Surface Laptop had a big upgrade this year.

While the Surface Laptop 7th Edition with Snapdragon X is creating genuine interest, we thought we would look at how the Surface Laptop 6 stacks up. Surface Laptop 6 is expected to continue to be the business mainstay for Surface throughout 2024 to 2025.

1. There was a big CPU upgrade for Surface Laptop 6

There was a major change in performance for the Surface Laptop 6, ditching the ultramobile U series Intel Core processor for a more powerful H series.

H series processors were previously only seen in mobile workstation type laptops. A number of competing devices feature the U series as standard, which despite similar-sounding model numbers, are less powerful.

Surface Laptop 6 vs 5 vs 4 CPU performance

Teams upgrading from 2021's Surface Laptop 4 should see up to a 2.7x increase in performance for multi-core operations. Anyone deciding between last year's Surface Laptop 5 and the 6 will see an almost doubling in multi-core performance.

Why the difference?

The Surface Laptop 6 has more cores, and more specialist cores than earlier models.

The biggest boost over last year's Surface Laptop 5 comes from the higher Performance core count. Where the Laptop 5 had 2x Performance cores, the Laptop 6 has either 4x (Ultra 5) or 6x (Ultra 7).

This is in addition to the 8x Efficiency cores both have, and the Laptop 6's extra 2x Low Power Efficiency and 2x AI Boost NPU cores that take workloads away from the Performance cores.

2. What about graphics?

The Intel Core Ultra H processor has upgraded Intel Arc graphics in the Surface Laptop 6 for all except the 8GB models (we recommend 16GB at minimum).

The Intel Ultra 7-H has roughly double the graphics cores of the older generation machine. For laptops with high resolution screens like the Surface Laptop 6 15 inch, this is an important boost even in everyday web browsing.

Who will notice the difference?

With more users in the workforce being asked to take on an increasing number of roles, performance bottlenecks are only becoming more frustrating.

Anyone using multiple browser tabs, multi-taskers, Excel and analytics users, or anyone using complex software like Photoshop, developer tools, and video authoring tools.

Windows 11 is supplanting Windows 10 and introducing a host of on-device AI features. These require both stronger CPUs and dedicated NPUs in order to run efficiently. We're also seeing tools not necessarily branded as 'AI' making use of NPUs.

For teams considering longer device refresh cycles than current, switching to an H series processor at the start of the cycle will prevent these devices being slower at the four year mark for users than most alternative devices are at the three year mark.

See more on the Surface Laptop 6 on our feature page:

You can benchmark and evaluate the current Surface Laptop using our demo fleet. Speak to your account manager at The Laptop Company or go to www.laptop.co.nz/surface-laptop-6

Enquire for volume and government pricing, and associated fleet services for enterprise teams, and see full specifications for the Laptop 6 here: