CrippsCorner
Well-Known Member
You've got a point but I reckon 90% of people won't even know about it, or would have forgotten about it by then.
Surface Pro 2.5?
- Thread starter SteveBorough
- Start date
You've got a point but I reckon 90% of people won't even know about it, or would have forgotten about it by then.
MickeyLittle
Active Member
And that is my point. If you are looking at the specs for 2 Surface Pro 2 tablets on ebay and they are both in great shape and both listed at $800 but 1 is listed with the 4200U at 1.6ghs and the other is listed with the 4300u at 1.9ghz, which one are you, I, and everybody else on this forum and on this entire planet going to buy!
CreativeLemming
Active Member
You're still assuming that those selling them are going to know the difference, rather than just post up the standard spec which says 4th gen i5. I suspect these will be in the minority, as will those buying. If you're so concerned, just don't mention 4200 at all, I'm sure you'll still sell it!
MickeyLittle
Active Member
I have the 4300. My concern has been handled!
ericpelleg
Member
Agreed
I just replaced my SP2 in the Beachwood Store in Cleveland OH. I got the last 256GB/8GB model in the store, lot number 1352. It has a 4300U.
I just replaced my SP2 in the Beachwood Store in Cleveland OH. I got the last 256GB/8GB model in the store, lot number 1352. It has a 4300U.
MickeyLittle
Active Member
It looks like from several threads here that the 256GB and for sure the 512GB is hit and miss regardless on Lot 1351 or Lot 1352 as several have reported getting both the 4200 and the 4300 with those Lots. It does look like the 128GB is pretty much a sure thing (until I jinx it now!) with either Lots 1351 or 1352 getting the 4300 processor.
ericpelleg
Member
There is something different going on here. I have a number of pieces of software that I routinely run at 100% CPU (Java, phython and C++). I noticed right away with my first SP2 (4200U) that it didn't matter if I had the power settings set to balanced or high performance, or whether I was plugged in or on battery. The CPU would turbo bust to 2.5 GHz and stay there until the code was done. ( I paid attention because of all the insane power settings Samsung provided with the 700T Pro). All default power settings.
Now with the 4300U there is a major change. Setting the computer to high performance and if on AC the computer jumps to turbo mode whether or not there is anything going on. On battery it waits until there is something to calculate.
On balanced, the computer will not boost as aggressively (like High performance on battery). The new behavior is similar to what I had come to expect in Windows. I wonder how the new firmware will change things.
I've also been doing performance comparisons. 4300U is about 10% faster than the 4200U. Not surprising since the Surface can cool the CPU enough to run my codes at full turbo indefinitely.
Now with the 4300U there is a major change. Setting the computer to high performance and if on AC the computer jumps to turbo mode whether or not there is anything going on. On battery it waits until there is something to calculate.
On balanced, the computer will not boost as aggressively (like High performance on battery). The new behavior is similar to what I had come to expect in Windows. I wonder how the new firmware will change things.
I've also been doing performance comparisons. 4300U is about 10% faster than the 4200U. Not surprising since the Surface can cool the CPU enough to run my codes at full turbo indefinitely.
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MickeyLittle
Active Member
For me and maybe 1 or 2 others who are not experts at CPU usage, is what you are telling us good news for owning the 4300u or bad news?
Also, I don't know if this has anything to do with it, but since I exchanged the 4200 for the 4300 BatteryBar is showing that I am constantly getting between 8 and 8.5 hours of battery life. I do not have the December firmware update installed. I have the same usage pattern and configuration as I had with the 4200 where I was averaging about 7 hours of battery life. Interesting.
MickeyLittle
Active Member
That is interesting. If anything for me I feel like with the 4300 I'm getting 30 minutes to an hour less than I was getting on the 4200. But again I only had the 4200 for a few days so this is just a gut call on my part with very little data to support this.
For those curious, ready to throw away their 4200u equipped SP2's, this will not relate to a 10% increase while playing a game (or anything that uses the iGPU & CPU) as is often asked here lately... if ericpelleg added a GPU load to his usage to this task, things would throttle and you'd be right back to hitting the 15W TDP and would throttle as needed, effectively nullifying any gain. Is good to see the cooling does have some headroom for very particular tasks however.
ericpelleg
Member
My comment should be fairly neutral, only that the chips are behaving differently. That said if you noticed good battery life with the 4200U on high performance it was because it wasn't pushing the system to hard. You won't see the same with the 4300U unless you set it to balanced or power saver.
But owning the 4300U is positive. You win because the chip is performing at least 10% faster with every test I try and battery life is about the same. But note, these are CPU intensive tasks.
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