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For the last 5 years, all Surface products have been exclusively running Intel processors, but according to Brad Sams from Petri.com (http://www.petri.com/) this may be about to change, as Microsoft is increasingly disappointed by Intel’s products.
Sams calls out Intel’s Skylake chipset in particular as giving Microsoft a “black eye” and notes internal sources say the relationship is on “shaky ground.”
Microsoft is reportedly testing a Surface Laptop powered by the 12nm AMD Picasso SoC.
The processors are based on the Zen+ CPU and Vega GPU microarchitectures succeeding Raven Ridge. Picasso processors are fabricated on GlobalFoundries 12 nm process and incorporate four cores.
Sams notes that Microsoft is not looking to swap their whole line to AMD, due to Intel’s strong brand name.
He also reveals that Microsoft is not redesigning their Surface line yet, but will switch over the USB-C this year. A new design for the Surface Pro code-named Carmel is apparently coming next year.
We have previously posted about Microsoft’s Excalibur ARM efforts for their Surface line. Read more about that here.
Microsoft is expected to announce its new Surface products in October this year.
source (http://mspoweruser.com/report-microsoft-testing-surface-laptop-with-amd-processor-as-intel-relationship-on-shaky-ground/)