18 TECH ADVISOR • JANUARY 2020MICROSOFT SURFACE EVENT
former tests are somewhat older. The Work benchmark
focuses on office tasks, while the Creative benchmark
leans more heavily into mainstream gaming, video
editing, and photo processing.
We’d expect to see substantive gains over the
Surface Laptop 2. Surprisingly, only the Creative
benchmark produced those results. But this is
just the first of many tests where Intel’s Ice Lake
machine, highlighted in blue, smokes the Surface
Laptop 3’s Ryzen chip.
UL’s updated PCMark 10 suite also proves that
the AMD/Microsoft Ryzen chip can hold its own.
Unfortunately, we don’t have a direct comparison
against Dell’s Ice Lake notebook on this test.
One interesting bonus: applications seem to
launch fast with the Surface Laptop 3, and that
might be because of the SSD Microsoft chose. Using
CrystalDiskMark 4.0.3, random 4K reads (using
the 4K32T1 setting) on the Surface Laptop 3 are
261.2MB/s, basically twice as fast as the 133.8MB/s
reported by the Surface Laptop 2. The Surface Laptop
3’s responsiveness is noticeable, and noteworthy.
Maxon’s Cinebench test stresses the CPU in
rendering a fixed CGI scene, showing how well the
custom Ryzen chip performs under load. We can tell
you that while the single-core score was 144, we’re
more concerned about what Cinebench reports when
all cores are under load. Here, the AMD-based Surface
Laptop 3 compares favourably to an 8th-gen ‘Whiskey
Lake’ Intel Core chip, but still trails Ice Lake’s Core i7.
If you’d like, you can download the open-source
Handbrake tool and transcode a full-length movie into a18 TECH ADVISOR • JANUARY 2020MICROSOFT SURFACE EVENT
formertestsaresomewhatolder.TheWorkbenchmark
focuseson office tasks, while the Creative benchmark
leans more heavily into mainstream gaming, video
editing, and photo processing.
We’d expect to see substantive gains over the
Surface Laptop 2. Surprisingly, only the Creative
benchmark produced those results. But this is
justthefirstofmanytestswhereIntel’sIceLake
machine,highlighted in blue, smokes the Surface
Laptop 3’s Ryzen chip.
UL’s updated PCMark 10 suite also proves that
the AMD/Microsoft Ryzen chip can hold its own.
Unfortunately, we don’t have a direct comparison
against Dell’s Ice Lake notebook on this test.
One interesting bonus: applications seem to
launch fast with the Surface Laptop 3, and that
might be because of the SSD Microsoft chose. Using
CrystalDiskMark 4.0.3, random 4K reads (using
the 4K32T1 setting) on the Surface Laptop 3 are
261.2MB/s, basically twice as fast as the 133.8MB/s
reported by the Surface Laptop 2. The Surface Laptop
3’s responsiveness is noticeable, and noteworthy.
Maxon’s Cinebench test stresses the CPU in
rendering a fixed CGI scene, showing how well the
custom Ryzen chip performs under load. We can tell
you that while the single-core score was 144, we’re
more concerned about what Cinebench reports when
all cores are under load. Here, the AMD-based Surface
Laptop 3 compares favourably to an 8th-gen ‘Whiskey
Lake’ Intel Core chip, but still trails Ice Lake’s Core i7.
If you’d like, you can download the open-source
Handbrake tool and transcode a full-length movie into a