Surface Pro 8 vs Surface Laptop Studio

SketchUp Computer Advice
1

Hello fellow members. I did research this a tad but came away with just about the same amount of questions as I did before the research. I have had my Surface Book 2 for just about 2 years now and at the time it was the best that they offered. i7, 16 gigs of RAM, NVIDIA Card and sizable hard drive. I invested in it so I could utilize the detachable screen, thinking I could get away from my iPad Pro and start to simplify my life by migrating to 1 tablet for everything. Little did I realize that the NVIDIA was in the base which significantly slowed up my Sketchup program. Fast forward 2 years and that’s when I usually start shopping because I hate waiting until the end of life for my devices. I have done it but sometimes I hate myself for it. SO still hoping to get away from these multiple devices I am thinking about upgrading. I also am a road warrior at times so the I prefer the lightest package I can get away with. Also I would like to stick with the Surface line up as my “Work At Home” peripheral setup leans heavily on the Surface Dock and while I could change everything if I switched manufactures? I would rather not because I thnk my wife would kill me in my sleep.

Specs between the 2 devices I am looking at are pretty close:

Processor:
Surface Pro 8
Quad-core 11th Gen Intel® Core™ i7-1185G7 Processor, designed on the Intel® Evo™ platform
Surface Laptop Studio
Quad-core 11th Gen Intel® Core™ H35 i7-11370H

Memory
32GB LPDDRX4 (Both Devices)

Graphics:
Surface Pro 8
Intel® Iris® Xᵉ Graphics (i5, i7)
Surface Laptop Studio:
Intel® Core™ i7 models: NVIDIA® GeForce RTX™ 3050 Ti laptop GPU with 4GB GDDR6 GPU memory

I know there should be a significant increase in performance going from 16GB RAM I have now to the 32GB so either way I win there. So the bottom line here is can I get by with the Surface Pro 8 which would be my first choice or do you members think the lack of a high end graphics card would put me in the same boat with the tablet?

At that point then I would be relegated to the Studio and just have to bite the bullet and not care so much about portability (which still stinks but what are ya going to do?).

Please leave your thoughts and comments.

As always I appreciate the time you members take to reply and I thank you in advance. I know the forum is free but your time definitely is precious.

Jim

2

The integrated Iris graphics steal memory as required from the system RAM.

The dedicated Nvidia GPU has it’s own 4GB VRAM that might even be faster than system RAM.

We almost never recommend integrated graphics.

The CPU for the Studio is newer and better:

Passmark CPU Compare: Intel-i7-11370H vs Intel-i7-1185G7

3

Also, increasing ram doesn’t increase speed, it just allows heavier operations to be handled by the PC. Of course if ram is fully spent, either the PC will become sluggish or simply fail at the task.

The most intensive operations I use are point cloud generation and rendering. I never reached 32 gb of ram only with SketchUp and layout open, even for the heaviest model.

4

Thank you gentlemen, appreciate the answers and the time you spent on this subject! Makes my decision much easier.

5

May I ask what was you decision? Have you bought Surface Pro 8 or Studio?

Considering Surface pro 8 as well. As a tablet/notepad, but if it can handle SU - great. Not as a main device (using Dell Precision 7750, but want something light for OneNote and meetings)

6

I have settled on the Surface Pro 8 BUT:

  1. I am waiting for the price to drop. Microsoft usually runs a good discount during Christmas but they did no have anything great thing year so just watching. Because the one I want has 32 gigs, it seems like the high end models have not gone on sale very much.
  2. You will most likely have to run a EGPU (External Graphics Card) more than likely so you have to factor in another $300 or so. At least that’s what the research shows me.

So with both those things in mind it may help with your decision.

7

Although a bit later - I’m running SketchUp on a Surface Pro 8 - i7, 16GB with an external GPU enclosure holding an RTX3060 12GB connected through thunderbolt - You have to close the software before unplugging the external GPU- to avoid it from crashing … - but otherwise. works great!