- The Microsoft Surface Book 2 15" has been on
the market now for a couple weeks,
but it's garnering a bit of controversy.
Today we're gonna find out whether or not it
actually drains while playing video games,
and if it's a problem or not.
Let's find out.
(energetic music)
So the reports are that when the Surface Book 2 15"
is plugged into an AC power source
and playing certain video games,
it will actually drain the battery faster
than it can charge and that sounds super horrible,
but this is not across the board,
nor is it all the time and it's specific
to certain video games and it's even more
specific to the power setting you put the
Surface Book 2 15 on.
Okay, issue number one,
it's going to come down to power mode.
So on the Surface Book 2 and all modern Surface devices,
there is now a power slider that allows you on
different modes to switch between different power levels.
So there is a battery saver, recommended,
better performance, and best performance,
and you can choose those for AC or on battery,
and you can customize it.
What's happening is,
by default the system is on recommended,
the OS is managing the battery and power source,
as well as the CPU and GPU power throttling.
The problem seems to be when it's on best performance,
you're going to drain the battery a bit faster
than when it's just using a AC charger.
Now, I should point out, this is not across the board,
meaning if you're just using this as a normal computer
and you're on best performance,
you will charge the battery while using it.
In fact, on most applications and even most games,
I'm going to say upwards of 95% of games out there,
you won't have a problem
even when you're on best performance.
Part two, let's talk about video games.
So not all games, in fact most do not exhibit this
battery drainage issue when plugged in on the
Surface Book 2 15", but we can choose Destiny 2,
that is the one that's most often cited.
In fact, Tom Warren from The Verge contacted me
before the Surface Book 2 15" review went live,
and I was able to confirm with him that the game
does in fact drain the battery.
Now that sounds really bad,
but Destiny 2's kind of a weird game.
Let me explain why:
When you first install it on a Surface Book 2,
the default resolution is going to be 1282 by 728.
By default the native resolution
on Surface Book 2 is 3240 by 2160.
Moreover you can't actually change the resolution
in the game, it's just weird.
You don't have everything set to high,
including the anti-aliasing and other settings,
but the resolution it's fixed,
and that's not even an ideal resolution.
However, you can change it by installing
the GeForce Experience app.
The app looks at what's installed on your device
for video games, as well as the CPU and GPU,
and then balances and recommends certain settings
when based on AC power or battery power.
And because of that feature,
you can now go and change the resolution in Destiny 2.
Now what's weird about this is when it's at the
default resolution, which is not good,
it actually does drain the battery when playing.
However, if you up the resolution to something
higher and more preferable, it doesn't.
Now part of this is because it's probably turning
off anti-aliasing and some other features that
you may not find necessary.
Personally, I value higher resolution over
anti-aliasing especially on a 15" display where
I'm playing a first-person shooter;
I'm not gonna really notice those kinda things.
But what's more interesting here is I'm playing
Destiny 2 now at near 60 frames per second,
and at a higher resolution and charging the battery
while playing, even when in high performance mode.
Now I did start a Reddit thread asking people for
feedback on this, and it's a little bit mixed.
Some games, including World of Tanks,
Fortnite, and supposedly Overwatch on max
do cause some battery draining.
Now I've not actually confirmed those,
so you'll have to take that as it is.
Other games like Witcher 3, Civilization VI,
Dishonored 2, PUBG, Doom,
and as I mentioned earlier Destiny 2 on certain settings,
do not cause the battery drain.
Part three: let's talk about the charger.
So Surface Book 2 ships with a 102-Watt charger,
it's the same one that came with
the Surface Book Performance Base,
it's a pretty good charger, and for most people out there,
you'll never have an issue.
However, as a lot of people point out,
gaming laptops tend to ship with
chargers at 150 Watts or higher.
Now you may be wondering,
"Can you just charge the device using
a type C charger and the Surface Connect?"
No you can't.
In fact if you plug both in,
the Surface Connect will override it.
The other issue here of course is Type C chargers
only go up to about 100 Watts,
so you can't go and get a different charger there as well.
Now what's happening here is when the GPU is maxed out,
it's pulling around 80 Watts.
You throw in the CPU, it's about another 20 Watts.
So you're already at 100 right there,
then you add in things like the display and RAM and storage,
and that's also gonna drain some battery.
And this is where the 102 Watts
actually gets a little bit messy.
But for most people,
you're never going to be running the system
at 100% for hours at a time.
There are exceptions, which is what some of those games are.
Alright, let's talk about Surface Dock,
as this complicates the matters even more.
Now the Surface Dock only charges around 65 Watts,
so if you're connecting that up to Surface Book 2,
as well as a 4K display,
and you're gonna play a high-end video game,
well, there's actually a chance you will drain the battery.
Now I am hearing rumors of a new Surface Dock
in the works and I don't wanna give away too much,
because it's unconfirmed
but it's gonna be very impressive when it comes out.
I just don't have any information on that,
when it's gonna actually happen,
but there may be a solution down the road.
So the charger is gonna be fine for most people,
don't forget that Microsoft is gearing this toward
STEM--Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math--
students as well as professionals,
but there's a good argument here that Microsoft
could've included a larger charger.
So this comes down to the greater good
vs those who want more power.
I think for most people, 102 Watts is totally fine.
You're not gonna drain the battery at all
when using Surface Book 2 as a normal computer,
but for a subset of you who are really pushing this,
yes, 102 Watts is probably not enough.
Let's talk about ambient temperature
and TDP of the processor.
TDP stands for Thermal Design Point,
or Thermal Design Power,
and it relates to how much heat the processor is
going to generate in relation to the power it is drawing.
Now what these processors are doing today is
drawing power at a certain wattage,
in this case around 20, although it can peak up to 25 Watts,
but it manipulates it based on how much heat there is.
This is called power limit throttling,
and it relates to the temperature
of the chassis of the computer.
In other words the computer, if it gets too hot,
it's going to cut down the power to the chip rapidly
and then cool down the processor.
This all happens within seconds though and milliseconds,
so you don't really notice it.
What it does mean though,
is if you're gonna game in a warmer environment,
say 70 or 80 degrees Fahrenheit,
that processor is going to jump down
to around ten, 11, or 12 Watts instead of that full 20,
so you're going to get a lower-clock processor.
Now alternatively,
if you wanna game in a very cool environment,
that processor can run at a higher wattage.
So what does this all mean?
It comes down to if you're going
to game in a cooler environment,
you may actually draw more power from the battery
and from the AC outlet than
if you were in a warmer environment.
Okay let's bring it all in,
when it comes to the Surface Book 2
and the power drainage issue, as you can see,
there are a lot of variables involved.
Depending on what game you choose,
the resolution you set it at,
and whether or not your room's hot or even cold,
all of that will affect this.
Now I'm going to say,
most people will never exhibit this issue.
It's only in the rare cases where you're really
pushing the GPU and CPU,
and you've set the device to go to max performance.
In those situations you're at risk for having this problem.
Even still, you're only talking about
five to ten percent battery drainage per hour,
meaning you'd probably have to game for five hours
even to drain the battery 50%.
Now for some of you that is totally unacceptable,
and I hate to do the "what about"-isms, but yeah,
I mean MacBook Pros have exhibited
this problem too in the past,
and some gaming laptops have had this issue as well,
so it's not that uncommon,
although whether or not you find it
acceptable will be up to you.
I'm not here to tell you it's totally fine,
I'm just saying I don't think it's that big of a deal.
As to what Microsoft can do to fix this,
well I see two options.
Obviously they can make a larger charger,
but that will take a few months before it gets to market.
They have to design it, build it, test it,
and then get it into the market,
and that can take at least six months.
Now as to why they wouldn't include that in the box,
well I don't think most people would actually
benefit from having a larger charger,
outside of it being bigger and heavier.
The other issue is the Surface Connect;
we don't know what it's limitations are,
it could be 102 Watts.
It's all proprietary,
so we just don't know what its capabilities are.
The second solution is Microsoft can release
a firmware patch and basically not allow the GPU
to drain that much power when set to high performance mode.
The issue here of course is you now know the GPU
can do more, if Microsoft limits that well,
some of you will get upset there as well.
Had Microsoft done that on day one,
no one would have known and we would all
be not having this conversation right now.
So they could do that,
I don't think that's an ideal solution,
but if enough people complain,
and enough people return these devices over this problem,
that's probably what they would do,
I just don't see that happening.
So in the end, whether or not this matters to you
depends on how much you wanna push the Surface Book 2 15.
I actually think this is a good choice for Microsoft,
that they allow you to push it this far,
but some of you may be disappointed.
Just think about that and the context
in which you wanna use the Surface Book 2
before you plunk down your money.
Alright if you want more information about this topic,
go to the Reddit thread linked in the description below
where I started this conversation
with others and chime in there.
Also let me know in comments
what you think Microsoft should do:
Should they allow you to just draw that much power
when set at high performance, or should they cap it off?
Let me know in comments what you think.
If you like this video, give us a thumb's up
and don't forget to subscribe.
Thanks for watching, take care everybody.
At the end of this video, no I don't wanna mention that.
- [Mark] Yeah yeah, you could just say it instead of...
- Yeah.
Okay, this is part...four?
One, two, three, yeah it's part four, okay.
Alright part four.