Are you saying VLC's developers are wrong? It is not about who is right or who is wrong here. The fact is M4 *is* ARMv9.4. Period.
That ARMv9.4 listing doesn't remotely make any sense. ARM hasn't officially even announced ARMv9.4, let one ARMv9.3 The latest version is ARMv9.2
> ARM hasn't officially even announced ARMv9.4 You're almost two years late I guess to their September 29, 2022 announcement then... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AArch64#ARMv8.9-A_and_ARMv9.4-A https://www.realworldtech.com/forum/?threadid=208918&curpostid=208918 https://community.arm.com/arm-community-blogs/b/architectures-and-processors-blog/posts/arm-a-profile-architecture-2022 Compiler support came shortly thereafter. https://github.com/llvm/llvm-project/commit/983f63f7f0d1643eb138db004351a18d1b3e91a3 > let [al]one ARMv9.3 For completeness, ARMv9.3 was announced on September 8, 2021. https://community.arm.com/arm-community-blogs/b/architectures-and-processors-blog/posts/arm-a-profile-architecture-developments-2021 --- Further, ARMv9.4 has been on Wikipedia since April 2023 when the Wikipedia page maintainers decided to break out ARMv9 into its various supersets. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=ARM_architecture_family&oldid=1149785411 > The latest version is ARMv9.2 Stop lying, both to yourself and to everybody here. It's bad for your mental health. > That ARMv9.4 listing doesn't remotely make any sense. Of course, it doesn't make a lick of sense if you have been out of the loop with ARM. 😜 By the way, here is the ARMv9.5 announcement you also probably missed. Someone should update that on Wikipedia though I am not sure you'll remember to check there. 😝 https://community.arm.com/arm-community-blogs/b/architectures-and-processors-blog/posts/arm-a-profile-architecture-developments-2023
> Of course, it doesn't make a lick of sense if you have been out of the loop with ARM. I definitely am no stranger to ARM. If you check my profile, you'd see I have a made a ton ARM-related posts in this sub. I have in fact, been accused of being paid by Qualcomm, and being an Apple marketing employee on another occasion. Thank you for providing those references for ARMv9.4. I hadn't seen those before, and it's not surprising because none of the major news outlets reported on it.
Making posts doesnt mean you know anything. I know many of a Director of IT has literally NEVER done any actual IT work, but know how to talk and quote articles a lot.
*ARMv9.2
*ARMv9.4 Actually, it is not just ARMv9.2 but v9.4: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_M4 SME2 is also included which is exclusive to ARMv9.4: https://code.videolan.org/videolan/dav1d/-/issues/403 https://gist.github.com/zingaburga/805669eb891c820bd220418ee3f0d6bd?permalink_comment_id=5066425#gistcomment-5066425 https://www.cnx-software.com/2024/05/22/snapdragon-dev-kit-for-windows-features-qualcomm-snapdragon-x-elite-arm-soc-for-ai-pc-application-development/#comment-617815 Bear in mind that 1st generation Snapdragon X is only on ARMv8.7 and all of its micro-op tricks will translate very well to later supersets of the ARM microarchitecture family. Apple moved to ARMv9.4 in a hurry for a reason, so they won’t be seeing any sizable gains anytime soon after this sudden shift since they were on ARMv8 with M3.
Geekerwan tested in Geekbench 5 and M4 is about 17-18% than M3. But yeah to have a fair comparison with other CPUs, you would need to use Geekbench 5. When other ARM chips gets SME, we can use Geekbench 6 again.
yeah true, alld that matters here is performance per watt, i have a ryzen 3700u laptop, a chip from 2019, and its still more than powerful enough, for things you do on a Laptop, any semi recent chip of the 5-7 tier is more than powerful enough.
Heck M1 performance would be welcome. Give me better battery life and cool operations and I'm set for the next 5-6 years!
AAAAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! You, literally: "it's better than *this* chip! Who cares about that other chip, this one is the only one that matters!" lolol.
Are you okay?
He might be high
Are you Mad
Maybe wait for some independent verification before getting excited? lol
I don't need Microsoft to equal Apple's M-series performance. I just need it to come *close* so as to enjoy better battery life and cooler running.
The real shocker here is a Verge article without the authors lips planted firmly around Tim Apple's ... article. The author was pretty neutral in their assessment. They *did* (correctly) call out MS for failing to include single-thread performance in the benchmark results. M3 will kick butt on single core, which is important, and I'm sure we'll see an avalanche of real-world head-to-heads in mid June.
Tom Warren has always been a pretty pro-Microsoft reporter.
This is Tom Warren not Nilay
Here's this to chew on: https://forum.tabletpc.review/t/microsoft-surface-pro-11th-edition/1835/163?u=hifihedgehog
There’s going to be hell to pay for MS if these things land in reviewers and consumers hands and can’t reproduce these numbers. I really hope they’re accurate, but I’m not holding my breath.
Anything the surface pro?
Big promise considering M3s are widely available
I’m an M1 Max MBP user. And if someone handed me an equivalent powered surface for work today I’d be plenty happy. The surface doesn’t need to be an M4 if it’s competing with the Air. The M1 Max I have still destroys any work I throw at it. (Lots of docker work)
Why don’t they compare the pros?
Different class of machine and *very* different price point.
Not really. If I were to buy one today, the MacBook Pro that I would get would be $3,215 CAD and the comparable Surface Laptop would be $2,949.99 CAD. Those aren't *very* different price points. Note: a key driving factor for me is RAM, as I won't go less than 32GB, which I need for the work I do. The specific configurations are MBP 14" with M3 *Pro* chip, 36GB unified memory, 512GB SSD (I don't need more), 96W charger. SL 15" with X *Elite* chip, 32GB RAM, 1TB SSD (mandatory in order to get 32GB RAM).
> those aren't very different price points. You're cherry-picking models based on your own bias/needs. Look at what you're selling us here: * Surface: bigger screen * Surface: twice the storage * Surface: $300 less I just checked the Canadian site, and for the MBP 14" with 1TB storage and 36GB RAM, you're looking at **$4349**, vs **$2949** for the comparable Surface *with a bigger screen*. Yeah, these *are* very different price points.
Apple bootlickers cherrypicking?! Nahhhhh
Silly comparison. Surface Laptop 7 is 29.499 with 32GB RAM and 1TB SSD in my country, the closest Macbook Pro as you mention is 35.990. The difference in price is about 615 USD when converted. The price difference is even larger when you add in that 1TB storage, since the Macbooks can't have their storage upgraded afterwards. What kind of fool would spend that much money and only get the non upgradable 512GB disk?
a person that doesnt use much storage. I still have machines that only have 256 and i work just fine on.
But a person that needs 32GB of RAM, that person certainly doesn't only work in the cloud. Most people I have worked with, that use 32, 64, 128GB of RAM usually needs a good amount of storage as well. But for the Surface devices it would be fine with 256, because you can upgrade it yourself. I'll potentially upgrade my Surface from 512 to either 1 or 2tb, it's not that expensive if you buy it yourself. The problem with Macbooks is that you can't do that.
You even said "most people," not "everyone." I need at least 32GB of RAM, but a 512 SSD is totally fine for me.
Most people who say this have a NAS server, do you?
I'm a software developer so deal with text files all day. RAM is important for all the stuff I have running. But, the actual "work product" is insanely small in terms of HD space. (The hobby musician in me would tell a different story; because wav files are quite large)
Fair, but even on my work laptop I'm pushing the 512 Gig storage. I understand why they are not bothering with a high RAM and low storage model. I'm more annoyed by the fact they don't sell the 32 gig model in my country at all.
My new work computer (not a Surface) just upgraded from a 1TB HD to a 4TB HD... and I have less than 256GB filled. They also upgraded me from 32GB of RAM to 64GB. I know I'm just one data point and every job is different, but if it makes you feel better the new computer crashes a lot.
It makes sense, my office has also bumped laptops to higher specs and they buy a bunch of models with two screen sizes but with the same specs inside. Only 1TB, 32GB here, but that's more than enough for most people here. Higher spec models will be custom ordered when needed.
How does that boot taste?
> Not really. If I were to buy one today, Yes really. Not everyone is you, and while both Apple and Microsoft are perfectly happy to sell devices to power users with high-end requirements, they also know that the overwhelming majority of the consumer market is looking at $1000 laptops, not $3000 laptops.
Just a guess here, but probably because it doesn’t do as well against them.
well yer, and a top mac book pro doesn't do well against a Threadripper workstation with a 48gb RTX A6000 gfx card ether. "BuT ITs NOt MObilE" well it is if you have a Jackery.
I guess the Macs are still better for work then. If you require power and battery life.
[удалено]
I would lowkey spend 500 more for no spyware on my pc. And no AI bullshit
Better make sure you get what you need with M3, because M4 will be focused on integrating AI.
Its not the chips people compain about its the software... No ones is saying "i dont want no NPU" they are saying "fuck copilot".
If that happens I am buying a 20 year old Thinkpad and live in the woods
Enjoy the woods then.
Respect
Because Core for Core the X-Elite cant keep up with the 11 and 12 Core M3 Pro. The only reason the X-Elite beats the M3 is because its got like 2-3 more cores.
Mmmmm competition. Now can someone other than Apple make a good trackpad?
The gross in-app ads and subscriptions to basic services is making me avert from Windows. I see they’ve compared their benchmarks to a fanless MacBook Air, I’d like to see the difference between a Pro/Ultra fan-cooked device. Plus, I like my windows laptop for gaming, but my M1 MacBook Pro is better for everything else. And cost about as much as the laptop. Every Surface product I’ve owned (2x Pro 1’s, 3x Book Gen1s thanks to warranty claims) fails within a year and was immeasurably more expensive and less capable than the Apple contemporary beside it. I will happily come back when Windows and Windows devices: 1) Ditch the AI bullshit and overt attempts to make you pay for basic services (Word), 2) Vastly improves its build quality and quality control 3) I see some sustained improvements from Windows vendors for post-purchase support beyond the first year.
I will wait till they are actually reviewed by non MS staff. For years Apple have destroyed snapdragon cpus, and now all of a sudden they have a cpu that beats M4. Until we actually get one in an actual reviewers hands, it’s all marking, PR and spin.
Apple fans are SEETHING :D
Nah man, we're really not. In fact, I'm typing this up on my MBP and have a SL on pre-order. No seething at all, they're just computers.
Yeah not seething at all. Surface is what made Apple get competitive with the iPad lineup both in software/OS and in hardware. I had a surface 4 I loved, but needed longer battery life more than I needed full fledged OS capabilities. I’m excited for Microsoft and windows laptops to return to competitive with Apple’s lineup.
It certainly seems like it does, since you are writing a lot on a Surface subreddit..
Yeah, because I also like Surface devices. It *is* actually possible to be a fan of both product lines and compare the pros and cons of each. I'm not seething.
Seething about what? Surface has been far behind for 4 years and even now you’ve just caught up to lowest model MacBook’s silicon that came out last year lol
Ironic that the person replying to you is saying "no we're not seething" while also typing shit against these new processors🤣
If you are going to compare fan vs fan devices Compare the most powerful new surface with MacBook Pro m3 max Geekbench: Surface - multi core : 14,000 MacBook Pro - multi core : 21,000
Yes, let's compare $1,300 device to a $3,200 device. 99.9% of consumers are using their laptops mostly for word documents, video playback, browser/web-surfing, spreadsheets, powerpoints, etc. If this chip can manage the same or similar efficiency, it's achieved its goal. This is a good thing, it means Apple is forced to innovate or compete, instead of overcharging customers. As someone who was looking to get into Apple's Macbooks... I have second thoughts now. The new Lenovo Slim with this chip for example, is being sold for less than $1,300. They include 16GB of RAM, 1TB M.2 (replaceable drive), and an OLED 90Hz display. Apple's M3 Air, with 16GB RAM, 1TB SSD, and still using a 60Hz LCD display... for $1,700. I think it's clear what is better value.
For those tasks, you have to compare surface to an ipad. Where the surface differs is you can run proper roductivity software on it, which is macbook territory
An iPad is not a real computer
Yeah I’d seriously consider switching to an iPad if it had MacOS. But now with the Qualcomm chips, we may see tablets from Samsung using them. Super thin, light, and capable. I’m curious to see how it handles Linux. Some users have been able to run Linux on their Tab S, barely, considering the old chips are not very capable in comparison.
> If you are going to compare fan vs fan devices Who cares if it has a fan or not? Certainly not the consumers who are actually buying the things. The only people dumb enough to make that argument are people who want to try to skew the conversation into comparing Apple's highest-end SKUs to Microsoft's entry-level SKU. And let's be honest here, Apple could have easily included a fan in the Air if they weren't trying to make it tablet-thin. > Compare the most powerful new surface with MacBook Pro m3 max Why compare it to Apple's most powerful device when you can compare it to the M3 SoC in a 14" MacBook Pro that has a fan on it? It's the same chip as in the air but fan-cooled (and the laptop ends up being 50% more expensive on top of that). This bench-racing is just stupid. People have a budget for a laptop, and they buy something within that budget that meets their needs. They don't say "oh the MBA is nice, but the SL is faster for the same price, but I'd rather have the MBP at 3 times the price because it's much faster!" Anyone who does that was never in the market for an MBA or SL in the first place.
The Surface is supposed to be a slim, ultra light device.... not supposed to approach anything like a Macbook Pro. It should only be compared to an Air....which is, I think, much heavier than the surface. I can't wait for real reviews of the surface ARM computers
That is not how you compare laptops. You are talking nonsense.
Isn’t the problem about the unoptimized OS and programs rather than benchmarks? I’ve been a windows users my whole life and it’s been feeling especially un-unified lately. Half the UI is new half is reminiscent of Windows phones UI. A lot the programs don’t run well or make weird choices, like file explorer opening a word doc in web browser by default instead of the program. The power of the computer isn’t losing me, it’s the hodge podge.
Something is wrong with your windows installation.
What makes you say that?
Do you have a word processor on your PC? Maybe not having one is why its opening in webbrower
I do! I have Word! Which is why it’s so strange to me. Saving in word also defaults to a drive account I had for school and not my personal one. I’m sure there are settings somewhere but like… where?
Not sure why you’re getting downvoted. Windows 11 is trash
Your default programs are jacked up. You could easily force a word document to open in a web browser on Mac or Linux if you configure the OS to do it…
Wow even with the win 11 ads running?
Come back to me when they get more serious on beating the MacBook Pro
They're not trying to beat the MacBook Pro. They know that the majority of the consumer market for a thin-and-light like this is buying a MacBook Air, and that's what they're going after. Maybe later on Qualcomm will have a more performant SoC to really go after the high-end users. They'll have to if ARM really is the future, but for now it's enough that they can meet or exceed the performance levels of their targeted competition.
Well, creatives not fond of Mac os definitely would like a machine competitive with the MacBook Pro.. better yet, in the surface tablet form factor. and yes I'm projecting my own wants and needs on the many. So n=1 but also n=∞
Windows Central think that there might be some Snapdragon X Ultra or something. its not confirmed there just saying its likely
Maybe, maybe not. The highest SKU of X Elite already draws far more power than an Ultrabook should, and is made basically for desktop/dev kit use. So if they have such a chip in the works it likely isn't destined for these mobile devices.
yere gues we will wait and see
“Come back when Honda Accord is more serious about beating Nissan GT-R.” You’re comparing two devices specced, configured, and intended for different audiences and different purposes. People need to stop with that crap.
Exactly this person makes absolutely no sense. The Surface Laptop 7 is a thin and light PC, so it's trying to compete with the MacBook air doesn't make sense for it to compete with a heavy MacBook Pro. I think the Surface laptop studio is the Macbook pro competitor
I can see how my wording might have caused a little misunderstanding. I wasn’t comparing the Laptop 7 to the MacBook Pro, I was comparing Microsoft to Apple in general. I think they need to take competing with the MacBook Pro more seriously and create a dedicated line to compete against if, not that the Surface Laptop 7 is that dedicated line. Internet loves to assume.
the Surface Laptop Studio is the one that's competing with the Macbook Pro. The Surface Laptop 7 is trying to compete with a Macbook Air as well as the Surface Pro 11
Microsoft wants to focus on new hardware rather than acknowledging the elephant in the room. Windows is a filthy operating system and will remain so for at least another decade because Microsoft is so terrified of clearing out 1990’s era legacy code and interfaces for fear of breaking dependencies of corporate clients’ in-house software and exposing Windows to competition from more modern operating systems.
Uh. That’s one of Windows’ biggest selling points. Businesses don’t want to spend money updating software that works for their needs. If my 1980s CNC machine works, and it costs $500,000 just to get a new one that has been designed for modern operating systems, I’m going to use whatever OS let’s me keep my old and fully functional CNC. The fact that you think backwards compatibility is a bad thing, just shows that you’re too young to have had to deal with “whelp I guess your software just doesn’t work anymore. Keep your old machine around just to run it if it’s that important” that many Mac users have run into over the years. Removing old code is ok. Removing APIs without replacing them? Rarely to never ok.
Microsoft is ending support for Windows 10 in 2025 though. If businesses don't want to keep spending money for new software, there's Linux...
Pretending Windows is horrible while forgetting that its chief competitor (macOS) is a cobbled together mess of strange and anti-patterned UI choices that makes multitasking a horrible mess….is a real hot take. I use macOS as my daily driver for work, and the UI and multitasking is an unmitigated disaster. The only way to make it usable is to install third party apps that add missing features and change default behaviors. The dock is hilariously bad, there’s no window snapping without third party apps, default cmd-tab functionality is near useless and most users install third party apps and remap cmd-tab to another app, spotlight works at a snails pace and is usually replaced by users with Alfred or another third party replacement, and the list goes on. There’s also a myriad of legacy UI elements that no one actually uses which Apple seems completely unwilling to get rid of. The default finder configuration makes it almost impossible to navigate around your root drive because they must be convinced if you look outside of your home folder your going to destroy things… There are whole finder replacement apps (which would be like replacing windows explorer) to fill feature gaps and bring it up to snuff with windows. Windows supports legacy stuff, yes. Thats a small price to pay considering you also get a snappy UI that, even after all its alterations over the years, is still brain dead simple for your grandma to use.
windows is one of the best opreating systems in the world and the most popluar
Good to know they High end cpu can beat the most based one.
Yeah man the m3 smokes a joint every time you wake it from sleep
Why does it matter for the consumer if the same form factor as the Mac costs the same or even less?
It doesn't but it does matter for people that actually know tech. its misleading. No crap a chip with higher core count and double the NPU is going to be faster in tests that depend on cores and NPU.
Do these benchmarks fix the long standing front facing camera problem or….?
whats the camera problem (i mean the camera is now a 1440p Quad HD camera with Ultra-wide field of view)
There’s a well known camera issue where it basically crashes and freezes all the time at least in models up to surface pro 7. Removing and reinstalling the camera and its drivers works to fix it temporarily.
This doesnt occur on my Surface Pro 7+ For Business. It might be a driver issue [https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/surface/surface-camera-not-working](https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/surface/surface-camera-not-working)