Slashdot Mirror
Surface Pro 3 Handily Outperforms iPad Air 2 and Nexus 9
An anonymous reader points to an interesting comparison of current tablets' peformance, as measured with the Geekbench benchmarking tool, which boils down various aspects of performance to produce a single number. The clear winner from the models fielded wasn't from Apple of Samsung (Samsung's entrants came much lower down, in fact), but from Microsoft: the i5-equipped Surface Pro 3, with a Geekbench score of 5069.; second place goes to the Apple iPad Air 2, with 4046. The Nexus 9 rated third, with 3537. One model on the list that U.S. buyers may not be familiar with is the Tesco Hudl 2, a bargain tablet which Trusted Reviews seems quite taken by.
The Surface pro 3 is a laptop equivalent. The ipad and the nexus are strictly tablets. I would never expect them to compare from a performance perspective.
Posted rather quick and a bit mockingly, I was surprised to find that ... it actually does!
A myriad of guides exist to install Ubuntu on a Surface Pro 3 after somebody showed it could be done more than a year ago.
Now the first hit in Google is how to set up dual boot. Amazing.
Comparing retail prices hint what might be the better performer here.
€ 999,- Surface Pro 3
€ 450,- Apple iPad Air 2
€ 350,- Nexus 9
The i5 Surface Pro 3 with 128 GB of storage costs $1000.
The iPad Air 2 with 128 GB of storage costs $500.
So the Surface Pro costs 100% more for a 25% bump in speed? And we're spinning this as a win for MS?
IOW, who cares?
In any case, the spin is opposite to reality. The remarkable thing here is that an iPad Air2 nearly matches the performance of an I5 notebook replacement...
i dont think it was ever a question. the surface pro line has always been the powerhouse.
Considering it has a full notebook x86 CPU (and not a ultra-low-power one), while the iPad has a ultra-low-power ARM CPU, the Surface Pro should be fucking ashamed it only is 25% faster.
Oh, and since this is a SP with an i5, it costs at least $999. So much for price equality...
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
In these form factors, it's no longer a question of peak CPU performance. These processors all thermal-throttle to the point where none of them are going to be performing at peak while in these form factors. The same i5 in the Surface will provide significantly more performance when in another form factor (like a NUC).
Which is interesting in that it means today, the design of the device itself -- in terms of heat dissipation coupled with total system power -- is what determines performance, not which processor model you have.
Geekbench's own numbers put the iPad Air at 4528, only 10% off the i5. Which is astounding, because five years ago Intel's ULV CPUs were hitting 2000-2500 on the same benchmark while Apple's new A4 was 200.
The flagship ARM CPUs cost a tenth as much as Intel's chips, consume a fraction of the power, and have been roughly doubling performance every year while Intel has virtually plateaued*. If that trend continues, by the end of this year they'll have surpassed Intel on virtually every metric.
Of course, AMD reached pole position a decade ago until Intel's Core 2 decisively took back the lead. Intel may repeat history with Skylake; if not, the computer world could get a lot more interesting over the next few years.
(*on clock speed and IPC they're been scarcely improving 10% a year; IPW is increasing somewhat faster but still well behind ARM designs)
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
That's a criterion you just made up. Your statement is approximately equivalent to "a tablet without a USB port is not a tablet". Or, "a tablet that runs an actual operating system that can run ProTools cannot possibly be a tablet because reasons".
I have a desktop system without a fan. Does that make it "not a desktop"?
You are welcome on my lawn.
I have two surface pro 3's. They're by far, hands down, the best tablet for music production and performance. They run full-blown ProTools, VST plugins, Ableton Live, and the full suite of Native Instruments software. I have USB ports for my external audio hardware and MIDI and the touch interface is delightful for on-screen faders and drawing waveforms and envelope curves.
I don't care if I'm a niche. I love my Surface Pro 3's. Somebody finally made something exactly the way I need it.
You cannot produce professional music on any iPad. All of the external hardware are toys and the music apps are nothing but gimmick.
You are welcome on my lawn.
surface pro 3 is not a tablet. it's a pc. And it's worthless without it's keyboard, everyone that owns one knows this.
Disclaimer, I own one.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
You can also run a full OS_X on the surface 3. Makes more sense than IOS or Android on that hardware.
Wifi not working yet, but as lumpy said, wifi doesn't work in Windows 8.1 either, half the time. (fix the bugs ffs!)
http://www.insanelymac.com/for...