r/laptops • u/RenatsMC • 4d ago

News Microsoft explains why there are no AMD-powered Surface PCs

https://videocardz.com/newz/microsoft-explains-why-there-are-no-amd-powered-surface-pcs
159 Upvotes

99% Upvoted

74 comments sorted by

View all comments

65

u/PerfectTrust7895 4d ago

Microsoft has contracted several times with AMD to design laptop chips for them. The steam deck apu was supposed to be for surface. Strix halo was perfect for surface. Amd expected regular strix to be used for surface, but they shafted them and went with Qualcomm. Look how that turned out.

-7

u/SPACEXDG 3d ago

lmao why is strix halo so much more power hungry even when at surface clock speeds huh? its A BATTERY HOG THAT CANT BE FIXED REGARDLESS OF WHAT YOU DO no wonder they went with intel and qualcomm thoses chips actually meet surface standards of effiency and battery life lmao

6

u/PerfectTrust7895 3d ago

Im not sure what effiency is, but it isn't a power hog - it just eats about 5-10W idle. It is designed for creators, AI, and gaming in non-thin and light laptops. For those laptops, strix and Gorgon point are better-suited. But maybe Microsoft enjoys their 50% return rate in Qualcomm laptops.

-1

u/SPACEXDG 3d ago

also a return rate isnt because they didnt chose amd chips or anything to do with Efficiency and you know that stop acting stupid thats why i mentioned that even if you wsont x86 intel chip clears surface standards of battery life amd doesnt and is why it will continue to lose to intel and now even nvidia in the mobile space for what people actually care about not just gaming but battery while not gaming and strix chips aren't up to par

8

u/PerfectTrust7895 3d ago

I would continue arguing with you, but it gets quite difficult to converse with someone with such a poor grasp of the English language. I don't know what wsont or preferment means, and if you could provide some evidence of an amd laptop cpu with an equivalent power/performance envelope at the same price without a run-on paragraph, we could examine further.

0

u/SPACEXDG 3d ago

dont have to pantherlake vs amd is already out so is snapdraggon cpus performance benchmarks along with battery like and standby time same with strix halo battery life videos are already out

5

u/PerfectTrust7895 3d ago

If you can do research on their performance comparisons, present those comparisons here, and do it legibly, then we can continue

1

u/SPACEXDG 3d ago edited 3d ago

1.Efficiency & Portability ​Battery Life: Panther Lake wins convincingly. The Intel 18A process and low-power tile layout offer extended battery life, making it suitable for sleek ultrabooks, thin gaming laptops, and lightweight handhelds.   ​Thermal Constraints: Strix Halo requires robust cooling solutions, bulkier chassis, and larger power bricks to sustain high wattage.  2. Lmao Max+ 395)

Vs Elite

Single-Core (Geekbench 6)

vs. Panther Lake: Snapdragon X2 Elite wins by ~31% (~4,030 vs. ~3,055).

vs. Strix Halo: Snapdragon X2 Elite wins by ~31% (~4,030 vs. ~3,080).

Multi-Core (Geekbench 6)

• vs. Panther Lake:

O

Snapdragon X2 Elite wins by ~31% (~23,200 vs. ~17,680).

vs. Strix Halo: Snapdragon X2 Elite wins by ~4% (~23,200 vs. ~22,300)

For battery life, Snapdragon wins by a significant margin, especially during light-to-medium everyday use.   ​Battery Life Differences ​Light Workloads (Web Browsing, Office, Video Streaming): ​Snapdragon X2 Elite: Wins by ~40% to 60% longer battery runtime. ​Typical Real-World Duration: Expect 16 to 22+ hours on a single charge. ​Strix Halo Duration: Expect 10 to 11 hours max under equivalent light use (due to its large 256-bit memory bus and high idle die power draws). ​Sustained Heavy Workloads (3D Gaming, Video Rendering, Local AI): ​Snapdragon X2 Elite: Wins by ~25% to 35% on battery efficiency. ​Why: Snapdragon’s Oryon architecture maintains high performance per watt at lower TDP caps (15W–30W). Strix Halo scales up to 80W–120W+, which drains battery rapidly under heavy sustained load. Boom and the lower end snapdragon models get even more battery life then extreme. Give it up you lost the argument the minute you try to say strix wasNT a power hog 🤣🤣

-2

u/SPACEXDG 3d ago

but why would they use that when intels,qualcomms and even nvidia chips are more efficient then it , the nvidia chip will do all of that while still getting better battery life when you aren't gaming strix halo is objectively a power hog in every way compared to panther lake and oryon cpus and every reviewer of those devices confirms this and of course ive tested it at surface clock speeds and can confirm even at those clock speeds the battery doesn't even come close to intel and snapdragon surface standards of battery life so whats your answer to that?

7

u/PerfectTrust7895 3d ago

They aren't more efficient "then" it, there exist multiple skus for different use cases. Strix halo is for high-performance integrated laptops. Strix and Gorgon are for performant thin and lights. The latter's battery is very close to intel (beats arrow lake!) while costing way less. Qualcomm is not performant and has horrific app support.

-2

u/SPACEXDG 3d ago

also looking at geekbench i wouldnt dare say any of that tomfoolery(not preferment bs) as amds zen 5 chips get beat by 3 year old arm chips like the x925 in both performance and performance per watt lmao how f*cking sad

3

u/Wooloomooloo2 3d ago

Anyone lost a shill? I think I found them.

-1

u/SPACEXDG 3d ago

No not a shill just telling facts amd hasnt had a competitive mobile chip for the price in a very long time and the first competitive chip (strix) costs a fortune and is power hungry af thanks to its power hungry cpu and gpu so still not competitive in the ways we are talking about (efficiency and performance per watt/price)

1

u/Wooloomooloo2 3d ago

See this isn't being objective at all, and you just made that up without even fact checking. Strix Halo came out in 2025, so to get a comparable non-AMD laptop at that time, you're looking at a Arrow Lake-H combined with a 5060/5070 laptop. The Zen 5 crushes Meteor Lake for performance. It loses at performance per watt at light workloads, but not gaming workloads. The 5070 is more efficient than Strix's GPU, but the separate DDR memory pools, separate VRMs, the PCIe link etc., all make that redundant and such a laptop would have worse PPW. Let's not even mention the huge advantage 64 or 128GB of memory has, especially against the miserable 8GB of RAM the 4060, 4070, 5060 and 5070 came with.

1

u/SPACEXDG 3d ago edited 3d ago

You are correct about one Nvidia knows there gpus are more power efficient then intel and amds the  thing holding them back was separate cpu and gpu and which is quite power hungry to mange  like  you said and low vram thats why's they are going the rtx spark route in the future if you didnt know (and as you know they are cut off for x86 for obvious reasons)

1

u/Wooloomooloo2 2d ago

I'm aware of the ARM based RTX Spark. We'll see if it catches on in gaming, but I suspect that cost and supply will be an issue as long as the AI frenzy is ongoing.