14 JANUARY2020|COMPUTERSHOPPER|ISSUE
MICROSOFTRECENTLYUNVEILEDaslewofnew
Surface devices,andComputerShopperwas among the few
UK publications presentatthe showcase to gain an insight
intothe directioninwhich the rangeisheading.
Let’s start with thearguably dull stuff first. The Surface
Pro 7isaminor refresh of the SurfacePro 6. It rather
predictably sports Intel’s latest 10th-generation Ice Lake
10-nanometre processors, which promiseadecent
boost in efficiency andgraphics performance,and a
USB Type-C porthas finally been added intothe
mix, although it doesn’t supportThunderbolt 3.
There’s also arather snazzy looking reddish
orange colourfor the Type Cover keyboard.
It’s basically thesame story forthe Surface Laptop313, which also
usesIce Lake processors, comes with USB Type-Cand has aslightly
shallower keytravel of 1.3mm. It promisesaperformance boostand faster
charging than the Surface Laptop2,and comes in an aluminium finish, but
otherwise it’s aminor bump up from an already excellent ultraportable.
You’ll have clocked the use of ‘13’ after the laptop’s moniker -that’s
because Microsofthas a15in SurfaceLaptop3.Asits name would
suggest, this laptophas alarger 15in PixelSense display, whichlooks
rather lovely from ourfirst impressions.
Available in agreyand black aluminium finish, theinteresting part of
the Surface Laptop 315comesfromwithin thatslick chassis. Microsoft
has worked with AMD to createthe RyzenSurface Edition processors.
Coming in Ryzen5and Ryzen7variants,
these arecustom accelerated processing units
(APUs),and come withRadeonRXVega 9and
Vega 11 graphics respectively.AMicrosoft
representativetold us the chips have been
configured to deliver more CPUand GPU
performance,and use specially designed drivers to
ensure theyrun at their best with Windows 10.
The Ryzen73780U Microsoft Surface Edition has
four cores andeightthreads, and runs from 2.3GHzto
4GHz. The Ryzen5chip has thesame numberofcores
and threads, but runsfrom2.1GHzto3.7GHz.
The most interesting device revealed was theSurface
ProX(left).Essentially Microsoft’sanswer to theiPadPro,
the Surface Pro Xisaslimmer,lighter take on the Surface Pro 7, yet thanks
to slim bezelsitmanages to fit a13in displayintothe samefootprint.
Anew Type Cover design hasadivot on the toptohold Microsoft’s
new Surface Slim Pen, arather neat stylus thatfeels abit like apremium
pencil. Atrim yet solid kickstand andapairofUSB Type-Cports complete
the Surface Pro X’sminimalistic andsveltelook.
Again, it’s underthe surface of the Surface Pro Xthat things getreally
interesting. Thetabletdoesn’tuse an IntelCPU like previous Surfaces;
instead, it usesacustomSQ1 chip (right) based on aQualcomm
Snapdragon system-on-a-chip,but one thatdraws 7W of powerrather
thanthe typical 2W of many smartphone SoCs.
SAYWHAT?
New Surface line-up shows design and chip innovation
RAY-TRACINGISARGUABLYthe current
pinnacleofcomputer graphics rendering, with
the technique involving the mapping of light
around avirtual environment, includingall the
ways inwhich it canhit and refract off surfaces.
It’s long been used in animated movies and
specialeffects, notably by DisneyPixar.But in
thePCgaming world, the rendering technique
was so demanding it’s beenout of the reach of
even the most powerfuldesktops.
That wasuntil Nvidia came along with its
GeForce RTX20-series graphics cards, which harness Turing architecture
to deliver ray-tracing rendering in compatiblegames using asingleGPU,as
opposed to aserver-grade machine with multiple graphics cards.
However,there aren’t avast number of games that supportray-tracing
at the moment. Shadow of theTomb Raider,MetroExodus and Battlefield
Vare the stand-outgames, but other major ray-tracing titles are thin on
the ground.
Nvidia looks to change that with thenewsthat it’s recruitingskilled
workersfor its Lightspeed Studios, with the aim of remastering classic
games with ray-tracing technology.Intheory, this couldgive oldtitles a
fresh new look with cutting-edgerealistic lighting, yetwithoutthe huge
performance demands of implementing and
runningray-tracinginthe latest games.
“We’re cherry-picking someofthe greatest
titles from the pastdecades and bringing them
intothe ray-tracing age,giving them state-of-the-
art visuals while keeping the gameplaythat made
themgreat,” Nvidia’s job advertreads.
“The Nvidia Lightspeed Studios team is
picking up the challenge,starting with atitle
thatyou knowand love but we can’t talkabout
here! We’re building ateam of talented,
dedicatedgame developers who are readytoget going quickly.”
What those games will be has yet to be revealed,nor howNvidia will
go about re-working titles. But we’ve already seen Nvidia implement
ray-tracing intothe venerable Quake II with impressive results. Minecraft
was recently given adoseofray-tracing, which turned aminimal,
blocky-looking gameintosomething akin to moving modernart.
Since 2015,Lightspeed Studios has been working on remastering games
to work on Android devices, notably Nvidia’s Shield. So the company is no
stranger to working witholdergames andadding morefeatures to them.
As such, we canexpect to seemoreray-traced games pop up,even if
theyare from days gone by and notthe latest triple-Atitles.
Nvidia aims to bringray-tracing tech to classic titles
SAYWHAT?
