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[MJPIA]

I've been very interested in what all is inside this device and how its designed and now ifixit tore into the guts of it.
Just gonna quote some some bits I found interesting.
Much much more in the link.
https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Microsoft+Surface+Studio+Teardown/74448

Dig in! We start with the high-powered half of this machine's hybrid storage: a standard, removable, 64 GB SanDisk Z400s M.2 SSD.

Amusingly, someone must have decided it'd be better to slap down two 32 GB chips (perhaps leaving room for the 128 GB models), rather than four 16 GB chips—hence this pair of empty solder pads.
If you happen to have a couple flash storage modules and a hot air rework station lying around, the SSD controller should happily take up to four NAND flash devices.

The heat sink offers quite a bit of cooling power in a tiny package:
Heat pipes coming off of each processor (CPU and GPU) flow out to exhaust radiators, each of which has a dedicated fan to blow all that hot air out of the system.
The CPU fan, being positioned not-quite over the radiator, blows down a plastic channel.
The GPU fan is the larger of the two, and its radiator gets a bonus heat pipe that runs from both the CPU and GPU, which may allow for some thermal load leveling.

Quite the hefty cooling system there.

We're pleased to report that there's a standard SATA hard drive connector in here—and attached to it, a standard SATA hard drive.
It took a little work to get here, but it seems there is indeed a complete storage upgrade path for your $3,000-4,000 desktop machine. As there should be.
It's nothing fancy, but here are the specs on this 2.5" laptop hard drive:
Seagate Spinpoint M8 ST1000LM024 5400 RPM, 1 Terabyte, SATA 3.0 Gb/s hard drive
Yep, the spec sheet says this is a SATA II drive. Surprising? A bit. Lame? Kind of. Fixable? Probably—but someone will need to swap in a SATA III drive and run some read/write tests to verify.

Ehhh that seems strange in a device that costs this much.

Intel Core i5-6440HQ Processor (6M Cache, up to 3.50 GHz)
Eight Samsung K4A4G085WE-BCPB 512 MB DDR4 RAM (4 GB on this side and another 4 GB on the reverse)
Nvidia GeForce GTX 965M GPU
Intel GL82CM236 Platform Hub Controller
ON Semiconductor NCP81205 3+3+1 Phase Controller
Infineon SLB 9665 TT 2.0 TPM (as seen in the Surface Book) and Infineon 0812ND HBE613 (x14)
Winbond W25Q128FV 128 M Serial Bit Flash Memory

Side two:
Four SK Hynix H5GC4H24AJR 512 MB GDDR5 SDRAM (for a total of 2 GB)
Eight additional Samsung K4A4G085WE-BCPB 512 MB DDR4 (for a grand total of 8 GB)
Winbond W25X40CL serial flash memory
ITE IT8527
Realtek ALC3269 Audio Codec
S541NNC6 WG1219LM

The top bar features a couple of tightly-wound springs and a calibration screw in the center, along with the termination of four display interconnect cables that run inside of the hinges and press onto the back of the display.
Inside the foot, the other end of the arms are each tensioned by a pair of extension springs, similar to what you'd find in a garage door.

Can't help but wonder how much R&D went into designing that hinge and spring system.

Hiding behind the display we find the other half of the motherboard. Seriously, there's way more silicon hiding in this unit than in the base. Highlights include:
Monolithic Power Systems M3387L LED driving, step-up converter (x4)
Microsoft X904169 05 CL1631 T518907.1 (x6)
Microsoft X904163 01 CL1634 4C39290-01 (x2)
Micronix MX25U1635F serial NOR flash (x2)
Atmel ATSAMS70N21 32-bit ARM Cortex-M7 processor
Novatech NT96131QG-46
Winbond 25X20CL1G 2 Mb Serial Flash Memory (x2)

Gonna assume the ARM processor is to handle the digitizer?

And the mid/lowlights:
Genesys Logic GL3520 USB 3.1 hub controller
NXP TFA9890A (x2) high efficiency class-D audio amplifier
Marvell 88W8897 WLAN + BT4.0 + NFC Combo Chip (as seen in past Surface devices)
Mediatek MT7600UAN (likely integrated Wi-Fi SoC, as seen in the Xbox One Wireless Receiver)
SM4142A DA1633 SMHV059
GF-EU DFU62H1 F216 1628 (x2)

Repairability 5 out of 10
(10 is easiest to repair)

The base is easy to open and home to several modular components—including the standard SATA hard drive and M.2 SSD—that can be replaced without disassembling the display.
The entire display assembly can be replaced as a piece, without dismantling the display or the base.
The RAM, CPU, and GPU are soldered to the board and cannot be upgraded. You may want to think twice about that 8 GB configuration.
A few components embedded in the display (buttons, front sensors, and speakers) will be difficult to replace if they fail.

Lock if old

 

[Xyrmellon]

So this is an Apple themed site trying to talk shit about a Microsoft product?

 

[Garou]

SATA2 was never really a bottleneck for mechanical drives, so it doesn't really matter if the drive doesn't support SATA3.

 

[diehard]

So this is an Apple themed site trying to talk shit about a Microsoft product?

Uhhh No?

SATA2 was never really a bottleneck for mechanical drives, so it doesn't really matter if the drive doesn't support SATA3.

Why is there even a mechanical drive in there?

 

[Awful Falafel]

So this is an Apple themed site trying to talk shit about a Microsoft product?

Not even close, they regularly give apple products very low repairability scores, as they should. They just profit off that with their specialty repair tools.

 

[MJPIA]

SATA2 was never really a bottleneck for mechanical drives, so it doesn't really matter if the drive doesn't support SATA3.

I didn't really think it was its just feels felt weird seeing a 5400 rpm SATA II hard drive in a computer that starts at 3 grand.

 

[diehard]

I didn't really think it was its just feels felt weird seeing a 5400 rpm SATA II hard drive in a computer that starts at 3 grand.

shit at least spring for a Hybrid drive

 

[jax]

Man this machine is pretty amazing. Too expensive though. I'd spring the $3000 if it had a 1080 or 1070. Last gen GPU = no thanks. Also the hard drive speed is kind of a joke.

Possibly the best computer design ever though so it's still tempting.

 

[NeOak]

shit at least spring for a Hybrid drive

It already has a SSD?

Man this machine is pretty amazing. Too expensive though. I'd spring the $3000 if it had a 1080 or 1070. Last gen GPU = no thanks. Also the hard drive speed is kind of a joke.

Possibly the best computer design ever though so it's still tempting.

Seems this was supposed to come out earlier. Due to the custom nature of the motherboard, I guess they didn't want to redesign it when it already worked.

 

[Awful Falafel]

shit at least spring for a Hybrid drive

it's not a hybrid drive but it is a hybrid solution. The base model has a 64 GB M.2 SSD, midrange and up has 128 GB. These are in addition to the HDD.

 

[diehard]

it's not a hybrid drive but it is a hybrid solution. The base model has a 64 GB M.2 SSD, midrange and up has 128 GB. These are in addition to the HDD.

Missed that. Still, at that price this really should be all-flash.

 

[jax]

It already has a SSD?


Seems this was supposed to come out earlier. Due to the custom nature of the motherboard, I guess they didn't want to redesign it when it already worked.

That's fair, but for $3000 I need a modern workstation. This thing will age really fast with that much resolution and an old GPU. I've seen how sluggish iMacs get.

 

[Rushersauce]

For that price, they should have added a bigger M2 drive (at least 1TB). The HDD is a waste of space there. That space could have been used for a better GPU. etc.

 

[NeOak]

That's fair, but for $3000 I need a modern workstation. This thing will age really fast with that much resolution and an old GPU. I've seen how sluggish iMacs get.

I do agree that for the price, a 1070 would have been a way better selling point.

 

[Vulcano's assistant]

The big springs are the part that really looks cool.

 

[diehard]

That's fair, but for $3000 I need a modern workstation. This thing will age really fast with that much resolution and an old GPU. I've seen how sluggish iMacs get.

I actually think they should have gone with a Quadro. No doubt this will be used for some OpenGL work i imagine?

 

[Garou]

I didn't really think it was its just feels felt weird seeing a 5400 rpm SATA II hard drive in a computer that starts at 3 grand.

Basically all 2.5-inch drives on the market are 5400rpm.
This whole Carnival of Stupid happened also with the latest iMacs where everybody lost their mind about the rpm, not realizing they weren't talking about a 3.5-inch drive.

 

[freenudemacusers]

always love these; computers are strange now...

So this is an Apple themed site trying to talk shit about a Microsoft product?

lol what a failure of a first post

 

[mf.luder]

Yes, I'll be going through this on my iPad. I really want to test one out!

 

[MJPIA]

Basically all 2.5-inch drives on the market are 5400rpm.
This whole Carnival of Stupid happened also with the latest iMacs where everybody lost their mind about the rpm, not realizing they weren't talking about a 3.5-inch drive.

Fair enough.

 

[Cyanity]

The sooner we abandon platter based storage, the better.

 

[TemplaerDude]

The sooner we abandon platter based storage, the better.

The sooner SSD's go down in the price, the better.

 

[xxracerxx]

So this is an Apple themed site trying to talk shit about a Microsoft product?

It's ok buddy...you can scream ripoff at something else.