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Hi! I received my surface pro 3 about 2 weeks ago and so far my experience has been great while surfing the internet, personalizing it to my needs, watching videos, and writing with the stylus.
I have seen how the surface one and surface pro 2 can handle games on the lowest settings and was very impressed and encouraged to buy the SP3 for light gaming when I have free time and am not using it for work. However, I am a little disappointed with how the performance on the SP3 drastically drops to less than 1Ghz about 3-5 minutes after I start playing any game or even a less intensive game like Dota 2, Portal, or the newer version of GTA San Andreas (a 2005 GAME) which I bought this week from the Windows Store. Most of the games I have tried start at 30-60 frames per second but as the heat starts building up, the frame rates drop to 10-15 frames due to throttling... This DOES NOT happen with the surface pro or pro 2 and most people play high end games at 30 frames per second on low settings for long periods even with throttling. I am not able to do that on my surface pro 3... Why? Why is there so much "power" that you can only use for a short time?... Did I just spend $1400 for much less performance than a Surface pro 2?...
I hope that this can be fixed in some way very soon. I really love the surface pro 3 and don't want to return it. But when I play a 2005 game like GTA San Andreas which was ported for smartphones and tablets and the frames drop below 25 after a while... it really gets me thinking...
Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.
I tried to do that and reinstalled everything after applying every update including the july 2014 new firmware update and no positive change occured... It seems the problem has not yet been addressed :( The only way I managed to maintain a stable performance at a high level was by placing the surface in a spot where my air conditioning blew directly at it.
I notice this too especially after the July updates my games seem much slower has if the graphics or CPU power has been reduced and it was plugged in near a cooling source. I guess the battery improvements are by reducing power even during the demands.
I notice this too especially after the July updates my games seem much slower has if the graphics or CPU power has been reduced and it was plugged in near a cooling source. I guess the battery improvements are by reducing power even during the demands.
But I just read the opposite. July's updates decreased this issue according to some tests that somebody ran in another forum.
With the most recent update it seems that the SP3 throttles at 90C and then is limited to 70C which equates to around 2.1GHz. Can this be raised any higher? A higher temp will definitely achieve better sustained results.
I am considering buying the i7 version and am watching this issue closely as I plan on doing 3D modeling and graphics design as well as coding on the SP3 and will be using it at sustained load. Even if a higher limit were an option we could enable, this would benefit many users who would like to use the SP3 as a true laptop replacement.
If you are going to do 3D modeling, get the i7. The i5 is real good but can 'choke' even with TurboBoost.
