I'm a pro. I'm an experienced programmer, amateur photographer, edit home videos a lot and do a bunch of computationally expensive tasks on my workstation.
Whilst I'd like to have the absolute latest, cutting edge GPU from AMD/NVIDIA I also appreciate that sometimes last gen parts are cheaper, more reliable (having benefitted from refinement over the manufacturing run) and sometimes cooler running than what's new. I use a Mac (for the forseeable) because I'm quite happy to spend quite a bit extra on form and function over just absolute function.
I'm not the only one, just look at Apple's bottom line.
I think what Microsoft are doing here are going after Apple's (previously) target market, the so called pro user. Windows has typically been a value proposition so it will take them time and clearly ruffle the feathers of those who've built their own PCs and put Windows on top (I for one do that on my gaming PC).
This is not a gaming PC. It's aimed at the iMac crowd. Apple's alienating a lot of professionals who value form and function by focusing on purely form and I think props should go to Microsoft for being the only company (as far as I can see) who is not copying Apple and producing some incredibly innovative new form factors in a very staid sector - the pro workstation.
Absolutely - this is an attempt to pick up the creative market that Apple is neglecting.
The problem is that it's not really that big a market. This machine is too expensive for general use, and has the disadvantage of Windows for professional use.
I think a lot of designers are going to be interested enough to look at it, but sales aren't going to be anywhere near iMac volumes.
And sensible people will wait for the inevitable reports of serious flaws. (As I've said before, I have absolutely no confidence that MS can execute competently in the consumer market. I wish that was simple prejudice, but it's actually years of bitter experience.)
> The problem is that it's not really that big a market.
I considered that too, that the market might be too small. Dell tried themselves to crack this market with some exquisite kit a few years back (see my links below). Sadly they canned those products and haven't revisited the market.
Whilst there has always been premium Apple kit, there's never really been premium Windows kit. I really do hope Microsoft persever and don't give up on this segment of the market. The first few years can be painful when pivoting but customers do sometimes reward patience.
> As I've said before, I have absolutely no confidence that MS can execute competently in the consumer market. I wish that was simple prejudice, but it's actually years of bitter experience.
Agreed! But I do recall the 90s when people said the same thing about Apple...
No company stays on top (or bottom) of the pile forever. I for one hope and look forward to Microsoft evolving and changing, as they must.
The question is are you willing to drop 4k $ for this machine ?
iMac crowd is dropping half of that for a pretty desktop that runs fine - I can see that. I don't see a lot of people buying a 4k$ device because it looks pretty. At that price range I need to be able to use it at least two years down the road and this is already outdated before release. It's just priced waay too high considering how weak the HW is, I would definitely skip this until they do a hardware update.
I work in an office of graphic designers, and they all have overpowered hardware that they bought thinking they needed the latest and greatest to run Photoshop and Illustrator.
They don't need a breakneck GPU - they need a device like this that gives them new, intuitive input options.
That said, for any kind of 3D development this hardware isn't up to snuff. Anyway, the device seems more targeted at 2D graphic designers.
I'm no graphic professional - but I've just recently started playing at drawing on my i5/8gb Surface pro 4. It's great fun, and there are lots of options.
But trying to draw on an 1200 dpi A3 canvas (unsurprisingly) doesn't really work very well. But if I were to use it professionally, some of the things I'd want to do was draw high resolution A2 to A0 prints.
I've yet to play much with photoshop, so I'm not sure how well it handles a modest 20 megapixel image.
I'm playing with drawing too on my Surface pro 2 and from my experience the program used for drawing seems to make a lot of difference. So it's worth experimenting a bit.
For me using Clip Studio Paint seems best so far, as it has dedicated tablet mode UI and is responsive enough, thought 1200 dpi A3 will might be too much for it at times.
Agree 100% there are thousands of offices out there with photoshop monkeys making web pages, signs, adverts, car wraps, promotional material, etc etc all of who would love to have one of these. All those ageing iMacs need to replaced soon.
Not with the same configuration you can't. An iMac comparable to the top of the line Surface Studio is 3399 vs 4199 for the Surface Studio. If we go for the 2999 Surface Studio, the comparable iMac is 2549.
So, yes, you can get two, even three iMacs for the price of a Surface Studio, but the specs will be nowhere near the same between the two.
Yes - and my point is that people running iMac truly don't care about the specs.
I've said this in this tread before - you don't dump 4k$ on a desktop for mobile performance - when you spend that kind of cash you probably really need a high end workstation - think of the mac pro use case - and this device doesn't cut it as that.
> professionals care about the specs very much, especially at that resolution and price tag
I did graphic work for many years and have worked with dozens of designers. None of them have ever been worried about specs. In fact the only person who even asked about them wanted a high end laptop so he could play video games on it at home.
I am unconvinced designers care about specs unless they're working on something specific that requires very high performance (which the majority would NOT be doing).
I also worked as a designer and with designers, and the ones shelling out 4k$ on a work machine definitely do care about the specs. Basically this is in Mac Pro territory, not iMac/MacBook territory.
I think it should be obvious that "designer" means nothing, from a web guy doing basic 2D stuff to a CAD engineer in need of GPGPU passing by a video editor on CUDA, there are at least 3 entirely different needs/use-cases. Probably more as you try to cookie-cut cost/function.
They should have jumped ship from Apple by now. What design programs are there that require osx? They can build a much better computer for the money. Isn't that why Apple stopped?
SketchApp (https://www.sketchapp.com/) is being used a lot more than Photoshop / Illustrator for drafting wireframes and quick visual designs for web + mobile designs.
Not to say that Photoshop / Illustrator aren't being used. Sketch is also more beginner friendly.
You don't need a desktop for that kind of work in the first place, a laptop is way more convenient, you're probably going to want one even if you get this, and at that point you can just plug it in to a high end monitor for half the price of this. Hell you can buy a top of the line laptop with better specs for the other half.
Doing video editing, 3D at that resolution, VR, etc. are the kind of workloads you need a desktop machine for - this doesn't cut it.
Mmmh, so I wonder why I know people with iMacs? This is precisely targeted at the cintiq + iMac market. The dGPU on this is roughly equivalent to the iMac.
iMacs are half the price of this ? This costs the same as high end laptop and a high end monitor combined. For the pricing this would need to compete with Mac Pro not iMac
You're missing my point - he asks why he sees so many people with iMac - it's because the iMac is in a completely different price segment - iMac is just a pretty desktop, with a slightly higher price tag.
This is in the price range of Mac Pro, you need to justify spending 3 or 4k $ on this machine - and it doesn't cover the Mac Pro use case at all. For the price of this machine you can buy a high end laptop that beats this on specs and utility (because it's portable) and a high end screen.
I mean I like the device and the screen - but no way in hell am I paying 4k$ for something that's outdated out of the factory - maybe on the next update.
Incorrect. You do not at all need the latest and greatest gaming GPUs to run the latest and greatest graphic software package at top-notch performance.
"I am intimately familiar with how it feels to create things on these sorts of devices and the Studio honestly feels like a generational leap forward. If you are a digital artist and you are currently working on a Cintiq you have to go to a MS store and look at the Studio. I’ve always given you my honest take on this stuff and this time is no different even though I can’t think of anything bad to say. If you draw on computers the Surface Studio is something very special."
Hybrid drives are a good call for professional graphic designers and video editors. I have moved my video editing efforts to hybrid drives because of price/space ratios while maintaining performance.
Pure SSDs only shine for gaming and compiling, and much more for the former than the later.
A machine where you're constantly shuffling for space is no fun.
Pure SSD's have come down in price so much that it's irresponsible to spec out a computer for professional use without one.
The SSD impacts every single aspect of computer performance - from startup times, to application start times, to swap space speed, to reducing times when the computer is locked up loading from disk.
And these days, a 1 TB SSD can be had for around $300 USD - at which point, there is no obvious need for shuffling for space. Of course, if you are needing the 3 TB drives for video editing, that's fine. The surface studio specs say 1TB or 2TB - so even at such a high price, I find it really disappointing that it's not offering the 1 TB SSD (which is probably the first aftermarket change I would make if I bought one). For many 3D graphics pros, you would run the OS on a 512G SSD, and load the assets onto a larger 3TB hybrid drive or even better, a 10TB RAID array, for example, but you can't discount how much performance that SSD drive brings just for loading the OS and the software (Maya, or Adobe suite, etc)
Face it - any new machine today without an ssd is one where the manufacture is trying to claw back some profit.
Just for a note, those 1TB cheap SSDs are not very good or very compact SSDs. The new ones we associate with such stellar performance are still more expensive.
This device has some pretty intense performance requirements for the form factor. Could we wait a bit for some hands-on with reviewers before saying MS botched it?
If you look at the form factor, the hybrid drive is most likely a 2.5 inch drive. As far as I know there are no hybrid drives in the compact ssd size (either m.2 or msata format - the spinning platter wouldn't even fit). Just by listing that it uses a hybrid drive, they are already revealing what the form factor is - which is larger than a m.2 slot, and therefore competes head to head with the last gen 2.5 inch SSD with the SATA connector - which at 1TB is around 300 bucks these days.
And yes the SSD's are not as fast as the latest m.2 drives, but are still miles ahead of any spinning drive. I'm not really sure what you are trying to say ... like a Ferrari is faster than a Tesla in Ludicrous mode, so ... go for an electric hybrid like a Toyota Prius? I know that the car analogy doesn't always work, but can you think about your reasoning? That a true M.2 SSD (which can be thousands of dollars) is faster than a last gen 1TB SSD in the 2.5 inch form factor, so therefore MS should use a spinning hybrid drive???
You can wait for a teardown, or you can use logic and common sense.
The only other choice is for MS to use a non standard size spinning platter, maybe around the old Compact Flash drive size - but in that case, there is absolutely no point - they should have just gone straight to M.2, especially for something in that form factor.
To be honest, current generation hybrid drives pair up a really slow 5400 rpm drive with some flash. Now it can still get good performance, but in the end, you're dealing with a hard drive from a few generations ago. Seagate had 7200rpm hybrid drives last generation, but they recently changed to 5400 rpm drives, which makes the drive kinda slow, even with the flash addition.
Microsoft may certainly have gone custom with custom parts, but I don't think they have the volume, even in the wildest expectations, to go against the now popular ssd juggernaunt that is overtaking all of the slim laptop (Apple, Lenovo, Dell, Razer, etc), small form factor embedded pc, and high performance pc space - for good reason. It just makes sense, the parts are really widely available, and people are expecting that type of performance.
Think about it - 1 or 2 TB hybrid drive ? Do you think very small spinning drives come in that size? and would they pay for custom gear vs just going with an SSD (which can also be custom sized too don't forget)?
Microsoft has a lot of money, but I'm not sure that's where they should spend their money. An SSD in m.2 size is expensive, but less expensive than getting all custom gear.
This is about thinking things through ....
The logical thing is to have a 512G M.2 nvme paired up with a 2TB regular spinning drive (at 2.5") and calling it a day.
That's I would go with for a deluxe, small form factor, graphics pro oriented machine. That's the sweet spot. And it's really easy to build with off the shelf parts like the Intel NUC as a base.
... But that's precisely what a hybrid drive can be, except with more work to make it so the user doesn't have to juggle things by hand...
I am no longer a professional (as in, primary income) photographer, but I was and trying to keep all my work on the "right" drive was about as fun as weddings.
Btw sorry I said 2.5gb but that was mobile correcting 2.5in.
And what I'm trying to say is that SSD's are so cheap now that for the lower spec (1TB) of the surface studio, you no longer need to juggle space in order to far exceed the performance of a hybrid drive, even with a last gen SSD. SSD of any modern kind >> hybrid drive in performance.
I'm not arguing for abstract systems, but for that specific build that Microsoft has put together - in that form factor, a hybrid drive takes up too much space and they are not offering 3TB+ versions where the hybrid drive would excel.
I don't get how you're privy to what components MS has available. I think you assume ANYTHING in that machine is a stock PC part off the shelf.
It's not. It's really not. There is no damn room.
It's the same with the MBA, it's the same with the Surface 4 and Surface. Hell, it's the same with every all-in-one now.
I'm trying to take you seriously here but you keep repeating this line that makes it sound like you have some deep and clever insight into a machine the press has barely touched, let alone teardown specialists. You're mad because it's not a full SSD on principle but you have no idea what the hot set size of the hybrid is. You've got a bone to pick with performance but Surface devices have always been forced to use custom configurations of hardware (e.g., every Surface Book has an unusual configuration of their video card that gives substantially better performance).
I think you're arguing based on theoretical specs and without knowing the domain. Unless you're an ex-Surface engineer with special insight, I don't see why anyone here should trust you about this given how you insist this is all stock parts and it's trivially verifiable that that's not the case.
Hybrid drives are noticably slower than SSD for a lot of use cases. It's like saying a USB2 part is good enough when USB3 is pervasive, expected, and not that much pricier.
SSDs (and preferably PCIe or NVMe) should be table stakes at a $2k price.
It'd not though because the price per GB is still pretty big.
A lot of people here are talking as if they've actually tested these hybrid drives and found them wanting. Hybrid drives have an SSD-like component so as long as your working set fits in those and is relatively predictable, the performance difference is not noticeable.
SSDs have a definite positive performance impact for editing photos, especially when using programs such as Lightroom that also manage photo libraries/databases
Actually Lightroom works well with hybrid drives. You're using going to be building 1:1 previews anyway on a fast scratch drive and RAWs on a cheap storage option. Any RAWs you're working with will be in ram anyway.
Try setting up a RAM disk as scratch. Scratch is where most of your I/O goes when editing, and an SSD can't touch a RAM disk for performance. PS (if that's what you're using) doesn't make much use of RAM above 8GB - it prefers scratch space at that point - so if you partition anything above that off for use as a "disk" you get a huge performance boost.
Having glanced at recent hw prices - for a desktop/workstation I'd say a reasonable baseline for new equipment for professional use would be 128gb ram, 1tb ssd and maybe a 10 tb 3.5 inch HD, if more space is needed (or a smaller drive, but the recent seagate offering looks pretty good value - even if you pay the customary ~2x/gb price [ed: for getting the largest capacity/newest drive on market] compared to a ~4tb drive):
Count audio as another environment where the hybrid drives make sense when paired with a suitable RAM amount. Nobody wants hiccups...but with the right USB 3.0 soundcard, RAM, and DAW, the output WAV files will stack up. Sure, uploading to cloud or network storage helps, but for general utility the hybrid scratches both performance and space itches.
You're getting downvoted by zealots who are angry Apple still doesn't have (and won't anytime soon) a beautiful touch screen.
Hybrids are totally fine in a great majority of use cases. For this price I agree you might as well have thrown one in, but still, performance difference will be neglible.
As a dev I run an ssd because ides are shitty bloated awful pieces of crap (all of them tbh) they don't know how to run in memory and always spend time on file io.
If you think professional graphics and 3d editing software aren't as bloated and shitty as IDE's then you are mistaken.
Adobe CS suite ... that's a load of hot steaming garbage when you try to load it up.
They are one of the really bad culprits causing designers and graphics pro's to need fast SSD's.
Think having multiple copes of IntelliJ IDEA AND Eclipse running at the same time, and being saddled with poorly optimized code paths. (Because designers often need to run Photoshop and Illustrator, and sometimes Premiere as well for example, simultaneously)
In fact, I think photoshop on a code quality level (loading, optimizations) is worse than Eclipse by a factor of 2. Designers have been getting around this by throwing brute force processing power, gpu, and SSD's at it.
The image processing algorithms are top notch, that's why people buy it - but everything around it ... the ui, widgets, update framework, a ton of it is creaking old and really poorly maintained.
