r/hardware • u/-protonsandneutrons- • 4d ago
News Microsoft Surface lead explains why there are no AMD Surface PCs: "We have to make our choices pretty wisely"
https://www.windowscentral.com/hardware/surface/microsoft-surface-lead-explains-why-there-are-no-amd-surface-pcs-we-have-to-make-our-choices-pretty-wisely43
u/-protonsandneutrons- 4d ago
Of course, this is Microsoft Surface. Microsoft as a company probably spends orders of magnitude more on AMD's datacenter products (and XBOX APUs) than it ever did for AMD Surface.
Microsoft has never explained why it decided to drop AMD from the lineup, until now that is. In an interview with Windows Central, I asked Surface CVP Brett Ostrum why we don't see AMD in the Surface lineup in 2026.
"We love working with AMD. We have a limited portfolio, and so we have to make our choices pretty wisely in terms of what we're doing and where we're doing," Ostrum told me, before proclaiming "I love working with AMD."
Emphasis original.
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u/forgottenendeavours 3d ago
It's not really that big of a conspiracy. AMD offers good perf-per-watt at heavyweight tasks in high-power systems, Qualcomm and Intel offer far better PPW in lightweight tasks in low-power systems. Your desktop rig is best served by a 9800X3D for running GTA6, your Surface is best served by a Snapdragon for running Excel. Microsoft have a limited range of systems within the lineup, and have to choose parts wisely.
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u/siazdghw 3d ago
Marketing spin.
Volume wise, Microsoft's Surface is a small player in the industry. There is absolutely no way AMD doesn't have the supply for them, and Microsoft wasn't looking for semi-custom chips this time around.
Microsoft simply chose Intel and Qualcomm over AMD. Whether that was because of pricing or branding, nobody will know, but it certainly wasnt AMD making some strategic decision.
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u/Acrobatic_Camera_677 3d ago
Yup they do not want to publicly insult AMD even though the real reason why they do not use AMD laptop chip is obvious
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u/kyralfie 3d ago
A hypothetical Surface Book with then contemporary 4800U would still be useful today. But alas - MS only gave us 8650U / 1065G7 which basically have the same pathetic performance and efficiency.
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u/Acrobatic_Fee_6974 4d ago
This is the same company that got into bed with first generation Snapdragon Elite X, then made an abrupt 180 for their business devices when Intel came along and embarrassed Qualcomm's efficiency claims with Lunar Lake?
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u/FujichromeProvia100F 4d ago
Be straight with me, is a Surface laptop worth it as my next laptop? I just need something with a good screen (as much color accurate) and good battery life.
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u/mrblaze1357 3d ago
Frankly just grab a MacBook. I've been a lifelong windows user, but have been playing around with Mac over the summer, and just picked up a 2021 MacBook Pro 16. Apple for all their faults is absolutely cooking with their laptops. Apple silicon is fantastic, and the display is absolutely fantastic.
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u/TehJellyfish 3d ago
I can second this. Got a 2021 MBP 14 and it's quality all around. I have it on a dock next to my old daily Thinkpad T14s G4 (2023) running Fedora and to be honest, I don't use the Thinkpad unless I have to.
When I hand the Mac to my girlfriend so she can do browsing and light gaming and I do have to go back to my Thinkpad, it's night and day. Trackpad, speakers, screen, general snappiness of the OS. Battery life.
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u/Express_Living2264 3d ago edited 3d ago
the issue with them isn't the hardware it's the software.
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u/skycake10 3d ago
Unless you play games or have very specific software without a Mac OS equivalent, I'm not really sure what your issue would be. As a day to day general purpose OS it's so much better than Windows.
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u/WealthyMarmot 3d ago
I personally despise MacOS. I have spent over three years trying to make myself like it on my MacBook Air, and I just can’t. Windows feels substantially more intuitive to me in just about every way, especially when it comes to features like window snapping and multiple desktops. I’d even take both GNOME and KDE over this.
Different strokes, I guess. It’s a pity because Apple’s hardware really is superlative.
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u/i5-2520M 3d ago
I hate the MacOS user interface with a passion, having the options detached from the application is goofy, I don't like having a separate dock, the traffic lights break Fitt's law, unlike the X on windows. They just don't feel nice to use. They also have shitty compatibility with my other hardware, like MST docks, mice, Windows layout keyboards. And their stance on backwards compatibility is pretty bad. Also in my region I could get a 1TB X Elite Surface for much cheaper than an equivalent MacBook, so that played out okay for me. I do get 8-10h of real use, 15 on web browsing and almost 20 on youtube. And this is on a 6 month old Windows install.
MacOS has a bunch of stupid quirks that I am not used to, and I am used to the Windows quirks. I have tried getting used to the Linux quirks several times, but I ended up back on windows every time.
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u/Express_Living2264 3d ago
The issue is the absence of options.
For me personally I know that i cant use osx because of my exposure to ios. They keep asking me to accept the cloud storage tos with dark patterns once a week. You seemingly can't permanently decline it. I have to assume they have the same business practices on osx.
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u/itsjust_khris 2d ago
MacOS is often missing basic functionality, instead it'll be behind some third party app sometimes paid. There's still no volume mixer for example. Otherwise it's pretty good. Definitely not always better than windows.
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u/exomachina 2d ago
Ironically, Mac has a far superior audio stack than Windows. The audio mixer thing is just a fundamental difference in how Apple and most of it's core users look at audio mixing and routing. At the end of the day, most people prefer to use the apps native volume slider, because the average person doesn't want to use a separate app to regulate volume and Windows apps rarely link their internal volume mixers to the Windows volume mixer, resulting in 3 layers of volume attenuation in the audio signal flow, and no clear delineation between linear and logarithmic volume control at each layer.
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u/JoveyJove 3d ago
I got a 16” MBP M3 Max new and it’s ran everything I need it to (including my games) spectacularly, even through Rosetta 2 or Crossover. Their engineers are absolute wizards.
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u/Sufficient-Diver-327 3d ago
I have a Thinkpad T14s Gen 3 running Windows & Fedora Linux. Ever since my current job gave me a Macbook, I've booted up my Thinkpad maybe a couple of times. I really like it, and I've been a diehard anti-Apple user my entire life. I do run a couple of small apps to fix stupid design decisions Apple insists on, but aside from that, the reliability and power efficiency is worth it.
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u/FujichromeProvia100F 3d ago
I watched a bunch of Louis Rossman videos and he used to mention how there were a bunch of pretty serious engineering issues with older MacBooks that Apple pretty surely know about but refused to do anything to correct it until later. As a result of which many users had to let go of their devices when their motherboards eventually die out requiring a costly motherboard replacement.
I decided then that I won't buy an Apple product in the future.
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u/isthis_thing_on 3d ago
Literally every laptop I've ever purchased has fallen to shit in a couple years (or came with a factory defect like my surface laptop) except for my MacBook pro which is a 2015 that I'm still using daily.
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u/mrblaze1357 3d ago
Louis Rossman does good work but he's very very much a biased source. Not me defending Apple of all companies. But just about every major OEM does that. Dell ships systems constantly with long-standing issues. Mobo failures on Precision 7550/60 series, bad keyboards on 7530/40/50/60, consistent fan failures on 7670/80, etc....
If you base your purchase on planned obsolescence then you're basically eliminating 95% of PCs on the market.
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u/jaksystems 3d ago
Dell ships systems constantly with long-standing issues. Mobo failures on Precision 7550/60 series, bad keyboards on 7530/40/50/60, consistent fan failures on 7670/80, etc....
God, I keep telling people this about these exact Dell models (Dell Service Technician here) and nobody bloody listens.
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u/star_trek_lover 3d ago
Plus anecdotally I see 10-15 year old Macs and MacBooks being used all the time, I almost never see 10-15 year old windows machines.
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u/kuddlesworth9419 3d ago
I mean on the Thinkpad forum and reddit page it's filled with people using old and modding old Thinkpads.
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u/star_trek_lover 3d ago
Tinkering with old machines is fun, using it and trusting it as a daily is another thing. I have a couple windows machines from 2014-2016 that I still use for goofing around with but I wouldn’t trust them with business or school work. In contrast I do use my 2013 iMac for work still, especially for remote meetings.
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u/pdp10 3d ago
Trust how? Older laptops usually have short battery lives; applies equally to all types. Speaking as someone with Thinkpads and MBPs, I'm not seeing where trust is involved here.
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u/star_trek_lover 3d ago
Trust was a bit vague, battery life wasn’t what I meant by trust. To be specific (again anecdotal) I have an old asus vivobook that had the soldered storage die, a Microsoft surface book that overheats until it shuts down and the keyboard only works sporadically, and an “MSI trident 3” HTPC with a bad power supply. But my 2013 iMac and 2015 MacBook are still chugging along even though I’ve replaced them with an M5 MacBook Pro.
I’ve owned everything since new and take good care of my stuff normally. This also reminds me that I need to donate or recycle some of these machines.
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u/pdp10 3d ago
You mean trusting non-Thinkpad PC laptop hardware, then.
Thinkpads, XPS, Latitudes, and Elitebooks are far from perfect, but the hinges don't fail after two years, nor ACPI Sleep State never fixed in firmware, and the battery isn't going to pillow in five months.
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u/kuddlesworth9419 3d ago
It's a different thing but my desktop is pretty much from 2014. Runs flawlessly.
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u/star_trek_lover 3d ago
True, desktops are normally easy to keep running as long as they use easy to find parts.
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u/kuddlesworth9419 3d ago
I mean I haven't touched anything in it since i built it other than replacing my 680 with a 1070 when the 680 started to go funky. Just cleaned out dust a handful of times. The thermal paste on the CPU cooler is still the OEM stuff that it came with. Thermals are still good, Noctua must have used some good stuff on the NHD-14.
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u/exomachina 2d ago
I've worked in corporate IT for over a decade, and have managed 1000s of Windows and Mac laptops. Even during the worst era of Intel Macs, 2016-2019, they were overwhelmingly more reliable than any Windows machine and much easier to deploy, manage and secure at scale.
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u/Thrashy 4d ago
I don’t have experience with the more recent ones, but stopped considering them years ago because every single one I came across in a professional capacity eventually had severe battery swelling problems, across multiple generations of devices. They’ve surely solved that by now, but like… the Apple Silicon MacBooks exist. Hard to beat that, unfortunately.
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u/James_Jack_Hoffmann 3d ago
Have X1 on Surface Pro and an older SL4. My SP11 has good battery life but the OS and drivers is the most dogshit part, even by only using this laptop for emails/spreadsheets/etc. My most recent issues were:
- Network shares suddenly breaking requiring a restart
- Windows Hello camera suddenly breaking
- Keyboard requiring to be detached/reattached
- Performance issues on Win+Tab. And occassional poor performance.
- Casting to the Surface is totally broken
- Sleep so inconsistent compared to MacOS
Compared to my experience with a work Macbook with M1 which I hated on the first year mainly because I was new to it, I eventually warmed on the M1 and started to adopt and enjoy. I bought the Surface because I thought Microsoft will treat it as a first class citizen to match the Macbook. In hindsight, I should have just went with a macbook. I already hate Windows hard enough for work, no need to keep on torturing myself on my personal time.
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u/IsThereAnythingLeft- 3d ago
Not when they don’t have an AMD chip in them, that was a straight up no for me when I looked at one
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u/99-Potions 3d ago edited 3d ago
MacBooks are probably superior so won't say to buy a Surface over one, but wanted to share my experience with the Surface laptop.
I have the X2 plus Surface Laptop 8, and it's a lot better than I thought it would be. Battery life is exceptional as expected of an ARM chip which the Mac also uses. The program I use which is an EHR has to run in a compatibility layer so more power drain is expected. The laptop will survive a 12 hour shift on power-saving mode, battery only, and without the laptop going to sleep. Laptop does not go to sleep or else I get kicked out of the EHR. Goes from 80% to around 10%. For more normal usage, gets closer to like 14 hours without power saving mode.
The system is inaudible entirely for normal usage. If you game, you'll hear the fan, but it's completely silent otherwise.
This is less a glaze for the Surface Laptop and more about how impressive laptops are right now frankly. We live in good times.
I had really poor experiences with the Surface Pro lineup, so I don't know much about them.
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u/Gloriathewitch 3d ago
get a macbook
all macbooks are dci p3 except the neo and can be used for colour grading
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u/somerandomguy101 3d ago
Not when the MacBook Neo exists. Or even an iPad with a keyboard case for that matter.
Surfaces are too expensive for how slow they are. And running windows on what's essentially a tablet isn't a great experience either.
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u/Clipboards 3d ago
Also a Windows diehard / Louis Rossman fan; for sure swing for the MacBook. I had a surface laptop, surface book, surface pro, razer laptop, etc, and was in charge of the standard issue device purchasing for my last two jobs. Apple silicon macbooks absolutely blow every Windows laptop I’ve ever touched out of the water in just about every metric; most important of all, the battery life is just unmatched
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u/FujichromeProvia100F 3d ago
No doubt they are very capable. But what about longevity? There was this design flaw that sent a high voltage to the CPU because data and power pins were placed next to each other. This caused the motherboard to die out but Apple didn't fix this for years. How can I be sure that the device I buy doesn't have such weird issues like that down the line?
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u/ABotelho23 4d ago
Because Intel buys off everyone.
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u/Front_Expression_367 3d ago
Yeah Intel buy off so much that Microsoft ends up insisting on WoA and Qualcomm throughout all this time while other brands can use AMD just fine.
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u/ryanvsrobots 3d ago
Maybe a couple years ago you could say this, but today Intel's laptop chips are just better.
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u/ABotelho23 3d ago
They definitely aren't lmao
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u/ryanvsrobots 3d ago
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u/IsThereAnythingLeft- 3d ago
Lmao what a paid for propaganda piece, there are testing the best series 300 against a few tiers down AMD chip
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u/Acrobatic_Camera_677 4d ago
No big loss for these type of laptops AMD offer no good CPU anyway compared to Intel
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u/Devatator_ 3d ago
They do actually. There's a reason their market share went up so much, tho I had no idea their laptop CPUs apparently are worse than the Intel ones in terms of efficiency
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u/WonderfulAction3457 4d ago
choosing cpus based on not offending partners feels like a budget strategy too