66 PCWorld MARCH 2021REVIEWS HOW FAST IS THE MS SURFACE PRO 7+
3DMARK SKY DIVER: UP TO
91 PERCENT IMPROVEMENT
Last but not least, UL’s 3DMark test offers us a
closer look at the core’s 3D performance.
Remember, with Tiger Lake, Intel transitioned
to its Xe graphics core, promising all sorts of
performance advantages. And
boy, did it ever deliver!
The Surface Pro 7+ absolutely
crushes its predecessor,
especially when you dial up the
performance slider—graphics
performance nearly doubles!
That’s a strong endorsement for
Intel’s integrated Xe core, at least
compared to 10th-gen chips.EARLY
CONCLUSIONS
These performance results
represent an early peek at our fullreview in progress for Microsoft’s Surface Pro
7+. We are continuing to run benchmarks
and delve into its other new features—
integrated LTE, for example—beyond the
processor upgrade.
We don’t know whether the unexpected
performance boost is characteristic of the
Tiger Lake chips at large and will be
reproduced on upcoming, competing tablets
like the Lenovo ThinkPad X12 and the Dell
Latitude 7320. (The results from another,
more traditional Tiger Lake notebook we’re
testing don’t seem to be swayed by the
performance slider setting.) Still, we can
predict that the leap to Intel’s 11th-gen
processors will translate into substantially
improved performance. It certainly provides
a compelling reason to upgrade to the
Surface Pro 7+.The difference between the Surface Pro 7 and
Surface Pro 7+ in terms of graphics performance is
absolutely enormous.Microsoft Surface Pro 7+ MaxCore i5-1135G7
Microsoft Surface Pro 7+ DefaultCore i5-1135G7
Microsoft Surface Pro 7 DefaultCore i7-1065G7LONGER BARS INDICATE BETTER PERFORMANCE13,3356,99912,66 43DMark Sky Diver 1.0
Overall (Demo Mode Off)
3D performanceWe’ve been impressed by the Surface Pro 7+’s performance.