Google Stadia First Impressions

Google’s event for their Stadia game streaming service has provided additional insight into the cost model and bandwidth requirements. There are plenty of ISPs that implement monthly data caps between 300GB and 2TB of data per account. Some providers offer options to pay extra for unlimited data while others will milk their customer base dry using incremental fees for each overage. Recognizing that 4K gaming at 60 frames per second with surround sound will consume up to 35 Mbps means that data caps may limit utilization of the service.

It will be interesting to see what advantage Google gets as first mover. E3 is rapidly approaching and Microsoft is reportedly announcing their cloud gaming offering which may directly compete with Stadia from the functionality and capability perspective. While Apple may have misfired with their News+ service, the fact that they’re adding support for Xbox One and PlayStation 4 controllers may signal that their upcoming game service will cater to both casual and core gamers.

Thoughts on WWDC and AMD’s Ryzen 3000 Series

Many positive developments occurred during Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference. The iPadOS fork brings about many overdue features such as Bluetooth mouse support and more. The Mac Pro being released in the fall has certainly set the Internet afire with chatter. There is a level of engineering present in the full stack of what has been revealed that demonstrates what a product can be when a company actually listens to its customers. The primary misfire during WWDC involved the pricing for the optional stand which supports its new 6K resolution monitor. It appears that initial feedback from the crowd was worthy of censorship. While we don’t deal with truly high-end professional monitors here, every monitor that has been purchased over the past 15 years included the stand. The warranted ridicule for making a potentially integral part of the display use experience could have easily been avoided by adjusting the base MSRP of the monitor to include the stand by default. Less waste due to shared packaging and complete usability fresh out of the box should have been obvious from a marketing and product development perspective. At $999 MSRP, we can only hope that the stands are made out of recycled vibranium shavings obtained from conflict-free Wakanda minerals.

AMD’s Computex announcements and subsequent clarifications instill a fair degree in confidence related to the soon-to-be-available Ryzen 3000-series processors. The spread of core counts and performance profiles per processor sound ideal. Pricing is in line with prior iterations from a value proposition perspective. The first-mover advantage to utilize the PCI Express 4.0 standard has resulted in the reintroduction of chipset cooling fans for the majority of consumer focused X570 chipset-based motherboards. The proactive approach by the supporting vendors to mitigate the risk of heavy I/O-induced thermals possibly compromising system stability is a good first step in providing a reliable and flexible platform. AMD’s decision to limit support for PCI Express 4.0 to its newest chipsets is also a wise decision. The potential problems that may have manifested across budget boards are effectively mitigated with this decision. Ryzen 3000-series processors will still be a higher performance drop-in replacement (with applicable BIOS update) for many of the systems out there today. We’re looking forward to benchmarks next month.

Apple News Plus – Thoughts and Impressions

In our prior analysis of Apple’s event last month, we had posited the theory that the News Plus subscription service may not reel in ample recurring services revenue. After spending sufficient time with the app and perusing a variety of content, we understand and support Henry Casey’s position for cancellation. While the larger hit may come from the termination of Texture on Android as of May 28th, we fail to see how the magazine as a service has gained any traction.

The information presented through the various publications is available in advanced of release via traditional physical media. Publications such as PC World, Macworld, and other technology-focused magazines are effectively rehashing articles that have been available for weeks by visiting the associated website. Paying $10 per month for outdated information doesn’t represent a good value. The second perplexing issue relates to the iterations of magazines that are available for the current markets. Some magazines are either UK or EU versions. Although the content is in English, the value of ads for vendors and services that don’t operate within the U.S. and Canada is questionable.

The potential for unique and semi-interactive covers is interesting, the Apple faithful apparently don’t see the value in the proposition. The fact that only 200,000 trials were established during the first 48 hours highlights the logical outcomes that Apple News Plus will not move the needle from the services revenue perspective.

Apple’s Services Presentation

Apple presented its service-focused offerings after spending the front half of last week refreshing a number of platforms. While initial responses across the Internet have been mixed, the Apple Card seems like the most sizable win for revenue growth in the face of smartphone market saturation. The cash back rewards when using the service with Apple Pay is fairly attractive. The advances in security, when combined with the ease of use that comes with Apple Pay (where enabled), is a clear demonstration of doing more with less. The randomization features of the CVV ID and actual card number are impressive. It’s certainly not outside of the realm of reality for Google to follow this approach as there are plenty of Android handsets globally which support NFC payment technologies.

The Apple News+ service, which effectively demonstrates what the organization had planned for the Texture acquisition, may not reel in as much services revenue as the company had hoped. While we find the concept appealing and the privacy angle to be admirable, the recognition that not everyone desires access to such content in a paid format is a reality that exists. The one-month trial may not be as generous as the three month trial for Apple Music but it’s enough time to determine if sufficient value is derived from the associated subscription cost.

The Apple Arcade announcement is more akin to Xbox Game Pass than the very recently announced Google Stadia service. The outcry over Diablo Immortal being a mobile-only experience demonstrates that core gamers don’t fully accept mobile devices as being a viable and desired game platform. There are certainly excellent games available under iOS and Android. However, the bulk of the casual gamer space tends to latch on to free-to-play or microtransaction-driven experiences for their Match 3, puzzle or farming fix. The anomalies that various review sites have noted with traditional controller interaction with iOS platforms may make Apple Arcade a non-starter. The verbiage of “console-quality” graphics with the A12X CPU may have been a hint of Apple’s desire to obtain more revenue from gamers. Having the ability to experience titles on a big screen via integrations using AirPlay2 may enhance the value of Apple Arcade. Only time will tell on this one.

Last but not least is the Apple TV+ streaming service which will be available on the Apple TV app on native and non-native platforms may be telling more about the fate of the Apple TV streaming device. If an app that plays well with AirPlay and iTunes shows up on every competing and complementary platform, how long will it be until the Apple TV 4K goes the way of all things Apple AirPort? The naming of the service was a larger miss in our minds. Better alternatives for the service name could have been:

  • Apple Vision
  • Apple iWatch
  • Apple iVue

These are just a few options which would stem confusion between services and devices.

QNAP QTS 4.3.6 – End of the line for some models

While QNAP has been pushing out a number of updates for the QTS 4.3.6 operating system, the release notes continue to provide warnings to owners of the following NAS models that future updates beyond this release will no longer be offered due to hardware limitations:

While these units will still receive updates until 2020 or 2022 (depending on model), the overall lifespan feels compressed. We’ve been putting the newer TS-328 model through its paces and have been left wanting just a bit more performance in comparison to the x86-based counterparts. It would appear that the upgrade path for those who have adopted an ARM-based product from QNAP is becoming a bit more limited as time progresses. Even though a 1-3 year gap exists before the listed devices will no longer receive further security updates, planning should commence now for those who may be affected by QNAP’s efforts to phase out devices which utilized the Annapurna Labs solutions.

Microsoft’s Inactive Retpoline Patch

As part of the latest round of operating system patches, Microsoft has released KB4482887 for Windows 10. Prior Spectre and Meltdown mitigations required additions to the registry to account for antivirus validations before they would be applied. This check was later removed yet the enforcement of the necessary protections was not enabled by default. This newest release provides the necessary mechanisms to use retpoline. However, we’re back to the “here’s a patch that isn’t enforced yet” conundrum that transforms risk management or vulnerability mitigation into a drinking game.

What’s the point of providing an update when its protections aren’t being actively enforced? Why release a game-hindering patch when the workaround involves removing what was recommended for installation? Since 2015, Microsoft has released a few patches in the name of security which do not enforce the necessary protections for the attack vector. Executing an authenticated scan using a market-leading vulnerability assessment tool will reinforce that applying a patch is no longer sufficient for Windows.

If you’re interested in being ahead of the curve and leveraging the retpoline additions for KB4482887. the registry values provided at BleepingComputer will get you most of the way there. The reason we’re saying “most” is because of the post-modification checks we executed using the Get-SpeculationControlSettings Powershell cmdlet. This wonderful cmdlet will aid in determining which protections are active. Declarations are well spelled out and account for the need to enforce protections based upon your processor of choice (Intel, AMD, and ARM derivatives). Needless to say, the true value which will be assigned to the FeatureSettingsOverride registry key involves a bitwise or to facilitate values of True for Speculative Store Bypass on a system wide basis and for Retpoline.

Multiple knowledge base articles pertaining to protection against speculative execution side-channel vulnerabilities are… well.. multiple. The value of FeatureSettingsOverride will ultimately be yet another value based on the evaluation of the bitwise or between the data provided by BleepingComputer and the data contained in the guidance for IT Pros. For Ryzen processors, 0x448 (1096) is the pro play.

Intel’s Assertion of Apple’s Transition to ARM

The increased noise pertaining to Apple’s plans to transition their traditional compute offerings to ARM-derived solutions continues to gain steam. These rumors are normally followed by insistence that people will abandon their Apple product of choice (MacBooks, iMacs, Mac minis). The general public is very skeptical of the success of such a change. Linus Torvalds has even chimed in on why ARM-based solutions won’t succeed in the datacenter.

The prior anemic performance of Intel’s integrated graphics solution and lack of true innovation due to subtle tweaks to clock speed or minor adjustments on an extremely mature 14nm (insert the total number of +’s of your choice after said measurement) manufacturing process certainly resulted in a product that fell behind Apple’s needs. With the departure of Brian Krzanich, the acquisition of external talent including Jim Keller and Raja Koduri, and proposed changes to how Intel will implement next-generation technologies, Apple’s move to the internally developed A-series SoC’s may be a solution to a problem which won’t exist for much longer.

The current state of the next-generation of Intel graphics looks to be shaping up to provide serious competition to incumbent vendors. The leaked benchmarks for the Intel Iris Plus 940 iGPU solution show the appropriate focus finally exists for the graphics pipeline. If the stand-alone Intel GPU offerings scale this level of performance up to something that comes within a stone’s throw of what AMD and Nvidia are offering in a given price range, both the PC and Mac platforms would offer the kind of generational performance increases that haven’t been present for close to a decade.

Apple introduced the A7 chip as a “desktop class architecture” and has claimed that the current generation A12X chip in the current-generation iPad Pro to provide “console quality” graphics. A desktop variant of the A13 and beyond may indeed be competitive with what Intel offers in 2019, but the investments and strategic roadmap which Intel is executing upon may make this ARM transition an exercise in futility. Customers that have remained with the Apple ecosystem for traditional computer platforms have experienced architectural shifts before for the sake of performance. What we’re likely to see over the next 18-24 months may bring into question Apple’s architectural shift and long-term plans in this space.

Troubled Times for Windstream

Ars Technica has nicely summarized the challenges that Windstream encountered which have led to Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The large scale of services that this organization provides for businesses and consumers will hopefully continue in an uninterrupted manner while this company takes the necessary measures to emerge with superior prospects. The total debt load noted in the article highlights how capitally intensive the communication services that everyone relies upon can be. Over the past decade, the creative maneuvers pertaining to dividend reductions, the spin-off of assets into a real estate investment trust, and the subsequent events that followed these efforts have culminated in today’s announcement. We have friends that work for Windstream. It’s unfortunate when companies fall upon hard times. The cost cutting measures that will manifest during the restructuring efforts will certainly impact a number of employees.

Radeon VII – Paper Launch and Thoughts

On February 7, 2019, the Radeon VII GPU was allegedly released. Many reviews with differing opinions yet mostly consistent data hit the web. Attempting to purchase this card within the United States was a non-starter; AMD’s site was sold out within minutes and none of the other major e-tailers had any stock available. While a number of manufactures such as AsRock, MSI, XFX, and others announced an offering, the associated marketing materials confirm that they’re effectively reselling the reference design with the “value add” of alternative packaging and some stickers on the fans.

At $699, the defining feature of this solution involves the most up-to-date manufacturing process and memory allocations that are better suited for professional workloads. While the readily-available GeForce RTX series has plenty of offerings with custom cooling solutions, better-than-Founder’s Edition performance, and next-generation technologies (ray tracing, DLSS), the Radeon VII didn’t launch with equivalent commitment. Is it a rushed product that effectively shoehorns the Radeon Instinct MI50 components into a prosumer-usable package? Based on availability, the answer is a resounding yes.

The thermal aspects of this “RTX 2080” competitor (in rasterization and frame rate only) provided by Steve Burke’s analysis over at Gamers Nexus demonstrate that advanced fabrication processes can only take technology so far if the core fundamentals related to optimizing performance aren’t achieved. The GCN architecture as a whole is getting long in the tooth. While it’s still sufficient for modern workloads such as gaming, content creation, and 3D rendering, consumers of these solutions have had to deal with ever-increasing heat generation and ever-shrinking performance gains with each successive iteration. The Radeon VII and RX 590 both lend service to this fact.

The hype train is slowly building for Navi, yet there are some in the media that aren’t aware that the inherent limits of GCN will still be retained for the new GPUs. If the move from 14nm to 7nm for the Vega architecture wasn’t enough to provide consistently superior performance against the GeForce 1080 Ti and GeForce RTX 2080, the potential performance envelope for a Polaris-class GPU with a die shrink and GDDR6 memory will most likely meet the same fate against the competition.

The net-new GPU hotness (pun intended) from AMD won’t release until 2021. Arcturus, the code name for this effort, will be the first product that moves on from GCN. The following article from Anandtech (circa-2011) demonstrates AMD’s transition from pre-GCN VLIW designs to what we’ve effectively been using for a very long time now. We’re pessimistic in our belief that Navi will not be sufficient for maintaining competitiveness with nVidia. With a renewed secondary front from Intel in the graphics arena, AMD can’t afford to have Arcturus flop.

A salvage of the 7nm Vega architecture for gaming purposes would most likely require additional capital that doesn’t make a lot of sense to spend at this point. More efficient implementations of Vega as part of the Ryzen G APUs demonstrate that acceptable performance and low power consumption are indeed possible. The commitment to HBM2 via silicon interposer has created additional challenges from the thermal perspective. The die consistency noted in a number of reviews is a positive development which is immediately offset by the poor contact that the reference cooling solution establishes with the die. The improvements identified at Gamers Nexus when the stock thermal pad is replaced with an application of quality thermal interface material show that the potential for more headroom exists.

As the Vega64 can be had in reference designs at $399, we don’t expect an uptake in Radeon VII adoption outside of media and prosumer use cases. Based on the lack of custom PCBs and cooling solutions from AMD partners, it’s not outside of the realm of possibility that these partners came to the same conclusion.

The Apple Extension to Other Ecosystems Continues

We had questioned how long it would be until the iTunes and AirPlay 2 features would proliferate to other television platforms during yesterday’s update. We didn’t have to wait long for an answer. Today, LG announced comparable support to what Samsung announced for new models as did Vizio. While Samsung may maintain an edge in not leaving owners of fairly new 2018 sets out in the cold, the proliferation of options at this point only leaves a Roku and Sony announcement up in the air. Whether or not the expected uptick in the use of Apple’s services by individuals that are firmly entrenched outside of the macOS/iOS ecosystem manifests, this approach is certainly unprecedented. We’re expecting that these developments will make more sense after Apple’s WDDC later this year.