An empirical test conducted by our colleagues from Tom’s Guide highlights significant differences between the Surface Pro 9 models under ARM processor and under Intel processor.
The Surface Pro 9 was arguably Microsoft’s most anticipated product this year. It is offered in two versions: one with the 12th generation of portable processors from Intel, and the other with an in-house ARM architecture processor, the Microsoft SQ3. The latter is the first in the range to integrate a 5G chip.
The configurations tested are the Surface Pro 9 with an Intel Core i7-1255U processor equipped with 16 GB of RAM and a 256 GB SSD and the model powered by the ARM SQ3 processor, which has the same amount of RAM for 512 GB of storage. Under Geekbench 5.4the Core i7-1255U gets 1633 points in single core and 8541 points in multi, while the SQ3 accumulates only 1125 and 5849 respectively. Performance differences hover around 45%regardless of the number of cores requested.
The Surface Pro 9’s Intel processor beats the Snapdragon in almost every way
During the Handbrake test, it took the Core i7 processor 584 seconds to transcode a 6.5GB video from a 4K format to 1080p, when it took the SQ3 778 seconds to accomplish the same task. The performance gap here is 40%. Gaming performance is catastrophic on both Intel and ARM. The Core i7-1255U manages to display Sid Meier’s Civ 6: Gathering Storm at 24.1 fps, while the SQ3 only displays 14.3. The Surface Pro 9 are not intended to be gaming machines anyway, and these statistics are a good reminder of this.
The chart is really not flattering for the SQ 3 processor. In its defense, Microsoft has never touted the pure performance of the Surface Pro 9 with 5G. It is its autonomy that is put forward. In this area, the figures are very good. In a test involving surfing in WiFi with a screen set for a luminance of 150 cd/m2, the ARM processor lasted 11 hours 17 minutes against 9 hours 50 minutes for the Intel processor. The Snapdragons stand out in the field of autonomy, but does this justify the price difference (€360 for the same hardware configuration)? Customers will remain the sole decision-makers in this matter.
Source: Tom’s Guide