Great community you have going on here and I am personally very excited about the Eve V.
I am having a bit of a difficult time deciding if and which Eve V I should go with and I was hoping you guys could shed some light on the matter.
Here is my problem:
I am not a gamer, I am a “regular” Windows user meaning that I stick to web browsing, work-related uses (Word, Excel, etc) and, most of all, high fidelity entertainment. I am currently using a SP3 i5 256gb version which overall works fine for me, however, recently due to the ever increasing popularity and availability of HD/4K content, my Surface has started to buckle under pressure with some choppiness during playback and sometimes even hanging for several seconds. With bigger video filesizes (i.e. 20gb Blu-ray movie) sometimes not even being playable. It’s important to note that I usually stream all my content wirelessly to a projector in my living room.
I would really like to jump onto an Eve V from my current daily driver however the Y-series i7 chip has me worried. I am thinking to buy the Eve V with the same intention I had with the SP3 when I first got it - it will be my daily driver for the next approx 3-4 years and must be able to cope smoothly and rapidly with the use cases I previously mentioned.
I have done some research but was not able to find good information on whether the i7-7y75 chip has enough power to handle these big file sizes and 4K content presently and in the near future. This is essential for me.
What do you guys think? Will I be future proofed for at least 3 years with this i7 chip? Will i experience any slowdowns or freezing when playing back 4K content?
I really appreciate any help on the matter in advance.
First: 4k content is not equals 4k content (that’s based on a german saying, I don’t know if it makes sense in english…).
I mean, every Video-Content has a data-rate (mbs). You could have fullHD Content with a rate of 250mbs. It wouldn’t make sense, but it is possible. The content you get from Streaming is heavily compromised, so data rate is way lower.
Comparison based on a quick Research:
Blu-ray: 40mbs
4k stream: 13mbs
In both times you’ll have 4k Picture, but i expect the Blu-ray Picture and Sound to be more clear, with a slightly better Quality. You may not notice big differences on a Surface/V, maybe even not on a small-budget TV. If you have a home-cinema Setup you will notice the difference. But usually the data rates should’t be a Problem on the V with the i7 processor, 16GB RAM and the fast SSD.
Something else: everything is stored in files, and they could use different codecs. Some processors are opimized to en-/decode specific codecs, most common example would be jpeg. I currently don’t know the codec of a bluray file, but i expect that a default mobile processor like the i7 isn’t optimized to en-/decode that. It is just optimized for
bluray Players. So if you would convert your bluray file to other file/codec format, even your SP3 will be fully capable to Play 4k content smooth without less Quality.
The stream from your device to your projector should’t be a bottleneck at all.
A bottleneck could be for example your bluray-usb-dock. Or the Video Player. I experienced that some movie types are better played with Microsoft Video app, and some go better with the good old VLC Movie Player.
So these are my thoughts, not everything may be right, someone could please correct me if I’m telling bullshit
Thank you very much for the insight cmmd_mx, very informative.
So do you think that the i7 will cope well with advances in codecs and increasing file sizes? I’m really worried about the future proofing of this device.
I meant the the i7, or any 7th gen chip for that matter, should have no issues with 4K content
Atleast, that’s what I inferred from several articles on the internet.
Honestly I dont think there will be a difference between all models for video playback. They all have the same architecture (Kaby Lake with HD 615), and video playback is handled by a dedicated decoder that’s not tied to the CPU clock, so if one can play it, the other will do that exactly the same way.
Could you detail the codec thats used in the movie or video that you watch? If its not the codec supported by the CPU’s dedicated decoder, then any CPU will suffer doing that job.
I don’t see any troubles with hardware decoding 1080p, 2160p might be a different thing all together. That all depends on the player. If you’re using MPC HC and madVR with proper settings I doubt the V can do even 1080p.
Hardware decoding with Windows’ own player will probably work fine.
