The Great Equalizer Part 2: Surface Pro vs. Android Devices in 3DMark

While we're still waiting for Windows RT and iOS versions of the latest 3DMark, there is one cross-platform comparison we can make: Ivy Bridge/Clover Trail to the Android devices we just tested in 3DMark.

The same caveats exist under 3DMark that we mentioned in our GL/DXBenchmark coverage: not only is this a cross-OS comparison, but we're also looking across APIs as well (OpenGL ES 2.0 for Android vs. Direct3D FL 9_1 for Windows). There will be differences in driver maturity not to mention just how well optimized each OS is for the hardware its running on. There are literally decades of experience in optimizing x86 hardware for Windows, compared to the past few years of evolution on the Android side of the fence.

Absent from these charts is anything running on iOS. We're still waiting for a version of 3DMark for iOS unfortunately. If our previous results are any indication however, Qualcomm's Adreno 320 seems to be hot on the heels of the GPU performance of the 4th generation iPad:

In our GL/DXBenchmark comparison we noted Microsoft's Surface Pro (Intel HD 4000 graphics) managed to deliver 3x the performance of the 4th generation iPad. Will 3DMark agree?

All of these tests are run at the default 720p settings. The key comparisons to focus on are Surface Pro (Intel HD 4000), VivoTab Smart (Intel Clover Trail/SGX 545) and the HTC One (Snapdragon 600/Adreno 330). I've borrowed the test descriptions from this morning's article.

Graphics Test 1

Ice Storm Graphics test 1 stresses the hardware’s ability to process lots of vertices while keeping the pixel load relatively light. Hardware on this level may have dedicated capacity for separate vertex and pixel processing. Stressing both capacities individually reveals the hardware’s limitations in both aspects.

In an average frame, 530,000 vertices are processed leading to 180,000 triangles rasterized either to the shadow map or to the screen. At the same time, 4.7 million pixels are processed per frame.

Pixel load is kept low by excluding expensive post processing steps, and by not rendering particle effects.

In this mostly geometry bound test, Surface Pro does extremely well. As we saw in our GL/DXBenchmark comparison however, the ARM based Android platforms don't seem to deliver the most competitive triangle throughput.

Graphics Test 2

Graphics test 2 stresses the hardware’s ability to process lots of pixels. It tests the ability to read textures, do per pixel computations and write to render targets.

On average, 12.6 million pixels are processed per frame. The additional pixel processing compared to Graphics test 1 comes from including particles and post processing effects such as bloom, streaks and motion blur.

In each frame, an average 75,000 vertices are processed. This number is considerably lower than in Graphics test 1 because shadows are not drawn and the processed geometry has a lower number of polygons.

The more pixel shader bound test seems to agree with what we've seen already: Intel's HD 4000 appears to deliver around 3x the performance of the fastest ultra mobile GPUs, obviously at higher power consumption. In the PC space a 3x gap would seem huge, but taking power consumption into account it doesn't seem all that big of a gap here.

Physics Test

The purpose of the Physics test is to benchmark the hardware’s ability to do gameplay physics simulations on CPU. The GPU load is kept as low as possible to ensure that only the CPU’s capabilities are stressed.

The test has four simulated worlds. Each world has two soft bodies and two rigid bodies colliding with each other. One thread per available logical CPU core is used to run simulations. All physics are computed on the CPU with soft body vertex data updated to the GPU each frame. The background is drawn as a static image for the least possible GPU load.

The Physics test uses the Bullet Open Source Physics Library.

Surprisingly enough, the CPU bound physics test has Surface Pro delivering 2.3x the performance of the Snapdragon 600 based HTC One. Quad-core Cortex A15 based SoCs will likely eat into this gap considerably. What will be most interesting is to see how the ARM and x86 platforms converge when they are faced with similar power/thermal constraints. 

What was particularly surprising to me is just how poorly Intel's Atom Z2560 (Clover Trail) does in this test. Granted the physics benchmark is very thread heavy, but the fact that four Cortex A9s can handily outperform two 32nm Atom cores is pretty impressive. Intel hopes to fix this with its first out-of-order Atom later this year, but that chip will also have to contend with Cortex A15 based competitors.

Ice Storm - Overall Score

The overall score seems to agree with what we learned from the GL/DXBenchmark comparison. Intel's HD 4000 delivers around 3x the graphics performance of the leading ultra mobile GPUs, while consuming far more power. Haswell will drive platform power down, but active power should still be appreciably higher than the ARM based competition. I've heard rumblings of sub-10W TDP (not SDP) Haswell parts, so we may see Intel move down the power curve a bit more aggressively than I've been expecting publicly. The move to 14nm, and particularly the shift to Skylake in 2015 will bring about true convergence between the Ultrabook and 10-inch tablet markets. Long term I wonder if the 10-inch tablet market won't go away completely, morphing into a hybird market (think Surface Pro-style devices) with 7 - 8 inch tablets taking over.

It's almost not worth it to talk about Clover Trail here. The platform is just bad when it comes to graphics performance. You'll notice I used ASUS' VivoTab Smart here and in the GL/DXBenchmark comparison instead of Acer's W510. That's not just because of preference. I couldn't get the W510 to reliably complete GL/DXBenchmark without its graphics driver crashing. It's very obvious to me that Intel didn't spend a lot of time focusing on 3D performance or driver stability with Clover Trail. It's disappointing that even in 2012/2013 there are parts of Intel that still don't take GPU performance seriously.

The next-generation 22nm Intel Atom SoC will integrate Intel's gen graphics core (same architecture as HD 4000, but with fewer EUs). The move to Intel's own graphics core should significantly modernize Atom performance. The real question is how power efficient it will be compared to the best from Imagination Tech and Qualcomm.

Windows 7: Release Candidate 1 Preview

Internet Explorer 8 and the Rest

Rounding out our look at Windows 7’s applications, we have Internet Explorer 8. Recently released for both Vista and XP, IE8 is the latest salvo in the ongoing browser wars between Microsoft, Mozilla, Apple, Google, and Opera. We’re not going to go too in-depth here since it’s not a Windows 7-only feature and we’ll be doing a proper review soon, but as the default Windows browser it’s best to quickly hit on the high points.

Microsoft has taken a lot of well-earned flak for the compatibility of previous versions of Internet Explorer. As far as rendering and adherence to web standards goes, IE has been off in its own little world. Microsoft has finally taken a number of steps to resolve that, making IE behave in a much more standards-compliant manner, even though it breaks sites designed for IE’s previously quirky behavior when those sites don’t explicitly ask for IE to use that behavior (i.e. compatibility mode). It’s still not the most compliant browser out there, but it’s a great deal improved from where it was.

Internet Explorer 8

Furthermore the rise of AJAX and other JavaScript-heavy application types has necessitated the need for better JavaScript performance in IE, with IE picking up a garbage collector for JavaScript along with a higher performing JavaScript interpreter. Also new in IE8 is a privacy mode (InPrivate), a new type of search feature Microsoft is calling Accelerators, and separate processes for each tab to keep malfunctioning tabs from bringing down the rest. We’ll have a full work-up of IE8 later this month to look at these features in-depth, so stay tuned.

Meanwhile when it comes time to talk about the rest of the applications, Windows 7 is unusually bare. Microsoft has finally gotten around to following through with their desire to decouple some of the standard Windows applications from the operating system itself, so that they can upgrade the applications separately from the OS. As a result, the following applications are no longer included in Windows as of Windows 7: Mail, Calendar, and Movie Maker.

Missing: Half the applications that should come with the OS

All of them have been spun-off into Microsoft’s Windows Live service (joining previously spun-off Messenger) as part of what Microsoft is calling the Windows Live Essentials pack. While there’s probably a good reason for doing it exactly this way (it’s hard to add features when you’re a convicted monopolist) it’s little consolation to the fact that it makes Windows 7 extremely confusing to use. An operating system without an email client or a calendaring application? What is this, 1995? And what about IE? It’s decoupled from the OS too, and yet it’s still included by default.

At least with Vista and its spun-off Messenger, Microsoft replaced Messenger with a link to the Windows Live website to download it. However with Windows 7 there’s absolutely no indication of where they went unless you start searching the help files. We’ll cut Microsoft some slack here since this is just a Release Candidate, but if this is how they intend to ship the final version (and it probably is) then there is likely to be a number of confused users once Windows 7 launches.

One Windows Live Essential install later, and we have Mail

One notable addition to Windows 7 is that Windows has finally gained some basic ISO disc image handling abilities. Unfortunately it’s not the ability to mount them as a virtual drive like Mac OS X can, but Windows 7 at least gets it half-right by getting the ability to burn them. The new Windows Disc Image Burner fulfills exactly this role, and is invoked by right-clicking on ISO files. It may not sound fancy, but with software increasingly being distributed on ISOs these days (including Windows 7 RC1 itself) it’s undoubtedly handy.

We can't mount them, but at least we can burn them

Last but not least, Disk Defragmenter has received an overhaul in looks and features in coming from Vista. With respect to looks, Microsoft hid the fragmentation status of a hard drive in Vista on the belief that users found it to be superfluous information, and they have restored that information for Windows 7 after receiving negative feedback in order to satiate the power users who wanted that missing information. With respect to features, Microsoft has given Disk Defragmenter the ability to move NTFS metadata files, which previously could not be moved and in some situations unnecessarily blocked the shrinking of partitions as a result. Disk Defragmenter is now also capable of recognizing SSDs, and will block the defragmentation of those disks since defragmenting is of no use due to wear-leveling algorithms.

The new Disk Defragmenter

After nearly a year-long build-up, Microsoft’s ongoing pre-launch campaign to woo computer users has come to a close, with the public launch of Microsoft’s latest and greatest desktop OS, Windows 7.

Windows 7 is being born in to a world of uncertainty, one Microsoft has never faced before to such a degree. Apple’s (and Mac OS X) market share is the highest it’s been in over a decade. Linux has finally gained however small a foothold in home computers through netbooks. And what was Microsoft’s next-gen operating system, Windows Vista, has taken enough backlash that it’s going to be in therapy for the rest of its life.

By no means are these troubled times for Microsoft, but never has victory been less assured.

Unfortunately, Windows Vista started life as a technical misfit, something even we didn’t fully comprehend until later. It ate too much virtual address space, it copied files slowly, and it ran poorly on the lowest of the low-end computers of the time. Microsoft fixed many of these problems by the time SP1 hit, but by then it was too late. Vista went from a technical misfit to a social misfit, with no hope of immediate redemption.

So Windows 7 is being launched with some gargantuan tasks on its shoulders, few of them technical. First and foremost, it needs to reverse Vista’s (and by extension, Microsoft’s) bad image among existing Windows users, in order to get them off of the old and insecure Windows XP. Then it needs to help stem the continuing flow of Windows users to Mac OS X, which has continued to grow over the years. And finally, it still needs to innovate enough so that Windows doesn’t end up stagnant, and ideally sell a few copies to Vista users while it’s at it.

It’s a large order, one that as we’ll see Microsoft won’t completely deliver on, but they’re going to get fairly close to.

In the meantime, we’re left a launch that has been a very long time coming. Between the public beta, the public RC, and Win7 having been finalized 3 months ago, virtually anyone that wanted Win7 has had the opportunity to try it. Anyone could get the release version by the middle of August through TechNet, MSDN, Action Pack, or any other of a number of sources that Microsoft released Win7 to well ahead of the public launch. The real launch was 3 months ago, so the public launch is almost a technicality.

And with that said, let’s get started with our final look at Windows 7.

window desktop

A New Kind of Home Computer: Windows Home Server Preview

The Interface of WHS

Although we'll touch on specific points of the GUI of WHS as we come to the various functions of the OS, we'll still spend a bit of time with the WHS interface since it's one of the other critical components that separates WHS from other server products and makes it work. Because WHS needs to be usable by a subset of users that are only partially computer literate, several special considerations had to go into making an interface for the OS. Furthermore the entire thing needs to be able to run headless once a WHS server is set up.

Microsoft has opted to go with a single application to control all of the functionality of WHS, the simply-titled Windows Home Server Console. As we alluded to earlier, the console actually runs on the server, and via a specialized RDP client is controlled from the clients. For clients that install the full connector suite (used for enabling backups) the specialized client is installed, which initiates the console on a remote computer and then transparently uses RDP to display it on the client as a local application. Because this is done via RDP, other clients from other OSs connect to and control the server via normal RDP; in this case they'll get the entire desktop of the server. At this point Microsoft is seriously entertaining the idea of pushing WHS onto non-Windows households, the Mac platform especially since an official RDP client is available.

The console effectively breaks up administration into 6 tasks: backups, user accounts, shared folders, server storage/drive management, network status, and WHS settings. As far as all of these interfaces go, Microsoft isn't working with any new human-computer interaction memes, rather everything is scaled down to be as simple as possible without losing effectiveness. This means that there's little we can say that's remarkable about the interface; it looks like Windows and there's a lack of buttons to push or things to break.

We're not completely sold on the effectiveness of the interface, but torn as to why. We don't think Microsoft could have made the interface any simpler without taking out features, but that doesn't preclude making it better. The interface is effectively a listing of a bunch of things to do, with help menus available that explain what each and every last thing does. It gets the job done, but a certain degree of computer literacy is required to understand what's going on. We'd say MS has done better with simplifying complex interfaces with Vista MCE, which manages to break complex issues such as storing recordings into a simple manner very well.

To that extent organizations like Geek Squad will probably get a good amount of business out of setting WHS up; it's not by any means hard, but there will be a sizable minority of potential customers that will lack the literacy required to do it themselves. However once set up WHS is by all indications plenty capable of continuing on indefinitely on its own; even its automatic update function has been revised for headless operation so that it can install any and all updates without human intervention (which is not the case today with XP or Vista). This is the reason we're torn, since most WHS servers probably won't need administration for 99.9% of their lives. The interface, especially for backups and user accounts, is good enough that once the server is set up it should be possible for more or less anyone to handle what little administrative duties remain.

On the whole Microsoft could have done a better job on making the interface accessible for everyone, but it's good enough for now.

Windows Vista Update: RC1/5728 Preview

At long last the light is at the end of the tunnel. After a several year development period, the longest for any single consumer version of Windows, the end is near for Windows Vista. While it's clearly not ready to be delivered in to the hands of users quite yet, Vista is finally at a point where we can begin talking about what will happen, and not what may.

Although Microsoft uses the Release Candidate nomenclature for Vista builds 5600 and above, including build 5728 we're looking at today, the reality of the situation is that the shipping version of Windows Vista will not be these builds or even a few builds down the line. Given the complexity of an operating system, there are still messy quirks and bona fide bugs in these release candidates, and it's going to be at least another month before we're talking about Microsoft having released a final version, and even then there will be a good amount of post-launch patching to be done as Vista ends up in the hands of the ultimate bug hunters, everyday users.

With that said, this is the first time that we can say without flinching that Vista is in an acceptable state for general use. Compatibility on the x86 version is remarkably improved over what we saw earlier, and in our testing we only managed to come up with a single program - non-commercial at that - that simply wouldn't function correctly under Vista no matter what. Otherwise, everything could be made to work under Vista given enough cajoling, which is an enormous feat given the amount of under-the-hood work the operating system has received compared to Windows XP.User Account Controls have not changed much since build 5472, which is not necessarily a bad thing. Like Windows overall, UAC is usable at this point, and not nearly the nuisance it was as of Beta 2. It still has rough spots, and we'll get to that in a bit, but at this point enthusiasts are the only group that will have problems with it.

Hardware support and in-the-box drivers are also coming together, no doubt due to the portability of drivers between Vista and XP in most cases. A quick run-through of our lab turned up only two pieces of hardware that weren't supported under Vista: a Hauppauge TV tuner that had three of the four drivers it needed, and our PhysX card, both of which should have full support soon. All things considered, this will likely be the least-painful Windows transition on the driver front, as vendors have been on top of the few key kernel/driver changes for a while.

At this point we've been using RC1 for nearly a month, and the newer build 5728 for over two weeks, and while we're ready to switch back to XP until Vista is completed due to some video issues, Vista is ready to be taken seriously.