I don’t expect Microsoft to be making a big deal about the launch of the Surface Pro 8 and Surface Laptop 4. We almost certainly won’t get a major virtual event or the fanfare that welcomed Apple’s M1 Mac’s last month. That’s because Microsoft’s next generation hardware is probably focused on incremental spec updates. Benchmark results corroborate that thinking. Both the Surface Pro 8 and Surface Laptop 4 will get Intel 11th-Gen Tiger Lake CPUs and AMD variants for the Laptop 4. Benchmarks for the devices run as “OEMWY” for the Pro 8 and “OEMGR” for the Laptop 4, their respective codenames. Both are solid to excellent performers in benchmarks, as you would expect, and users will be hoping for a visible performance bump in day-to-day situations.
Recent Apple M1 Benchmark
Speaking of benchmarks related to Surface hardware, a recent test of Apple’s new M1 processor running Windows 10 has brought some embarrassment for Microsoft. Results showed a Mac Mini with the new ARM CPU could run Windows 10 on ARM better than a Surface Pro X. YouTuber Martin Nobel got Windows 10 running on a new M1 Mac Mini and run it through Geekbench in comparison with a Windows 10 laptop. The Mac Mini with Windows 10 on ARM scored 5,000 points while a Surface Pro X managed 3,113 points.
