Microsoft Surface Pro 3 Review

Name: Microsoft Surface Pro 3 Review
Brand: Microsoft

by Marco Chiappetta — Thursday, May 29, 2014, 12:00 PM EDT

Next up, we have some graphics testing with 3DMark Ice Storm. Ice Storm Extreme raises the rendering resolution from 720p to 1080p and uses higher quality textures and post-processing effects in the Graphics tests to create a more demanding workload for the latest smartphones and tablets. In Unlimited mode frames are rendered in 720p off-screen while the display is updated with thumbnails every 100 frames to show progress. The Extreme test is more taxing, so that's what we used on the Surface Pro 3, though, take note that there are some Unlimited results in the charts below for some other platforms.

Futuremark 3DMark Fire Strike

Synthetic DirectX Gaming

The Surface Pro 3 pulled ahead of the Dell XPS 12 and AMD Mullins-based tablet platform in 3DMark Ice Storm. Though Intel's HD 4400 series graphics engine in the Surface Pro 3 isn't an ideal gaming solution, it does have enough oomph to power through some light-duty 3D games. And casual gaming would be no problem at all.

Tags: Intel, Mobile, Microsoft, Core, tablet, Surface Pro, HiDPI

Marco Chiappetta

Marco's interest in computing and technology dates all the way back to his early childhood. Even before being exposed to the Commodore P.E.T. and later the Commodore 64 in the early ‘80s, he was interested in electricity and electronics, and he still has the modded AFX cars and shop-worn soldering irons to prove it. Once he got his hands on his own Commodore 64, however, computing became Marco's passion. Throughout his academic and professional lives, Marco has worked with virtually every major platform from the TRS-80 and Amiga, to today's high end, multi-core servers. Over the years, he has worked in many fields related to technology and computing, including system design, assembly and sales, professional quality assurance testing, and technical writing. In addition to being the Managing Editor here at HotHardware for close to 15 years, Marco is also a freelance writer whose work has been published in a number of PC and technology related print publications and he is a regular fixture on HotHardware’s own Two and a Half Geeks webcast. - Contact: marco(at)hothardware(dot)com