New Surface Models?

Yes - loving it - can go weeks without ever buying gas, and electric is equating (kWh vs gas price) to about 80-90 mge. Plus it is SOOOO quiet and smooth ride to boot. Far better than my previous Prius...

OK - sorry for hijacking the thread (briefly) - but it has been a lot of fun.

 

I wonder if a next-gen Surface Pro is on the horizon after all, with the twist being an Intel CPU featuring AMD graphics to round things out. This Intel NUC that crept into Geekbench’s benchmark database (covered here) is said to feature a 15W Cannon Lake processor (the Core i3-8121U, described here) with AMD graphics (a Radeon 550, with 2 GB of GDDR5 dedicated memory, no less). Pay close attention to power requirements, 15W, and you can quickly see this format of processor could easily fit the bill for the Surface Pro line which uses 15W processors to drive its central processing. Additionally, the AMD’s 3D Graphics performance, per 3DMark, is roughly double that of Intel’s Iris Plus Graphics 640. It is no secret that Intel’s integrated graphics have long been a sticking point for the company, and after enjoying an AMD Ryzen 5 2400G-based HTPC for a month now, I must concur that Intel’s video decoding quality leaves much to desired compared to the competition. In particular, AMD’s clearer scaling, smoother deblocking, and minimized image trailing in decoding DVDs and Blu-rays is a night-and-day improvement, and many—including myself—consider AMD’s video decoding superior to NVIDIA’s as well. On the gaming side as well, AMD graphics rendering are better quality and less buggy than Intel’s graphics drivers ever have been. In short, if Microsoft gives us Surfaces with AMD graphics, that will be a tremendous step up for everyone and a leap forward for the Surface brand.

 

Honestly, I find that a little hard to believe since the 550 still has a TDP of 50W just by itself, but who knows.

More interesting to me personally though is that Intel just announced that 10nm still isn't ready for high volumes and there will be a new interim generation again.

https://www.pcworld.com/article/3269449/components-processors/intel-earnings-call.html

 

RAM seems a tad low at 2gb(3gb should be min for AMD and nvidia igps these days), but I take that either matches or is more than what Intel Cannon Lake IGP offers? I take 55w is for the desktop IGP variant? I think the new AMD Ryzen 3 with Vega IGP is rated at a total 85w while the Ryzen 5 with a better Vega is at 100w total. Maybe this version is running a lower watt and lower performance version of the 550 mobile? What are the mobile Vega's in the Intel Hades NUC rated at for comparison sake?

 

I may have spoken prematurely. Liliputing made an assumption. There is nothing conclusive. Many believe the RX 550 is onboard in that small form factor as a seperate chip entirely. In fact, the RX 550 may only exist as a value add so this NUC is less forgettable. It has long been stated than Intel’s first gen 10nm process will be behind their mature 14nm++ process in efficiency. Without a dedicated GPU, this NUC would not offer much else worthwhile.

Another interesting development today from AnandTech: “(...) Intel also made it official that they are not going to have any volume shipments of 10 nm until 2019.” AMD’s 7-nanometer Zen 2/Ryzen 3 is still on track for early 2019. So I think the chances have increased even further in favor of a fully AMD CPU-powered Surface. With a process lead on top of their more efficient core design, AMD’s Zen architecture will scale accordingly and be ahead of Intel on all counts.


Source:

https://www.anandtech.com/show/12691/intel-announces-q1-fy-2018-results-another-record

 

Maybe Moore's Law has been broken at 10nm.

 

Nope. It is actually only Intel’s execution that is broken:
https://www.anandtech.com/show/12693/intel-delays-mass-production-of-10-nm-cpus-to-2019


AMD appears to be going forward at 7nm with Moore’s Law fully functional:
https://wccftech.com/amd-sampling-7nm-zen-2-cpus-later-this-year-launching-in-2019/

 

Funny, you're an energy lawyer driving a Hybrid and I'm an environmental lawyer, driving a 22 mpg premium gas eater.

 

The era of Trump, also known as the upside down.

 

To be fair, Intel doesn't measure their node exactly the same way that AMD and ARM do. Supposedly, Intel's 10nm is about equivalent to AMD's 7nm. But yeah, this is like four generations of delays now. Clearly something is broken for Intel and they've squandered their process lead at this point.