Wow thanks for this series of videos, I'll mainly be using it as a development platform for a graphical application so these are really helpful. Thanks again!
+cbutters I haven't found a way to stop power limiting entirely, sadly. Maybe you will. Eagerly hoping there's a way to get the full power of this thing...
Thanks so much for this video, I would also really like to see more about the surface book dGPU and comparing core i5 vs core i7, i7 6600u vs 6650u, etc. There just isn't alot of benchmark comparisons that are using the same platform for testing. I have pretty much decided on SP4 i7 but would like to get a few supporting factors in line to help make the case. Looking forward to further videos/results if possible; Thanks!
Interesting that it still power throttles it when it's plugged in to the charger. It's not running off the battery, so I figure it wouldn't care. Especially if you plug in a higher amperage charger (going to suck going from my 60W charger to the 40W on my surface pro 4). Maybe the lower charger can't keep up if the processor is completely unlocked.
+TechTablets.com It has never turned on when browsing, unless running windows updates in the background. Even in Gaming cutscenes, the fan has turned off.
You the man Cbutters! Ordered an sp4proi7 ages ago and really keen to do some gaming on it so I'm relying on you to make my dream come true! I see John cuppi's fur mark undervolting test did show any great gains but I'm still hoping!
Informative Video..Liked & Subbed..!! How long is the battery life on the SP4 i7 on mixed real world use? Is it considerable lower than the i5 version? This is a deal-breaker piece of information for me..Thanks!
So would these results apply to work in Photoshop CC? Also, does throttling just mean that they are slowing themselves down, or does it also mean that the fans kick on? For the new surface pro, do you think that a fanless i5 would be too limited? Does the i7 throttle earlier/more? Would it be annoying or is it more of a background thing that you don't notice unless you're monitoring it specifically?
Does the surfacebook's 65w adapter stop the SP4 from draining the battery under full load? The standard 35w SP4 adapter just doesn't have enough wattage to power a fully loaded i7 and causes it to drain the battery even when plugged in.
Thanks, it was very helpful. Even with stock settings i7 is gonna be great for CAD. Are you sure it does not lower clocks to stay within ~60 degrees? Could you try to test it with an external usb fan, like you did with surface pro 3?
+Alexander Zhulin It is definitely not thermal throttling to keep it within 60 degrees. It is power limit throttling to keep power consumption down. Intel XTU tells you if it is thermally throttling or power limit throttling, so it is guaranteed that heat is not an issue. That said, I DID try it with the fan. NO difference. :(
If you had time and interest, would you do one comparing the i7 iris graphics VS surface book dgpu , i know you mention its 30% more but id love to see it
This is exactly what I wanted, thanks for the video. I was getting worried my i7/16/256 sp4 would be slower then the i5 sp4. Hopefully we find a voltage that will help it power limit less. Has it been confirmed there is no difference using the dock? It pushes more power but I doubt the sp4 can take advantage of the extra power from the dock.
Well, I just bought a surface pro 4 i7 16bg of ram for windows it was fantastic but when I install virtual box and instaleld linux and ran some videos it was getting very hot and fan was making noise. I really wanted to keep this machine but did not work for me. Is there other choice out there?
+Bernard M I doubt you need to bother tuning. It is not like Photoshop need to refresh your drawing at 30 or 60 fps. How fast can you draw anyway? Most of the filter processes are not GPU intensive, they are more mathematical which the CPU itself will handle quickly enough. If you really need the speed in photo processing, I guess you'll need the Skylake CPU with quad core, not dual cores. Dell XPS 15 Infinity has 45 watt quad core Skylake CPU and dedicated GPU if you think they will help you shave off few minutes of processing time. But really, when you use Photoshop or Zbrush, more than 90% of time, the CPU is idle, waiting for you to do something.
Sorry to say but the limit is a GOOD thing. Otherwise, the people would have complained that the device heated up too much! I was expecting ~30% gain, based on Iris Pro's gain with eDRAM. Of course if MS had put 28W Iris 550 SoC in there it would have been much better, but it would have got mighty toasty.
+Digital Guy Don't confuse SoC with device. The chip is running at a very cool ~60-70C. That in turn means the hot-spot right under the SoC won't be too hot either. There are complaints about that when you look on the web, heck even for the iPad!
Thanks! I thought, however, that you were referring to "tuning" in the sense of some kind of a BIOS hack to alter the TDP limit. Apparently, some BIOSes do have an option tu turn off "power-saving", which in reality is a TDP throttling option.
Don't try override power limit. it will brick your device. i unlocked my DVP11(7130, 4300Y)'s power limit. at first, it seems good. i saw 3dmark score near SP3. i was very happy. but just after a week, it bricked. if you forcibly override power limit, your device's mainboard can't endure its power consumption and heat.
Hey guys, quick question: I have heard about how the i7 so strong that it forces the machine to work harder and inevitably gets hotter which causes the performance to suffer. Is this true? Is it better to get the i5 if you want a better gaming experience? Please get back to me on this. I guess what I'm trying to ask is, which processor is better for gaming in terms of Surface?
+Berk THE TURK The i7 is ALWAYS going to be the faster gaming device over the i5. Sure it throttles, but it throttles down to a level that is still on average roughly 30-40% faster than the i5 version (some cases 80% faster) . Whether the price premium is worth it is what your question should be. If money is no object, with the i7 you will definitely enjoy an improved gaming experience over the i5.
+cbutters Tech Thank you so much for the quick response! Why I ask is because I bought the Surface Pro 3 when it came out and I bought the fully specced model, the i7 256GB 8GB RAM version. After trying to play some games on it (which turned out to be...questionable) I was informed that the i5 version was in fact FASTER! In fact you can see it on their site! So why was that the case? So are you saying that it's not the case with the Surface Book? Will the i7 be a better option? Also, is 8GB RAM enough for gaming or is 16GB required? Please elaborate on this. THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!
+Berk THE TURK I may have missed your real question... Were you asking about the difference between the surfacebook i5 vs i7 or Surface Pro 4 i5 vs i7? For gaming on the surfacebook; as long as you have the dgpu option, i5 or i7 difference will be really small. 8GB of RAM is enough for gaming now assuming you don't run a lot of applications in the background. 16GB is most useful to those running VMs or heavy database work, that could change in the next few years, but you will most likely have upgraded by then I'm assuming. If your use case is solely web browsing and gaming, I would think the price jump to 16gb would not be worth it.
Thank you so much for replying! I was referring to the comparison between the i7 and i5 Surface Book in terms of gaming. I need a machine that will play games well as well as run programs like Auto CAD, Rhino, Photoshop, etc. very well. In this case, will the i5/256GB/dGPU/8GB RAM be enough? INPUT WILL BE APPRECIATED!!!
+Berk THE TURK The surfacebook w/ dGPU is going to play games much better than the Surface Pro 4 that is for sure. Its still not what you would call a "Gaming" laptop; but should still play games reasonably even newer titles at low resolutions. I think the model you specified the i5/256gb/dgpu/8gb of ram is the definite sweet spot of value for this type of device. increasing any of the specs (cpu/ram/ssd size) is not going to improve performance very much in your usage model over that particular model you have defined. That said, if you have need of a larger ssd, or know for any reason you will need more ram or think that extra 10-15% of cpu speed will be useful, now is the time to go for it since you can't upgrade later.
Could you please compare i7 6650U with 540 vs an i7 with 520 (for example i7 6500u)? The i5 has just 3MB of caché instead of the 4MB of caché from the i7. ark.intel.com/compare/88190,91497
+Freda Shen You are right, the official listed name of the GPU is Intel Iris Graphics 540. ark.intel.com/products/91163/Intel-Core-i7-6560U-Processor-4M-Cache-up-to-3_20-GHz
I don't understand why you have TDP throttling, while John Cuppi isn't having any (as far as I can see in his Minecraft video)... Do you have an idea why this happening? Minecraft should be as demanding as this benchmark, as it's constantly trying to have the best framerates, isn't it ?
+Beforeffects John Cuppi did not have the "Power Limit Throttling" option visible on his Intel XTU console. You can tell from the clockspeed of the GPU and the CPU that it is still throttling heavily. It is not a "Thermal Throttling" that is happening, so it is not showing on his screen.
+thewrathofjay Only specs not listed are ram and storage. SurfaceBook in the film was 8GB / 256GB the SP4 i7 was 16GB / 512GB Although I don't think that the ram or disk speed is going to affect framerate that much... load times maybe.
WELL. integrated graphics use the on-board ram. Dual channel ram will be much faster than single channel the ram speed also effects the performance of these igpu's
+mrzazzaable RIGHT! Why don't all the other i7 options on other devices use the 540 graphics?! The Thinkpad Yoga 260 with i7-6650U w/ HD graphics 540 would be a killer device.
Guess its just intel playing the market as usual. Whats amazing is other laptops offer a 940m i5 for around $1000 yet a i7 alone with costs $1500, so 500 dollars more for 30% more cpu performance. This market is so hard to get value.
Title suggest that comparison is between surface pro 4 i7 vs surface pro 4 i5.. This is horrible thumbs down.. you don't even say 'surface book' anytime seems you are hiding this..
+Humberto Jr. The SurfaceBook was configured to run in iGPU mode. It has been shown that the surfacebook less the discrete Nvidia GPU uses the exact same CPU as the SP4. Since I'm not a millionaire, I used the Surfacebook in iGPU mode as a proxy to test the Intel 520 graphics against the Intel 540 graphics. Despite this, I at no point suggest that I am comparing an i5 vs and i7 Surface Pro 4. I only state facts. Do you think saying "SurfaceBook"would have been more effective and more transparent than showing the full surfacebook in the frame of the shot the entire time? There is no deception here, and the results are accurately comparing the Intel 520 and the Intel 540.
+samitha sheshan EDRAM is not present on the non iris i5 surface pro 4. EDRAM makes for a huge performance in graphics performance. It can also serve as a cache for normal CPU functions. It also has never been made available in a 15 watt package before.
Wow thanks for this series of videos, I'll mainly be using it as a development platform for a graphical application so these are really helpful. Thanks again!
one of the best videos comparing i5 vs i7, looking forward for the next
Great comparison, thank you!
+John Cuppi Thanks. I've been loving your videos as well.
+cbutters I haven't found a way to stop power limiting entirely, sadly. Maybe you will. Eagerly hoping there's a way to get the full power of this thing...
+John Cuppi ive seen videos from you two guys, and they have been really usefull thanks!
Thanks so much for this video, I would also really like to see more about the surface book dGPU and comparing core i5 vs core i7, i7 6600u vs 6650u, etc. There just isn't alot of benchmark comparisons that are using the same platform for testing. I have pretty much decided on SP4 i7 but would like to get a few supporting factors in line to help make the case. Looking forward to further videos/results if possible; Thanks!
damn that last part was really confusing! non the less though cool video!
Interesting that it still power throttles it when it's plugged in to the charger. It's not running off the battery, so I figure it wouldn't care. Especially if you plug in a higher amperage charger (going to suck going from my 60W charger to the 40W on my surface pro 4). Maybe the lower charger can't keep up if the processor is completely unlocked.
Good comparison! How is the i7 SP4 fan noise when surfing the net, youtube videos etc? I don't hear the fan ever come on doing this on my i5 SP4.
+TechTablets.com It has never turned on when browsing, unless running windows updates in the background. Even in Gaming cutscenes, the fan has turned off.
+cbutters that's good to know, my sp3i5's fan makes a lot of noise even browsing around facebook
+v0000000000000000v Yeah I was actually playing minecraft with frame limiting turned on and the fan turned completely off.... lol
+v0000000000000000v Yeh mine too, Is there anything can do to reduce it. Does your sp3i5's low battery. Mine r just only 3 hours
+v0000000000000000v yeah my surfacepro 3 also made too much noise when browsing really pathetic for a device of that caliber.
You the man Cbutters! Ordered an sp4proi7 ages ago and really keen to do some gaming on it so I'm relying on you to make my dream come true! I see John cuppi's fur mark undervolting test did show any great gains but I'm still hoping!
Sorry, 'didn't show'
Informative Video..Liked & Subbed..!!
How long is the battery life on the SP4 i7 on mixed real world use? Is it considerable lower than the i5 version? This is a deal-breaker piece of information for me..Thanks!
+Just Curious Just got it in the mail a few hrs ago, so I'm still testing that.
So would these results apply to work in Photoshop CC? Also, does throttling just mean that they are slowing themselves down, or does it also mean that the fans kick on? For the new surface pro, do you think that a fanless i5 would be too limited? Does the i7 throttle earlier/more? Would it be annoying or is it more of a background thing that you don't notice unless you're monitoring it specifically?
Does the surfacebook's 65w adapter stop the SP4 from draining the battery under full load?
The standard 35w SP4 adapter just doesn't have enough wattage to power a fully loaded i7 and causes it to drain the battery even when plugged in.
Good comparison, thanks!
May I ask you which program have you used for the comparison? The one running in the upper part of the screen. Thanks!
+Luca Dressino FRAPS
Thanks for the info!
Thanks, it was very helpful. Even with stock settings i7 is gonna be great for CAD. Are you sure it does not lower clocks to stay within ~60 degrees? Could you try to test it with an external usb fan, like you did with surface pro 3?
+Alexander Zhulin It is definitely not thermal throttling to keep it within 60 degrees. It is power limit throttling to keep power consumption down. Intel XTU tells you if it is thermally throttling or power limit throttling, so it is guaranteed that heat is not an issue. That said, I DID try it with the fan. NO difference. :(
+cbutters Did the fan make you feel cool though? That is the question.
+Joos Oh yeah, super cool. this thing just gets warm anyways, never super hot like SP3 sometimes
+cbutters When I tried the fan it was from the wrong side... see new results: ruclips.net/video/FpLLliWT5FM/видео.html
If you had time and interest, would you do one comparing the i7 iris graphics VS surface book dgpu , i know you mention its 30% more but id love to see it
This is exactly what I wanted, thanks for the video. I was getting worried my i7/16/256 sp4 would be slower then the i5 sp4. Hopefully we find a voltage that will help it power limit less. Has it been confirmed there is no difference using the dock? It pushes more power but I doubt the sp4 can take advantage of the extra power from the dock.
+Costa “mrGREEK360” Apostolou I tried the 4.0 amp surfacebook adapter on the SP4 i7, and no difference. I haven't tried the dock though.
+cbutters is that 65W power supply you tried on surface pro 4?
I can't decide between the i5 and i7. How is the battery life on both?
Well, I just bought a surface pro 4 i7 16bg of ram for windows it was fantastic but when I install virtual box and instaleld linux and ran some videos it was getting very hot and fan was making noise. I really wanted to keep this machine but did not work for me. Is there other choice out there?
Since this is CPU, will the tuning help use of programs like photoshop and Zbrush?
Hope you have time to answer, really interested in this :)
+Bernard M I doubt you need to bother tuning. It is not like Photoshop need to refresh your drawing at 30 or 60 fps. How fast can you draw anyway? Most of the filter processes are not GPU intensive, they are more mathematical which the CPU itself will handle quickly enough. If you really need the speed in photo processing, I guess you'll need the Skylake CPU with quad core, not dual cores. Dell XPS 15 Infinity has 45 watt quad core Skylake CPU and dedicated GPU if you think they will help you shave off few minutes of processing time. But really, when you use Photoshop or Zbrush, more than 90% of time, the CPU is idle, waiting for you to do something.
Why not use the same two machines?
Sorry to say but the limit is a GOOD thing. Otherwise, the people would have complained that the device heated up too much! I was expecting ~30% gain, based on Iris Pro's gain with eDRAM. Of course if MS had put 28W Iris 550 SoC in there it would have been much better, but it would have got mighty toasty.
+Mark Wang this is not thermanl throttling, this is power throttling, which is not a good thing when plugged in.
+Digital Guy Don't confuse SoC with device. The chip is running at a very cool ~60-70C. That in turn means the hot-spot right under the SoC won't be too hot either. There are complaints about that when you look on the web, heck even for the iPad!
So, have you made that next video on how to tune the SP4 to improve TDP throttling?
ruclips.net/video/FpLLliWT5FM/видео.html
Enjoy!
Thanks! I thought, however, that you were referring to "tuning" in the sense of some kind of a BIOS hack to alter the TDP limit. Apparently, some BIOSes do have an option tu turn off "power-saving", which in reality is a TDP throttling option.
Don't try override power limit. it will brick your device. i unlocked my DVP11(7130, 4300Y)'s power limit. at first, it seems good. i saw 3dmark score near SP3. i was very happy. but just after a week, it bricked. if you forcibly override power limit, your device's mainboard can't endure its power consumption and heat.
is the Intel graphics 520 any good for gaming
So are the processors just for graphics? Im a noob sorry.
what about i7 HD520 vs i7 HD 540?
pavy415 SP4 i7 always comes with HD540
This video could have been 2 minutes instead of 6
Still it doesn't feel like I wasted 4 minutes,.. the content was really helpfull
pioneer7777777 and what's the matter he loves to explain mooore
What keyboard is that on the i5 model?
the i5 is the surfacebook, it is the DGPU keyboard base, the SP4 is the i7 and it has the teal keyboard cover.
For the purposes of testing Intel 520 vs Intel 540, I disabled the nvidia chip in the surfacebook keyboard.
+cbutters Tech thank you
you can unlock the power settings to see how it actually performs
+PeloyGeek I did do the GPU unlock power profile to max settings. It still didn't seem to go above 950mhz GPU, and benchmarks didn't change.
:o
Hey guys, quick question:
I have heard about how the i7 so strong that it forces the machine to work harder and inevitably gets hotter which causes the performance to suffer. Is this true? Is it better to get the i5 if you want a better gaming experience?
Please get back to me on this. I guess what I'm trying to ask is, which processor is better for gaming in terms of Surface?
+Berk THE TURK The i7 is ALWAYS going to be the faster gaming device over the i5. Sure it throttles, but it throttles down to a level that is still on average roughly 30-40% faster than the i5 version (some cases 80% faster) . Whether the price premium is worth it is what your question should be. If money is no object, with the i7 you will definitely enjoy an improved gaming experience over the i5.
+cbutters Tech Thank you so much for the quick response! Why I ask is because I bought the Surface Pro 3 when it came out and I bought the fully specced model, the i7 256GB 8GB RAM version. After trying to play some games on it (which turned out to be...questionable) I was informed that the i5 version was in fact FASTER! In fact you can see it on their site!
So why was that the case?
So are you saying that it's not the case with the Surface Book? Will the i7 be a better option?
Also, is 8GB RAM enough for gaming or is 16GB required? Please elaborate on this.
THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!
+Berk THE TURK I may have missed your real question... Were you asking about the difference between the surfacebook i5 vs i7 or Surface Pro 4 i5 vs i7? For gaming on the surfacebook; as long as you have the dgpu option, i5 or i7 difference will be really small.
8GB of RAM is enough for gaming now assuming you don't run a lot of applications in the background. 16GB is most useful to those running VMs or heavy database work, that could change in the next few years, but you will most likely have upgraded by then I'm assuming. If your use case is solely web browsing and gaming, I would think the price jump to 16gb would not be worth it.
Thank you so much for replying! I was referring to the comparison between the i7 and i5 Surface Book in terms of gaming. I need a machine that will play games well as well as run programs like Auto CAD, Rhino, Photoshop, etc. very well. In this case, will the i5/256GB/dGPU/8GB RAM be enough?
INPUT WILL BE APPRECIATED!!!
+Berk THE TURK The surfacebook w/ dGPU is going to play games much better than the Surface Pro 4 that is for sure. Its still not what you would call a "Gaming" laptop; but should still play games reasonably even newer titles at low resolutions. I think the model you specified the i5/256gb/dgpu/8gb of ram is the definite sweet spot of value for this type of device. increasing any of the specs (cpu/ram/ssd size) is not going to improve performance very much in your usage model over that particular model you have defined. That said, if you have need of a larger ssd, or know for any reason you will need more ram or think that extra 10-15% of cpu speed will be useful, now is the time to go for it since you can't upgrade later.
Could you please compare i7 6650U with 540 vs an i7 with 520 (for example i7 6500u)? The i5 has just 3MB of caché instead of the 4MB of caché from the i7.
ark.intel.com/compare/88190,91497
I think the gpu on sp4 i7 is Intel iris 540 instead of Intel hd 540
+Freda Shen You are right, the official listed name of the GPU is Intel Iris Graphics 540. ark.intel.com/products/91163/Intel-Core-i7-6560U-Processor-4M-Cache-up-to-3_20-GHz
I don't understand why you have TDP throttling, while John Cuppi isn't having any (as far as I can see in his Minecraft video)...
Do you have an idea why this happening? Minecraft should be as demanding as this benchmark, as it's constantly trying to have the best framerates, isn't it ?
+Beforeffects John Cuppi did not have the "Power Limit Throttling" option visible on his Intel XTU console. You can tell from the clockspeed of the GPU and the CPU that it is still throttling heavily. It is not a "Thermal Throttling" that is happening, so it is not showing on his screen.
Oh right, thanks. Well that's pretty bad, hope you guys find a solution to unlish the power of this beast !
Intel HD Graphics 520 i heard you can very limited games
Can you try metal gear the phantom pain
Funny... I commented on this video earlier today and its not here now...
we need ALL of the specs of the laptops to get a proper comparison!
+thewrathofjay Only specs not listed are ram and storage. SurfaceBook in the film was 8GB / 256GB the SP4 i7 was 16GB / 512GB Although I don't think that the ram or disk speed is going to affect framerate that much... load times maybe.
WELL. integrated graphics use the on-board ram.
Dual channel ram will be much faster than single channel
the ram speed also effects the performance of these igpu's
All SurfaceBook and surface pro 4 devices use dual channel ram according to specifications listed.
half way there, good work.
The i7 looks so much better graphically. Colors look washed out on the i5.
When gpu used the i7 cpu is running a lot slower that i5... Not good for pro work (i dont care about games).
Give me the 540 in something other than a f'ing tablet!!!!
+mrzazzaable RIGHT! Why don't all the other i7 options on other devices use the 540 graphics?! The Thinkpad Yoga 260 with i7-6650U w/ HD graphics 540 would be a killer device.
Guess its just intel playing the market as usual. Whats amazing is other laptops offer a 940m i5 for around $1000 yet a i7 alone with costs $1500, so 500 dollars more for 30% more cpu performance. This market is so hard to get value.
Title suggest that comparison is between surface pro 4 i7 vs surface pro 4 i5.. This is horrible thumbs down.. you don't even say 'surface book' anytime seems you are hiding this..
+Humberto Jr. The SurfaceBook was configured to run in iGPU mode. It has been shown that the surfacebook less the discrete Nvidia GPU uses the exact same CPU as the SP4. Since I'm not a millionaire, I used the Surfacebook in iGPU mode as a proxy to test the Intel 520 graphics against the Intel 540 graphics. Despite this, I at no point suggest that I am comparing an i5 vs and i7 Surface Pro 4. I only state facts. Do you think saying "SurfaceBook"would have been more effective and more transparent than showing the full surfacebook in the frame of the shot the entire time? There is no deception here, and the results are accurately comparing the Intel 520 and the Intel 540.
I didn't say anything about video just title. anyway you're on good way, congratulations, thumbs up
This is no longer works intel and microsoft fucked it up you need to delete the damn intel thermal framework and disable the auto driver update.
64mb
+samitha sheshan 64mb edram?
+cbutters why it is that important
+samitha sheshan EDRAM is not present on the non iris i5 surface pro 4. EDRAM makes for a huge performance in graphics performance. It can also serve as a cache for normal CPU functions. It also has never been made available in a 15 watt package before.
cbutters dynamic ram
+samitha sheshan Are you a bot? I have no idea what you are saying. Quite being so vague and elaborate on your thoughts.