Can Intel’s New Processor Increase PC Sales?

hardware,
22
Mar 2016

intel-logo

In response to a decline in PC sales, Intel has unveiled their new processor – 6th gen Core vPro – which promises to transform business computing.

PC sales fell by 10.6% during Q4 2015, so growth in the market appears to be slowing down. Naturally, this is the last thing that PC manufacturers want to hear, so will Intel’s new chip give the market a shot in the arm?

It’s an intriguing question and, to fully understand it, we need to take a look at why the market has slowed down and what Intel’s new processor can bring to the table.

Decrease in Sales

The number of new PCs sold in 2015 fell below 300 million and, whilst this sounds a huge amount, it’s actually the lowest number of yearly sales since 2008. Consumers, then, appear to be holding off on that glittering upgrade, but why is this?

Well, back in the early 00s, you could expect the cost of PC processors to fall every 18 months whilst the number of transistors would double – this was known as Moore’s law. The result was a cheaper, but more powerful processor. And businesses, keen to stay at the cutting edge of technology, were happy to upgrade to maintain an advantage over competitors.

However, as we’ll discover, Moore’s law has not remained constant and the speed increases are not what they once were.

Introducing the 6th Gen Core vPro

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Intel’s latest processor hopes to offer businesses that little bit extra to convince them that an upgrade is necessary.

The question on most consumers’ lips – as ever – is “will this processor speed up our business operations?” and the answer is a resounding YES! However, although, the increase in speed is estimated to be around 2.5x faster, this is only when compared to a 2011 PC.

The increase in speed is relatively small compared to previous advancements in speed. Couple that with an increase in the cost of transistors and you can see why progress has slowed.

Speed has increased, though, and Intel’s new chip has plenty more to tempt businesses into parting with their cash.

Intel has also improved the efficiency of their conference connectivity software Intel Unite to provide smoother connections between the myriad of different adapters and connections. This will sound like an absolute dream for anyone who’s ever tried to set up video conferencing!

Also at the forefront of Intel’s sale pitch is their strong focus on security. We live in a world where the potential for cyber-attacks seems to increase by the day, so Intel is moving into hardware based security. Utilizing multi factor authentication, Intel Authenticate will aim to reduce current data security threats by around 25%.

And this will involve much more sophisticated methods than SMS authentication or old fashioned passwords. Intel is moving into the 21st century with fingerprint scanning and smartphone/PC proximity checks.

Will PC Sales Increase?

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Intel is certainly putting all it’s got into making sure the 6th gen Core vPro succeeds and I think they’ve got a good chance of achieving this. The increase in speed – although smaller than is historically expected – will be a real boon for businesses as will the enhanced security in an unsecure landscape.

For more ways to secure and optimize your business technology, contact your local IT professionals.

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New Processors to Only Support Windows 10

hardware, Office IT, ,
01
Mar 2016

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Many people have resisted migrating from Windows 7 and 8.1 to Windows 10, but Microsoft has now announced that new processors will only run on Windows 10.

You might have noticed, last summer, that windows were popping up on your PC encouraging you to switch to Microsoft’s latest operating system (OS) – Windows 10. However, a high percentage of users avoided hitting the ‘INSTALL’ button.

You see, Windows 8 was somewhat of a disaster for Microsoft, both technically and aesthetically. As a result, consumers were reticent to take up Microsoft’s offer of a free upgrade as they had no idea what would be waiting for them.

These fears were further compounded when story after story emerged of issues with Windows 10 e.g. security flaws and Microsoft actively forcing installs onto users’ systems. As I’m sure you’ll agree, though, progress is always necessary, so you were probably going to give in at some point.

Microsoft has decided to try and force your hand a little sooner with their announcement that new processors will only be compatible with Windows 10, so let’s take a look at what this means for you and your business.

What Exactly Has Microsoft Announced?

Microsoft is keen for the latest processors being designed to use the most up to date Windows OS. This means that new processors released by AMD, Intel and Qualcomm will only work on PCs running Windows 10. If you’re running an old OS, they simply won’t work. And when Windows 11 comes around, the exact same procedure will be put in place.

Why is Microsoft Making This Policy Change?

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Upgrading previous versions of Windows always had a financial pinch for consumers, but Windows 10 is completely free. This is all part of Microsoft’s plan to market Windows 10 as a service rather than a costly product.

Microsoft wants everyone to adopt it, so ensuring that Windows 10 is essential for new processors means there will be no choice but to upgrade.

It’s also a move which will keep hardware developers for Microsoft happy as they will no longer have to outlay huge amounts of cash on making their processors backwards compatible.

Does This Mean You Have to Upgrade Immediately?

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You might be concerned that Windows is forcing you to not only upgrade to Windows 10, but also to upgrade to one of the new processors. However, this couldn’t be further from the truth.

Windows 7 and 8.1 will still receive essential security and application updates for several years, so, as long as your hardware stays the same, your OS will remain supported.

However, remaining on an ‘antiquated’ OS is not the best way for your business to stay competitive and work to its full potential. That’s why it seems as though it’s only going to get harder and harder to resist the upgrade to Windows 10.

For more ways to secure and optimize your business technology, contact your local IT professionals.

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Intel's Knights Landing
Intel's Knights Landing

Intel’s 72 Core Processor: Knights Landing

hardware, , ,
18
Jan 2016

Intel's Knights Landing

Intel is constantly striving to push the capabilities of desktop computers and their 72 core processor promises to deliver amazing performance.

This chip – known as Knights Landing – is part of Intel’s Xeon Phi processor family and will start being shipped with select workstations in early 2016. It’s rumored to be Intel’s most powerful chip yet, so this could be the final step in bringing the power of supercomputers to businesses of all sizes.

As this could make a huge difference in how your business operates, I’m going to take a look at why the Knights Landing chip should be on your radar.

Working with Workstations

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Almost all businesses have desktop PCs and these are adequate for uses such as word processing, data entry and running general admin tasks. However, the power contained in this hardware is not sufficient for everyone. And that’s where workstations step in.

A workstation may look like a desktop PC, but it’s considerably larger. This increase in size is indicative of the processing power required for complex computing tasks e.g. video editing, engineering programs and state of the art graphics software.

But what exactly can Intel add to the current workstation landscape?

The Power of Knights Landing

Knights-Landing

Knights Landing will be able to take on huge workloads that a standard PC would barely struggle to get to grips with before grinding to a halt. It can achieve this because the Knights Landing processor is capable of producing over 3 teraflops of performance power.

Knights Landing – comprised of standard x86 processors and new, specially designed processors – will bring a huge 16GB of MCDRAM memory which will boost your applications’ performance in a way you didn’t know possible. In fact, this memory will deliver nearly five times more bandwidth than DDR4 memory which is currently considered state of the art.

These figures, of course, sound very impressive, but what will they bring to the market?

What Will Knights Landing Do?

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Scientific researchers need to carry out fiendishly complex calculations to aid their research, but the computing power required to process these sums is exceptionally high. So that’s why the scientific community will be Knights Landing’s first port of call.

Currently, these scientists would need access to a Xeon Phi supercomputer to even write and test their calculations. However, the advent of Knights Landing presents an opportunity for scientists to tinker with their code on PCs before running it on a supercomputer. This will free up resource heavy supercomputers purely for the high-end number crunching.

But working out these calculations is only the tip of the iceberg. Knights Landing’s raw power will help bring high performance computing to the masses. Graphic designers and video editors will suddenly find that they have the power to deal with big data. This will transform small businesses and freelancers’ output and capabilities to a level previously considered unthinkable.

When Should You Purchase a Knights Landing Workstation?

Costs and availability of a Knights Landing workstation are going to seriously affect whether you can purchase one anytime soon. It’s currently seen more as a tentative step into this new frontier of computing rather than a product for the masses.

However, over time, it’s highly likely that this technology will become more available and affordable for consumers. It, therefore, remains a viable game changer to businesses who work with high-end data.

For more ways to secure and optimize your business technology, contact your local IT professionals.

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Predicting Failure: How Hard Drives Warn Us

hardware
26
Oct 2015

hard-drive-failure

Hard drives are valuable containers of data, so when they fail it can be costly. Therefore, it’s essential you know how to monitor your hard drive’s health.

Now, you don’t need to worry, as you don’t need a PhD in computer health to analyze the health of a hard drive. Instead, you just need to refer to a monitoring system known as SMART (Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology) to investigate whether your hard drive is on the edge of failure.

It’s a good idea to integrate SMART into your monitoring procedures, so let’s take a look at exactly what it does and how to use it.

What is SMART?

Smart-HDD-Virus

SMART helps to keep an eye on your hard drive’s health by monitoring various attributes (up to 30 depending on the manufacturer) present. These attributes may vary slightly in description between manufacturers, but are all essentially the same.

Now, these attributes are assigned certain parameters which can provide definitive information that your hard drive is struggling for breath. And the parameters you really need to pay attention to are:

  • Value – This property indicates the current health of the attribute and starts off as a high number, but declines over the hard drive’s lifetime.
  • Identifier – This provides a description of what the attribute means and is indicated by a number, but will also have a text description too e.g. ‘Reallocated Sectors Count’
  • Threshold – This parameter tells you the failure limit for this attribute, so once the threshold is passed it spells trouble for your hard drive.

How Can You Monitor SMART?

It’s possible to view SMART data by using the ‘command prompt’ option in Windows, but many users are unfamiliar with command prompt, so it’s not always recommended.

Luckily, there are many third party pieces of software such as CrystalDiskInfo which allow easy navigation of SMART data, so it’s well worth downloading as it’s free and tells you everything you need to know.

CrystalDiskInfo

If, however, you do want to go the command prompt route then take the following steps:

  1. Hit the Windows key and do a search for ‘Command Prompt’
  2. Open command prompt and type in the following: wmic diskdrive get status

If your hard drive is working just fine then you’ll get an ‘OK’ status displayed. This can give you a quick bit of reassurance, but you’re unable to get an overall picture of the hard drive’s health with this approach.

What Do You Need to Look for in SMART Data?

Now, having a long list of data in front of you is all well and good, but you need to know what you’re looking for. Thankfully, Backblaze has investigated the most crucial attributes to monitor and these are:

  • SMART ID 5 – Reallocated Sectors Count
  • SMART ID 187 – Reported Uncorrectable Errors
  • SMART ID 188 – Command Timeout
  • SMART ID 197 – Current Pending Sector Count
  • SMART ID 198 – Uncorrectable Sector Count

If these values are sitting at 0 then you can sigh a sigh of relief as it demonstrates a healthy hard drive. Anything above 0, however, and it’s a telltale sign that your hard drive is at risk from failure.

It’s a good idea, though, to keep your eyes on all the attributes to try and identify any potential problems.

For more ways to secure and optimize your business technology, contact your local IT professionals.

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Why Do Hard Drives Crash?

hardware, Uncategorized,
14
Sep 2015

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When your hard drive crashes you’re at risk of losing a lot of data, so learning why hard drives crash is vital for preventing this and recovery of data.

Hard drives, like almost any product containing electrical or mechanical devices, are prone to failure. And they always seem to pick the worst moment to fail e.g. in the middle of running a huge report!

Let’s take a look at exactly how hard drives can crash to get a better understanding of what’s happening to your hardware.

Hard Drive Head Crash

SAMSUNG

Hard drives store their data magnetically on a rotating platter and this data is transferred or extracted from the platter using a read-write head.

In normal operation this read-write head effortlessly glides along a surface of air just above the surface of the platter which is made up of two protective layers.

This confers protection to the fragile data held on the hard drive, but unfortunately read-write heads can easily scratch through these layers as a result of the following:

  • Wear and tear to the read-write head can cause it to drop
  • If the drive is dropped when running the read-write head can be forced into the drive
  • Debris entering the hard drive can damage the surface

The most obvious way to spot this fault is by the clicking noise the hard drive will create as it tries to run as well as visible scratches on the platter’s surface.

Spindle Motor Failures

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Hard drives spin at remarkably high speeds (with an average RPM of 7,200), so it’s no surprise that the spindle motor which spins the hard drive undergoes excessive stress over its lifetime. This is why the spindle motor is prone to failing and why you’ll struggle to interact with the hard drive as a result.

This type of failure, again, will be characterized by clicking and whirring sounds as the hard drive struggles to operate in its normal fashion.

Electronic Failure

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Hard drives, of course, aren’t 100% mechanical devices. Our old friend electricity is also pulsing through the veins of hard drives. And this sets up hard drives for a particularly heavy crash.

You see, there’s a printed circuit board (PCB) in between the hard drive and the rest of the computer. It helps send information to and from the hard drive so that you can use all the functions of your computer.

Electricity, though, is a powerful source of energy and can often damage the PCB due to power surges; this leads to a total breakdown in communication for your computer and is characterized by a non-responding hard drive and those clicking sounds as motors fail to startup.

Logical Hard Drive Crash

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Finally, we have a type of hard drive crash caused by non-physical means which makes pinpointing the source of trouble very difficult.

Hard drives need data to run correctly, so if this data is slightly corrupted then you’re going to struggle to even boot up your system.

But how does data become corrupted?

Well, there are several ways that this can happen:

  • User error e.g. deleting essential system files
  • Viruses can cause hard drives to crash within seconds of turning on
  • Driver issues can cause hard drives to perform erratically
  • Software malfunction

Hard drives, therefore, can crash for a number of physical and non-physical reasons, but by looking for the signs and understanding your computer’s history you should be able to get closer to repairing the hard drive.

For more ways to secure and optimize your business technology, contact your local IT professionals.

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