Infectious fear is infectious

PCMag and others have released articles based on a blog post from Sophos. The original post discussed how frequently malware designed for Windows is found on Mac computers. What these articles mostly demonstrate is that we really need to understand security: what it is, and why it matters. The largest threats to security are complacency and misunderstanding; users need to grasp the problem rather than have it burried under weak analogies and illusions of software crutches.

Your data and computational ability can be very valuable to people looking to exploit it.

The point of security is not to avoid malware, nor is it to remove it if you failed to avoid it. Those actions are absolutely necessary components of security -- do those things -- but they are not the goal of security. The goal of security is to retain control of what is yours. At the same time, be a good neighbor and make it easier for others to do the same with what is theirs.

Your responsibility extends far beyond just keeping a current antivirus subscription.

The problem goes far beyond throwing stones...

The distinction is subtle.

Your operating system is irrelevant. You could run Windows, Mac, Android, iOS, the ‘nixes, or whatever else. Every useful operating system has vulnerabilities and run vulnerable applications. The user is also very often tricked into loading untrusted code either directly or delivering it within data to a vulnerable application.

Blindly fearing malware -- such as what would happen if someone were to draw parallels to Chlamydia -- does not help you to understand it. There are reasons why malware exists; there are certain things which malware is capable of; and there are certain things which malware is not.

The single biggest threat to security is complacency. Your information is valuable and you are responsible to prevent it from being exploited.  The addition of a computer does not change the fundamental problem. Use the same caution on your computer and mobile devices as you should on the phone or in person. You would not leave your credit card information on a park bench unmonitored.

Read on to understand what malware is and what it could do.

Introduction, Low-Power Computing Was Never Enjoyable

It was nearly five years ago that ASUS announced the first Eee PC model at Computex. That October the first production version of what would to be called a netbook, the ASUS Eee PC 4G, was released. The press latched on to the little Eee PC, making it the new darling of the computer industry. It was small, it was inexpensive, and it was unlike anything on the market.

Even so, the original Eee PC was a bit of a dead end. It used an Intel Celeron processor that was not suited for the application. It consumed too much power and took up a significant portion of the netbook’s production cost. If Intel’s Celeron had remained the only option for netbooks they probably would not have made the leap from press darling to mainstream consumer device.

It turned out that Intel (perhaps unintentionally) had the solution – Atom. Originally built with hopes that it might power “mobile Internet devices” it proved to be the netbook’s savior. It allowed vendors to squeeze out cheap netbooks with Windows and a proper hard drive.

At the time, Atom and the netbook seemed promising. Sales were great – consumers loved the cute, pint-sized, affordable computers. In 2009 netbook sales jumped by over 160% quarter-over-quarter while laptops staggered along with single-digit growth. The buzz quickly jumped to other products, spawning nettops, media centers and low-power all-in-one-PCs. There seemed to be nothing an Atom powered computer could not do.

Fast forward. Earlier this year, PC World ran an article asking if netbooks are dead. U.S. sales peaked in the first quarter of 2010 and have been nose-diving since then, and while some interest remains in the other markets, only central Europe and Latin America have held steady. It appears the star that burned brightest has indeed burned the quickest. 

But why?

Continue reading our editorial on the problems with low power x86 processors...

Get Out the Microscope

AMD announced their Q1 2012 earnings last week, which turned out better than the previous numbers suggested. The bad news is that they posted a net loss of $590 million. That does sound pretty bad considering that their gross revenue was $1.59 billion, but there is more to the story than meets the eye. Of course, there are thoughts of “those spendthrift executives are burying AMD again”, but this is not the case. The loss lays squarely on the GLOBALFOUNDRIES equity and wafer agreements that have totally been retooled.

To get a good idea of where AMD stands in Q1, and for the rest of this year, we need to see how all these numbers actually get sorted out. Gross revenue is down 6% from the quarter before, which is expected due to seasonal pressures. This is right in line with Intel’s seasonal downturn, and in ways AMD was affected slightly less than their larger competitor. They are down around 2% from last year’s quarter, and part of that can be attributed to the continuing hard drive shortage that continued to affect the previous quarter.

Overcoming Hurdles

A paper, titled “The Bleak Future of NAND Flash Memory” was recently jointly published by the University of California and Microsoft Research. It has been picked up by many media outlets who all seem to be beating the same morbid drum, spinning tales of a seemingly apocalyptic end to the reign of flash-based storage devices. While I agree with some of what these authors have to say, I have reservations about the methods upon which the paper is based.

TLC and beyond?

The paper kicks off by declaring steep increases in latency and drops in lifetime associated with increases in bits-per-cell. While this is true, flash memory manufacturers are not making large pushes to increase bits-per-cell beyond the standard MLC (2 bits per cell) tech. Sure some have dabbled in 3-bit MLC, also called Triple Level Cell (TLC) which is a bit of a misnomer since storing three bits in a cell actually requires eight voltage level bands, not three as the name implies. Moving from SLC to MLC doubles density, but the diminishing returns increase sharply after that – MLC to TLC only increases capacity by a another 1.5x, but sees a 2-4x reduction in performance and endurance. In light of this, there is little demand for TLC flash, and where there is, it’s clear by the usage cases that it is not meant for anything beyond light usage. There's nothing wrong with the paper going down this road, but the reality is that increasing bits per cell is not the envelope being pushed by the flash memory industry.

Wait a second – where is 25nm MLC?

Looking at the above we see a glaring omission – 25nm MLC flash, which has been around for close to two years now, and constitutes the majority of shipping flash memory parts currently in production. SLC was also omitted, but I can see the reason for this – it’s hard to get your hands on 25nm SLC these days. Why? Because MLC technology has been improved upon to the point where ‘enterprise MLC’ (eMLC) is rapidly replacing SLC even despite the supposed reduction in reliability and endurance over SLC. The reasons for this are simple, and are completely sidestepped or otherwise overlooked by the paper:

• SSD controllers employ write combination and wear leveling techniques.
• Some controllers even compress data on-the-fly as to further reduce writes and provisioning.
• Controller-level Error Correction (ECC) has improved dramatically with each process shrink.
• SSD controllers can be programmed to compensate for the drift of data stored in a cell (eMLC).

Continue reading our editorial on the not-so-bleak future of NAND Flash Memory!!!

Quarter Down but Year Up

Yesterday NVIDIA released their latest financial results for Q4 2012 and FY2012.  There was some good and bad mixed in the results, but overall it was a very successful year for NVIDIA.

Q4 saw gross revenue top $953.2 million US with a net income of $116 million US.  This is about $53 million less in gross revenue and $62 million down in net income as compared to last quarter.  There are several reasons as to why this happened, but the majority of it appears to be due to the hard drive shortage affecting add-in sales.  Simply put, the increase in hard drive prices caused most OEMs to take a good look at the price points of the entire system, and oftentimes would cut out the add-in graphics and just use integrated.

Tegra 3 promises a 50% increase in revenue for NVIDIA this coming year.

Two other reasons for the lower than expected quarter were start of the transition to 28 nm products based on Kepler.  They are ramping up production on 28 nm and slowing down 40 nm.  Yields on 28 nm are not where they expected them to be, and there is also a shortage of wafer starts for that line.  This had a pretty minimal affect overall on Q4, but it will be one of the prime reasons why revenue looks like it will be down in Q1 2013. 

Read the rest of the article here.

Introduction, Thin Is Flimsy

If there was anything that can be pointed to as “the” thing CES was about, it’s the ultrabook. These thin and portable laptops were presented by Intel with all the finesse of a sledgehammer. Intel’s message is clear. Ultrabooks are here, and you’re going to like them.

Such a highly coordinated effort on the part of Intel is unusual. Sure, they’ve pushed industry standards before. But the company’s efforts have usually been focused on a specific technology, like USB. The last time Intel put serious effort into trying to change how system builders constructed their systems was when Intel pushed for the BTX form factor. 

BTX was an attempt to address problems the company was having with its Pentium 4 processors, which tended to consume a lot of power and therefor run hot. The push for the ultrabook is also an attempt in address a (perceived) problem. In this case the issue at hand is portability, both in in terms physical system size and battery endurance. 

Intel announced some interesting new smartphone and tablet reference designs at CES 2012. These are signs that the company is making headway in this area. But the products based on those reference designs aren’t out yet, and it will probably take a few years for Intel to gain significant market share even if it does manage to offer x86 processors that can beat ARM in smartphones and tablets. In the meantime, Intel needs to provide slim, responsive and portable systems that can distract consumers from tablets.

So we have the ultrabook. 

Continue reading out editorial on Ultrabook and the pros and cons associated with their push into the market!!

Q4-2012 In a Nutshell

Tis the reporting season.  Yes, that time of year when some of the major players in the computing world get together and tell us all how well they did this past quarter.  Ok, so they do not necessarily get together to announce results, but they sure time them that way.  Today was AMD’s turn (and Apple’s), and the results were not nearly as positive as what Intel had to offer a few days ago.

Q4 2011 was flat in terms of revenue as compared to Q3.  The company had gross revenue of $1.69 billion and had a net income loss of $177 million.  That net income is not necessarily a bad result, but more on that later.  Margins rose to 46%, which is still a far cry from Intel’s 65% for the past quarter.  Gross revenue was up 2% from last year, which considering the marketplace and Intel’s dominance, is a solid win for AMD.

When we start talking about non-GAAP results, AMD had a net income of $138 million.  The difference between those two numbers (a loss vs. a nice profit) is that the loss came from one time writeoffs.  AMD has lowered its stake in GLOBALFOUNDRIES to 8.8%, and in so doing incurred a hefty charge.  This is not so much money lost as it is lost value in the company.

Click to read the rest of this article here.

I got your $13.9 Billion over here...

Intel had a record quarter.  Are we tired of hearing that yet?  I guess that depends on who a person is investing with.  Earlier this quarter Intel warned that their results could be negatively affected by the current hard drive shortage that we are experiencing.  Apparently, this was a factor, but it did not stop Intel from still having a record quarter.

Q4 2011 turned out to be gangbusters for Intel.  They reported gross revenue of $13.9 billion, which is significantly higher than the expected $13.74 billion analysts were predicting.  Net income came in at $3.4 billion with an impressive 65.5% gross margin.  The overall year was also record setting at $54 billion gross revenue and $12.9 billion net income.  For comparison, AMD has a gross revenue of about $6.8 billion and a net income of around $300 million.  2010 was a record year for Intel in that they surpassed $40 billion in revenue for the first time in the company’s history, and this year saw revenue over $10 billion higher.  Intel is certainly hitting their stride, and they do not look to slow down anytime soon.

Read the rest of the article here.

Introduction: Griefing the grieving

PC Gaming has been on its death bed for years -- if you believe the countless debates that have occurred most commonly over the last decade. The drum beat roared from the masses: “Why game on the PC anymore when you could just buy a console?” The focus of conversation was set upon the attack and defense of the PC as a viable platform at all, let alone the platform of choice. The question that swarms naggingly through my brain is quite the opposite: “In the long run, why game on a console?” The concept that consoles are better than PCs, given a fraction of the support that consoles receive, is about to die; console supporters are in various levels of grief.

U mad Mario Bros.?

I am an avid, though this editorial may suggest livid, video game supporter. My first exposure to video gaming was mixed between the Nintendo Entertainment System and the family 80286. I have equally fond memories with the keyboard as with the gamepad. The balance between console and PC was level throughout my life until just a few years ago when I carefully thought the situation over. The PC is now my platform of choice.

Continue reading our editorial: The Five Stages of Griefing: Death of the Consoles!!

Welcome to The Inside Perspective

Welcome!  The Inside Perspective is a new series on PC Perspective that will take you further behind the scenes of the industry than we typically go, with interviews of industry personnel.  I hope you find these discussions to be both informative as well as eye opening into the world behind the reviews, behind the press releases and the marketing speak that everyone sees on a daily basis.  http://pcper.com/tip

The Inside Perspective 001 - Antec's Jessie Lawrence

Antec was at one time the leader in enthusiast and gamer case design and much of what the company built years ago, like the P180 series, has endured years of modifications to remain relevant and these chassis remain some of the favorites of our staff.  However, in the past several years, the case world has seen new entrants, new designs and new feature sets that Antec has been slow to adopt and as such they have fallen out of the leaders position in the mind-set of enthusiasts, even if they haven't in sales in revenue.

With the release of the new P280 and Eleven Hundred cases though (the former of which we have already reviewed) Antec is hoping to make a resurgence into the enthusiast market.  And while I definitely was impressed with the P280 there is still some work to do and, luckily, Antec knows it and is moving forward in the right direction. 

Recently, Antec's Communications Manager Jessie Lawrence stopped by the office and we sat down for a small interview to ask him about the new case designs, what he likes about working in this cut throat industry and how Antec plans to stem the tides against the competition.

While we are getting The Inside Perspective started, we are including it in our PC Perspective Podcast RSS feed.  Also, the video version which we would encourage you to check out can be seen below, embedded via YouTube.  You can be sure to find all of our episodes of The Inside Perspective at http://pcper.com/tip

• iTunes - Subscribe to the podcast directly through the iTunes Store
• RSS - Subscribe through your regular RSS reader
• MP3 - Direct download link to the MP3 file
• Video - See YouTube embed below (RSS to come soon!)

Host: Ryan Shrout

Guest: Jessie Lawrence, Antec

Program Length: 13:49

Program Schedule:

1. 01:08 Introduction
2. 02:15 Questions about new P280 and Eleven Hundred Cases
3. 04:40 Target audience for each new case
4. 05:50 Background with Jessie Lawrence
5. 09:20 Memorable moments in the industry
6. 11:20 How can Antec return to enthusiast roots?
7. 13:45 Conclusion

MIA or Simply Retired?

It is awfully hard to deny the value proposition of the AMD HD 6970 graphics card.  The card overall matches (and sometimes exceeds) the NVIDIA GTX 570 at a slightly lower price, it has 2 GB of frame buffer, and AMD is consistently improving not just gaming performance for the new VLIW 4 architecture, but also adding to its GPGPU support.  Throw in the extra happiness of a more manageable power draw, pretty low heat production for a top end card, and it is also the fastest single GPU card when it comes to bitcoin mining.  With all of these positives, why hasn’t everyone gone out to buy one?  Simple, they simply are hard to come by anymore.

¿Dónde están las tarjetas gráficas?

Throughout Winter and Spring of this year, the HD 6970 was an easy card to acquire.  Prices were very reasonable, supply seemed ample, and most every manufacturer had one in a configuration that would appeal to a lot of people.  The HD 6950 was also in great supply, and it was also in a few unique configurations that adds more for the money than just the reference design.  This Summer saw the pool of HD 6970 cards dry up, not to mention the complete lack of HD 6990 cards in retail altogether.

Continue reading about where all the Radeon HD 6970s have gone!!

Carmack Speaks

Last week we were in Dallas, Texas covering Quakecon 2011 as well as hosting our very own PC Perspective Hardware Workshop.  While we had over 1100 attendees at the event and had a blast judging the case mod contest, one of the highlights of the event is always getting to sit down with John Carmack and pick his brain about topics of interest.  We got about 30 minutes of John's time over the weekend and pestered him with questions about the GPU hardware race, how Intel's intergrated graphics (and AMD Fusion) fit in the future of PCs, the continuing debate about ray tracing, rasterization, voxels and infinite detail engines, key technologies for PC gamers like multi-display engines and a lot more!

One of our most read articles of all time was our previous interview with Carmack that focused a lot more on the ray tracing and rasterization debate.  If you never read that, much of it is still very relevant today and is worth reading over. 

This year though John has come full circle on several things including ray tracing, GPGPU workloads and even the advantages that console hardware has over PC gaming hardware.

Continue reading to see the full video interview and our highlights from it!!

Boring but Profitable

NVIDIA posted their latest results following the quarter ending on July 31, 2011.  Unlike 2010 at this time, NVIDIA posted a strong quarter.  Technically this is Q2 FY 2012 for NVIDIA.  Last year’s results were pretty dismal with $811 million in gross revenue and a net loss of $140 million.  This quarter was much stronger with $1.016 billion in gross revenue, and a healthy $150 million in net income.

This quarter was also up sequentially from last quarter’s $962 million gross revenue and $135 million net income.  The only truly interesting thing about the increase is that there really was not very much interesting about it at all.  All of the product groups showed either flat performance, or a marginal increase.  The largest increases came from the mobile sector, which saw discrete mobile GPUs in laptop sales take a significant gain.  Consumer desktop stayed pretty even, though NVIDIA has a much stronger mix of cards stretching from the $100 US mark to above $750 with the GeForce GTX 500 series.

Read the rest of the article after the break.

Meet Vellamo

With Google reporting daily Android device activations upward of 550,000 devices a day, the rapid growth and ubiqutity of the platform cannot be denied. As the platform has grown, we here at PC Perspective have constantly kept our eye out for ways to assess and compare the performance of different devices running the same mobile operating systems. In the past we have done performance testing with applications such as Quadrant and Linpack, and GPU testing with NenaMark and Qualcomm's NeoCore product.

Today we are taking a look at a new mobile benchmark from Qualcomm, named Vellamo. Qualcomm has seen the need for an agnostic browser benchmark on Android, and so came Vellamo. A video introduction from Qualcomm's Director of Product Management, Sy Choudhury, is below.

With the default configuration, Vellamo performs a battery of 14 tests. These tests are catagorized into Rendering, Javascript, User Experience, Networking, and Advanced. 

For more on this benchmark and our results from 10 different Android-power devices, keep reading!

The Dirty Laggard

It may seem odd, but sometimes reviewers are some of the last folks to implement new technology.  This has been the case for myself many a time.  Yes, we get some of the latest and greatest components, but often we review them and then keep them on the shelf for comparative purposes, all the while our personal systems run last generation parts that we will not need to re-integrate into a test rig ever again.  Or in other cases, big money parts, like the one 30” 2560x1600 LCD that I own, are always being utilized on the testbed and never actually being used for things like browsing, gaming, or other personal activities.  Don’t get me wrong, this is not a “woe-is-me” rant about the hardships of being a reviewer, but rather just an interesting side effect not often attributed to folks who do this type of work.  Yes, we get the latest to play with and review, but we don’t often actually use these new parts in our everyday lives.

One of the technologies that I had only ever seen at trade shows is that of Eyefinity.  It was released back in the Fall of 2009, and really gained some momentum in 2010.  Initially it was incompatible with Crossfire technology, which limited it to a great degree.  A single HD 5970 card could push 3 x 1920x1080 monitors in most games, but usually only with details turned down and no AA enabled.  Once AMD worked a bit more on the drivers were we able to see Crossfire setups working in Eyefinity, which allowed users to play games at higher fidelity with the other little niceties enabled.  The release of the HD 6900 series of cards also proved to be a boon to Eyefinity, as these new chips had much better scaling in Crossfire performance, plus were also significantly faster than the earlier HD 5800 series at those price points.

Continue on to the rest of the story for more on my experiences with AMD Eyefinity.

Episode #150 is ready!

** UPDATE ** If you are looking for the most recent PC Perspective Podcast episode and information, make sure you bookmark the URL http://pcper.com/podcast as the new permanent home!!

This week we talk about the MSI 890FXA-GD65 Motherboard, ASUS N53S Notebook, IE10 running on NVIDIA Tegra, Viewer Voicemails, Questions, Hardware/Software Pics of the Week and much more!

Don't get too enamoured with your fancy, long term plans...

Process technology is hard. It only seems like Intel can get it right, and it can only do it right because it has more money and more Fab space than anyone else in the world. For guys like AMD and NVIDIA, they are at the mercy of lower funded 3rd party Fabs who struggle to keep up with the giant. Sometimes their delays hit the bottom lines of their customers... like what is happening today.

Looking Pretty Spry... Considering it was Stillborn

Rumors of BFG Tech attempting to move over to AMD production after an apparent split with NVIDIA have been swirling for months now. Today, we received proof that this partnership almost sprang wings. Come see the first pictures of the BFG Tech Radeon HD 5750, may it rest in peace.