Performance: General Usage & Battery Life

The Surface Book is a pretty powerful laptop, with all options packing high-end Intel Skylake hardware. The base model features an Intel Core i5-6300U with two cores and four threads clocked at ii.4 GHz with a Turbo Boost up to three.0 GHz on a unmarried core, or 2.9 GHz on 2 cores. This scrap features an Intel HD 520 GPU at 1000 MHz, and there's 3 MB of L3 enshroud. All Core i5 models come with 8 GB of RAM, and either 128 GB or 256 GB of storage.

If yous want a faster processor, Microsoft will sell you ane with an Intel Core i7-6600U, which features two cores, four threads clocked at 2.6 GHz with a Turbo Boost upwardly to 3.4 GHz (unmarried core) or 3.2 GHz (dual cadre). In that location'due south iv MB of L3 cache in this model, and a HD 520 GPU at 1050 MHz. Both the Core i7 and Core i5 CPUs have a rated TDP of 15W, are built on a 14nm FinFET process.

All Core i7 models too come with a discrete Nvidia GPU located in the keyboard base. This ways that when the tablet is attached to the keyboard, and yous're running a graphics-intensive app, the Nvidia GPU volition accept over the Hard disk drive 520 GPU in the Skylake CPU. In all other cases, the integrated graphics are used.

While neither Microsoft nor Nvidia have specifically stated what GPU is inside the Surface Book, information technology's pretty clear from inspection that it's a variant of the Nvidia GeForce 940M. The GPU packs 384 shader cores, 32 TMUs, 16 ROPs, and clock speeds of 954 MHz with a boost up to 993 MHz. It's paired with 1 GB of dedicated GDDR5 frame buffer.

All in all, there are 6 models of the Surface Book, which are as follows:

  • Core i5-6300U – 8 GB RAM – 128 GB SSD - $1499
  • Core i5-6300U – 8 GB RAM – 256 GB SSD - $1699
  • Core i5-6300U – GeForce 940M - 8 GB RAM – 256 GB SSD - $1899
  • Core i7-6600U – GeForce 940M - eight GB RAM – 256 GB SSD - $2099
  • Core i7-6600U – GeForce 940M - 16 GB RAM – 512 GB SSD - $2699 - (reviewed here)
  • Core i7-6600U – GeForce 940M - 16 GB RAM – 1 TB SSD - $3199

I'll start with some positive experiences of using the Cadre i7 model with xvi GB of RAM and the integrated Nvidia GPU. There's no doubting that this is a fast device, whether you use it in laptop or tablet mode. Compared to other tablets, the Surface Book really doesn't have a match at this size class, and simply crushes bones tasks similar web browsing, video watching, and document editing.

Compared to my daily driver, a Dell XPS 13 powered by an Intel Cadre i5-5200U, in basic tasks the Surface Book doesn't experience considerably faster, although the XPS does have the reward of packing a lower display resolution (1080p vs 3000 x 2000). If you're just planning on web browsing and light productivity tasks, any Skylake Cadre i5 laptop will suffice, and that includes the lower-spec models of the Surface Book.

The real advantage to having a Surface Book loaded up with a Cadre i7 CPU and dedicated GPU is the performance it provides in more intensive workloads. Editing photos in Lightroom was noticeably faster on the Surface Book than the XPS thirteen, every bit was editing photos in Photoshop. The Nvidia GPU doesn't make a huge difference in this sort of app, but the faster CPU and SSD certainly does.

Microsoft claims the Book is suitable for apply in Adobe Premiere Pro as well as in AutoCAD. It'southward in these two applications, among others, that the Nvidia GPU provides an advantage over integrated graphics. I personally tested Premiere on the Surface Book, which I use for editing videos on a workstation, and the extra performance of the 940M gives a decent performance bump when applying GPU-accelerated effects to your timeline.

On the flip side, the Surface Volume is not equivalent to a good desktop PC with even a modest Intel CPU and dedicated GPU. My personal rig is equipped with a modest Intel Core i5-3570K CPU, and for video encoding it understandably crushes the Surface Book. The Surface Book is capable of editing 1080p videos on the go, but you can basically forget 4K editing with the operation information technology provides.

In other words, the Surface Book is a peachy device to complement a workstation when you're away from your desk, merely information technology's not meant to supplant information technology.

In intensive workloads, particularly in Premiere Pro, Photoshop and in games, the Surface Volume is not quiet. The fans in the tablet spin upwards under moderate load, and when the CPU really needs to kicking into gear, the high-pitched fan tone can become obnoxious. It's audible over audio at a reasonable volume, and in general the laptop is louder (and runs hotter) than my XPS 13.

While I didn't have issues detaching the brandish, and I didn't feel screen flickering or general instability, I did have some problems getting applications to employ the dedicated Nvidia GPU. 3DMark, for case, refused to apply the 940M unless I specifically set up the "preferred graphics processor" to the Nvidia GPU; setting only 3DMark to prefer the Nvidia GPU didn't work, and automated selection didn't work either.

Considering automatic GPU option didn't work for 3DMark (and another apps), it'south hard to know whether when you fire up Creative Deject apps that the Nvidia GPU is being selected as it should be. Yous can check this within the app, but when I was using the Surface Volume, I was never confident that the software would appropriately choose which GPU to use. I haven't had the aforementioned problem on laptops with both integrated and dedicated GPUs – automatic selection has worked well in the by – but on the Surface, users might need to manually select the Nvidia GPU to get the best performance.

The Surface Book has a combined 70 Wh battery, which is above boilerplate for this class of laptop. The battery is split between an 18 Wh unit of measurement in the tablet, and a 52 Wh unit in the base. Naturally, the tablet'due south battery life is non cracking and you'll but manage a couple of hours of web browsing earlier needing to plug it in to the base of operations.

All the same, the bombardment life from the laptop as a whole is fantabulous. When I used the Surface Book as my workstation for a couple of days, I could pretty much go the entire 24-hour interval (8-10 hours) of moderate to intensive employ without needing to accuse the unit. I've heard reports that the Core i7 unit of measurement doesn't deliver as good battery life as the Cadre i5 models, but I was still very impressed with what it delivered.

Unfortunately, the Surface Book is still plagued with an event where the arrangement might not enter a slumber land properly when the chapeau is close. This doesn't sound similar a significant issue, only in that location were times when I'd put downwardly the Surface Volume overnight without plugging information technology in, merely to discover information technology was dead the next morn. This isn't something I've experienced with similar laptops, and considering I tin occasionally hear the fan with the lid close, information technology'southward clear the Book doesn't always sleep when it should.