Regert Posted February 10, 2015 Share Posted February 10, 2015 Hi! I've been thinking about getting a Surface 2 Pro with 4 GB ram and 128 GB ssd as a compliment for work. Basically to do presentations, draw stuff and also use it with PDF maps through illustrator/photoshop since it has a digitizer. (Anyone using a Surface Pro for work here? Pros/Cons?) However since I also have a HP X2 with 4 GB ram, that is quite similar in specs, I wonder if 4 GB would be a limit for large files as it sometimes is for the X2? OR: Is it worth to wait for the Surface 3 Pro prices to fall or just get a Surface 2 Pro with 8 GB ram? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BritBronco Posted February 10, 2015 Share Posted February 10, 2015 I use a pro 2 with 8 gig for work. I have it hooked to a docking station that drives 2 hd monitors, the surface touch screen i use for lync and my phone software. it all works well and is super handy when traveling as its so light. The 8 gig was a must for me, i run a couple of VMs for testing and support. The surface 3 has the bigger screen and is lighter, and from testing the pen is better. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Regert Posted February 10, 2015 Author Share Posted February 10, 2015 I use a pro 2 with 8 gig for work. I have it hooked to a docking station that drives 2 hd monitors, the surface touch screen i use for lync and my phone software. it all works well and is super handy when traveling as its so light. The 8 gig was a must for me, i run a couple of VMs for testing and support. The surface 3 has the bigger screen and is lighter, and from testing the pen is better. Wow. May I ask how much ram the vms do take? Or how a "normal" max load scenario looks like before you start feeling the limits of the pc? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BritBronco Posted February 10, 2015 Share Posted February 10, 2015 I have them set for 1 gig and 2 gig, they dont really get loaded all that much. I have no memory issues running like this. I haven't felt like the pro 2 cannot handle what i throw at it, it even plays Elite Dangerous quite well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deihmos Posted February 10, 2015 Share Posted February 10, 2015 There were some sales that put the 8Gb model at the same price as the 4GB model. This was on best buy. It was 899. 256Gb and 8Gb ram. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Regert Posted February 10, 2015 Author Share Posted February 10, 2015 There were some sales that put the 8Gb model at the same price as the 4GB model. This was on best buy. It was 899. 256Gb and 8Gb ram. Oh, I see. Well, I live in Sweden, to it wouldn't work buying from the US. I have them set for 1 gig and 2 gig, they dont really get loaded all that much. I have no memory issues running like this. I haven't felt like the pro 2 cannot handle what i throw at it, it even plays Elite Dangerous quite well. OK. So that means that I you'd use a SP2 with 4 GB you'd have to do few things at once. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anibal P Posted February 10, 2015 Share Posted February 10, 2015 I would consider 8 the bare minimum for productivity work, trust me, we have 4 in our systems and there are days where they struggle to load apps after a busy day goretsky 1 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BritBronco Posted February 10, 2015 Share Posted February 10, 2015 Id have to recomend the 8, if only to get the larger ssd goretsky 1 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
deck Posted February 10, 2015 Share Posted February 10, 2015 My i5 SP3 works fine with 4gig of RAM. Using the pen, drawing, switching between apps is super fast. But the SP2 is inexpensive now, so it's worth the lower price. Even my old ARM based Surface worked great on whatever measly amount of RAM it had, including for touch intensive apps. To be fair, though, my SP3 has better specs than my old PC, which also had 4gig of RAM and ran everything perfectly. The SSD is actually what makes the difference. Charisma 1 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
episode Posted February 10, 2015 Share Posted February 10, 2015 Hi! I've been thinking about getting a Surface 2 Pro with 4 GB ram and 128 GB ssd as a compliment for work. Basically to do presentations, draw stuff and also use it with PDF maps through illustrator/photoshop since it has a digitizer. (Anyone using a Surface Pro for work here? Pros/Cons?) However since I also have a HP X2 with 4 GB ram, that is quite similar in specs, I wonder if 4 GB would be a limit for large files as it sometimes is for the X2? OR: Is it worth to wait for the Surface 3 Pro prices to fall or just get a Surface 2 Pro with 8 GB ram? I have that exact config (SP2/4/128) Never had an issue. I game on it, run PS, all kinds of programs. It does destroy the battery, but more RAM won't help there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deihmos Posted February 10, 2015 Share Posted February 10, 2015 4GB isn't going to be a problem. Windows manages memory really well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goretsky Supervisor Posted February 11, 2015 Supervisor Share Posted February 11, 2015 Hello, I use a laptop for work with a Core i5-5xx and 8GB of RAM and find myself hitting RAM issues trying to run a 4GB VM and a 2GB VM simultaneously, so I think it largely depends on workload, size of VMs, etc. If you have any question about 4GB not being enough, I'd suggest holding off until 8GB models become more affordable. Regards, Aryeh Goretsky Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Charisma Veteran Posted February 11, 2015 Veteran Share Posted February 11, 2015 Definitely hold out for the Pro 3. It's amazing, makes the 2 look like a heavy old piece of junk. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Regert Posted February 11, 2015 Author Share Posted February 11, 2015 Hello, I use a laptop for work with a Core i5-5xx and 8GB of RAM and find myself hitting RAM issues trying to run a 4GB VM and a 2GB VM simultaneously, so I think it largely depends on workload, size of VMs, etc. If you have any question about 4GB not being enough, I'd suggest holding off until 8GB models become more affordable. Regards, Aryeh Goretsky Definitely hold out for the Pro 3. It's amazing, makes the 2 look like a heavy old piece of junk. Well, I guess it depends on the price. What price would be good for a either 8 GB ram SP2 or a 8 GB ram SP3? And how long can the battery last on those things? I guess it's more or less too much work to change it? Btw, how much battery runtime do you get on your devices? goretsky 1 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Regert Posted February 11, 2015 Author Share Posted February 11, 2015 4GB isn't going to be a problem. Windows manages memory really well. Well on my HP X2 it is usually quite OK. However sometimes one can notice that the ram is full. I guess that it's dependent on what SSD it is and what connection it uses. My HP X2 is a older mSATA, newer ones are M.2. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deihmos Posted February 11, 2015 Share Posted February 11, 2015 Hello, I use a laptop for work with a Core i5-5xx and 8GB of RAM and find myself hitting RAM issues trying to run a 4GB VM and a 2GB VM simultaneously, so I think it largely depends on workload, size of VMs, etc. If you have any question about 4GB not being enough, I'd suggest holding off until 8GB models become more affordable. Regards, Aryeh Goretsky Your usage isn't typical. Not all of us use VM. goretsky 1 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
binaryzero Posted February 11, 2015 Share Posted February 11, 2015 The amount of RAM is dependent on your workload - it isn't rocket science. How long is a piece of rope? goretsky 1 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Charisma Veteran Posted February 12, 2015 Veteran Share Posted February 12, 2015 Well, I guess it depends on the price. What price would be good for a either 8 GB ram SP2 or a 8 GB ram SP3? And how long can the battery last on those things? I guess it's more or less too much work to change it? Btw, how much battery runtime do you get on your devices? Well, it depends. Here, the Pro 3 256GB i5 with 8GB of RAM is about $1500, but that's because everything is expensive in Australia. (not sure about Pro 2 as I haven't seen one in a long time.) It's so nice though. Smooth like butter! It benchmarks at 9 hours battery life, supposedly, but realistically I get about 6-7 with moderate use. The way you will use it, probably a bit less--but still more than most laptops. And if you get the docking station later on, you can have all the ports and power you'd ever need, when you're sitting in one place working. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PGHammer Posted February 15, 2015 Share Posted February 15, 2015 My i5 SP3 works fine with 4gig of RAM. Using the pen, drawing, switching between apps is super fast. But the SP2 is inexpensive now, so it's worth the lower price. Even my old ARM based Surface worked great on whatever measly amount of RAM it had, including for touch intensive apps. To be fair, though, my SP3 has better specs than my old PC, which also had 4gig of RAM and ran everything perfectly. The SSD is actually what makes the difference. How much RAM you need depends more on what you do, and how you do it. While Mom's current AIO (HP Pavilion 23-g116 touch) has an i3 with 6 GB of RAM, it's really overkill for what she does (mostly online shopping). Her 7-era games (primarily PopCap) are all smaller casual sorts, and run like they were in danger of being boiled - not merely scalded. (And, despite the thinking otherwise, you CAN be surprised to find out exactly what pre-8 games work just fine with touch - the "desktop" versions of Bejeweled 3 and Bejeweled Blitz can be played just fine using the 10-point IPS display this AIO includes; for some games, touch can actually be FASTER than a mouse - because you can use two hands at the same time; contrariwise, a mouse has a single pointer.) Still, touch no more obviates keyboards and mice than the reverse. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xn1337 Posted February 15, 2015 Share Posted February 15, 2015 I had the same question, went with a Surface pro 2 8Gb/256Gb If you get one of the newer batches of the surface pro 2 you will get an I4300 CPU wich is the exact same cpu used in the Pro 3 i5 version. http://www.reddit.com/r/Surface/comments/1uz5pi/psa_how_to_identify_new_19ghz_surface_pro_2s/ so now the only differences are: Ntrig instead of wacom, thinner, lighter, 12" screen and slightly better battery, on the outside of the box where the bar-code is , there is a "Lot No /Date:" mine was 1416, anything newer than 1350 came with the new cpu. I also chose the Pro 2 due to 2 fans (Which are so silent its like their not there) which cools the unit down better then the pro 3, which was built for the Broadwell CPU not the haswell they ended up using due to delays , there are people using a USB fan on the back of their unit to keep it cool. http://www.anandtech.com/show/8077/microsoft-surface-pro-3-review/8 "Those users upgrading from Surface Pro 2 may notice a regression in performance, particularly when it comes to running prolonged CPU/GPU intensive workloads. In games, the difference can be noticeable. The simple fact is that in becoming a thinner device, Surface Pro 3 inherited more thermal constraints than its predecessors." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Regert Posted February 15, 2015 Author Share Posted February 15, 2015 I had the same question, went with a Surface pro 2 8Gb/256Gb If you get one of the newer batches of the surface pro 2 you will get an I4300 CPU wich is the exact same cpu used in the Pro 3 i5 version. http://www.reddit.com/r/Surface/comments/1uz5pi/psa_how_to_identify_new_19ghz_surface_pro_2s/ so now the only differences are: Ntrig instead of wacom, thinner, lighter, 12" screen and slightly better battery, on the outside of the box where the bar-code is , there is a "Lot No /Date:" mine was 1416, anything newer than 1350 came with the new cpu. I also chose the Pro 2 due to 2 fans (Which are so silent its like their not there) which cools the unit down better then the pro 3, which was built for the Broadwell CPU not the haswell they ended up using due to delays , there are people using a USB fan on the back of their unit to keep it cool. http://www.anandtech.com/show/8077/microsoft-surface-pro-3-review/8 "Those users upgrading from Surface Pro 2 may notice a regression in performance, particularly when it comes to running prolonged CPU/GPU intensive workloads. In games, the difference can be noticeable. The simple fact is that in becoming a thinner device, Surface Pro 3 inherited more thermal constraints than its predecessors." Oh, I see, that was really a interesting point of view. Thanks. Well, for my parts, I guess both Wacom and N-Trig work, however, I prefer a cooler device. My HP X2 is also fanless and can also get warm, however it's warm, not hot. The model I have been looking is at is SP2 1601 which seems to have the newer CPU. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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