Microsoft Surface 3 Review: Capability And Compromises
PCMark8 v2
PCMark 8 v2 is the latest version in Futuremark’s series of popular PC benchmarking tools. It is designed to test the performance of all types of systems, from tablets to desktops. PCMark 8 offers five separate benchmark tests to help consumers find devices that offer the perfect combination of efficiency and performance for their particular use case. This latest version of the suite improves the Home, Creative and Work benchmarks with new tests using popular open source applications for image processing, video editing and spreadsheets. A wide variety of workloads have also been added to the Work benchmark to better reflect the way PCs are used in enterprise environments.
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The Surface 3 brings up the rear in this group of tests, which showcases the overall performance quite well. It actually didn't get clobbered as much as we assumed it would on the Storage benchmark, but its Work and Home scores were pretty low. Again, we're standing it up against a number of pure laptops and 2-in-1 units with Core chips inside, but when a test unit has a price tag of $599--or over $730 with accessories--we expected it to compete well with similarly priced offerings.
