Microsoft's Surface Laptop 6 and Surface Pro 10 haven't been unveiled yet, but already Geekbench 5 scores for both devices have risen from the depths (via Windows Latest). Microsoft is expected to announce the Surface Laptop 6 and Surface Pro 10 at an event on March 21.
While these Geekbench 5 scores do give us an idea of what performance we can expect from the two upcoming Microsoft machines, they also give us an indication of possible configuration options for the laptops courtesy of Geekbench's system information archive. And that is arguably more interesting than benchmark scores, even for a former lab tester.
Surface Laptop 6 possible configuration
Based on the Geekbench 5 score listings for the Surface Laptop 6, codenamed "OEMML," we can expect the laptop to feature an Intel Core Ultra 5 135H processor and 8GB of RAM that is likely upgradeable. The unit tested on Geekbench appears to be running Windows 11 Pro.
The Intel Core Ultra 5 135H processor is a mid-range CPU with a total of 14 cores, but only 4 of those are performance cores with speeds of 4.6 GHz, while the other 10 are efficient cores with speeds of 3.6 GHz.
The Geekbench 5 scores for the Surface Laptop 6 are a bit lower than expected with a single-core score of 1,464 and a multi-core score of 8,633.
Based on the Geekbench 5 archive records, it appears the test unit was set to a balanced power plan while testing. This is likely why the base frequency of the processor is listed as 3.6 GHz, as the balanced power plan would have a preference for efficiency over raw power.
These are some of the first Geekbench 5 benchmarks with the Ultra 5 135H, so it will be interesting to see how the chipset stacks up when we can get it into our labs.
Surface Pro 10 possible configurations
The Microsoft Surface Pro 10 appears to have an Intel Core Ultra 5 135U processor, which is also a mid-range CPU. The Ultra 5 135U has 12-cores, 2 performance 4.4 GHz cores, and 10 efficiency 3.6GHz cores. The unit tested in the leaked Geekbench records has 32GB of RAM so we can expect the Surface Pro 10 to start at 8GB of RAM and be upgradeable to 32GB. The Surface Pro 10 was also tested using Windows 11 Pro on a balanced power plan, which is the default for Windows.
The Geekbench 5 scores for the Surface Pro 10 are naturally a bit lower than those for the Surface Laptop 6, with a single-core score of 1,360 and a multi-core score of 7,158. Of course, this is also lower than expected performance for the Intel Core Ultra 5 135U processor.
As the Surface Pro 10 was also benchmarked on a balanced power plan, we will likely see those scores increase when benchmarked on a performance plan. The Geekbench 5 archive information lists the CPU's base frequency as only 2.1 GHz, which is a much steeper preference for efficiency than the Ultra 5 135H.
Outlook
As previously mentioned, we'll have to wait until we can get units into our own testing labs to see how the performance stacks up. But we do at least have some indication of what configurations we'll see in the Surface Laptop 6 and Surface Pro 10 when they are officially unveiled.
The Surface Laptop 6 and Surface Pro 10 are expected to be announced later this month.
