SP3 or SP2? That is the question... (Need advice from current owners)

[Kif]

Why in earth would anyone buy a system for gaming without a dedicated GFX card. The new Intel GPU's are much better but they get smoked by even low end dedicated GPU's. Yesterday when I was at Best Buy they had a bunch of SP2 demo units sitting out. After I spending about two minutes looking at one I knew I made the right choice by spending the extra dough to buy the SP3.

 

[callihan_44]

yes indeed you can game on the sp2, and from what Im seeing the sp3 gets slightly lower framerates. I can pretty much play any game from 2002 to 2005 on max settings...anything newer I lower the resolution to 720p and play around with the settings. Search youtube for surface pro gaming and you will see lots of vids showing you can def game on the pro devices

 

[aer0]

Went to the Microsoft store.
Took a bit to convince one of the employees to give me admin access on one of the demo units to download and run benchmarks,
a game (LOTRO), video editing software, etc.

Was somewhat disappointed at the performance, heat dissipation and noise on load.
However after hearing that the guys at the store will take back the i5 in 30days without any fees,
I decided to get the i5/4/128 to try the SP3 out until the i7 arrives.
Then after seeing if the i7 shows any more promise (through reviews and hands-on test), I'll jump on board with the i7
or just jump ship on the SP3 altogether and pray to the Holy Gates that a broadwell version/revamp will
graces us with its presence at year-end.

 

[Kif]

Was somewhat disappointed at the performance, heat dissipation and noise on load.
However after hearing that the guys at the store will take back the i5 in 30days without any fees,
I decided to get the i5/4/128 to try the SP3 out until the i7 arrives.
Then after seeing if the i7 shows any more promise (through reviews and hands-on test), I'll jump on board with the i7 or just jump ship on the SP3 altogether and pray to the Holy Gates that a broadwell version/revamp will graces us with its presence at year-end.

It sounds like broadwell is going to be further delayed until next year and that's probably why MS didn't wait for it's release. Regardless I wouldn't get my expectations up. This is an ultrabook and it's performance is always going to lag behind laptop and desktop systems. It's optimized for battery life and a low thermal envelope. So while the performance will improve the other systems will equality improve as well and the Surface won't really catch up. I think a person needs to decide what most important to them. Small form factor, battery life, performance, etc....

 

[BaritoneGuy]

I am not sure what folks are doing to make the fan be so noticeable. I heard when I first set the machine up and it was doing all the indexing and optimizations. The only time I hear it now is when I have more than one user ID logged in and IE seems to drive CPU on the inactive profile. As soon as I kill IE in the non active user the CPU returns to normal and the fan stops.

Now I am not a gamer, but I typically have several Office apps open and several IE Windows as well with the screen brightness over 70%.