28 TECH ADVISOR • JANUARY 2020MICROSOFT SURFACE EVENT
Internally, the addition of the Intel Ice Lake
processor is the most meaningful upgrade. Recall that
the Surface Pro 6 was built upon Intel’s Kaby Lake-R
chip, which is now two generations removed. Ice Lake
itself doesn’t apparently offer much of a performance
uptick, but the Iris Plus graphics does, to the tune of
40 percent in our Ice Lake preview.
Note that Iris Plus isn’t available in the Core i3
variant of the Surface Pro 7, which could rule out that
configuration for power users. The Core i3 and Core i5
versions continue to be fanless, like previous models,
while the Core i7 model has a fan that will turn onThere’s a new USB-C port
in addition to the Surface
Connector and USB-A port28 TECH ADVISOR • JANUARY 2020MICROSOFT SURFACE EVENT
Internally, the addition of the Intel Ice Lake
processor is the most meaningful upgrade. Recall that
the Surface Pro 6 was built upon Intel’s Kaby Lake-R
chip, which is now two generations removed. Ice Lake
itself doesn’t apparently offer much of a performance
uptick,buttheIrisPlusgraphicsdoes,tothetuneof
40 percent in our Ice Lake preview.
Note that Iris Plus isn’t available in the Core i3
variant of the Surface Pro 7, which could rule out that
configuration for power users. The Core i3 and Core i5
versions continue to be fanless, like previous models,
while the Core i7 model has a fan that will turn onThere’s a new USB-C port
in addition to the Surface
Connector and USB-A port