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Nvidia’s New Policy Limits GeForce Data Center Usage

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Re: Nvidia’s New Policy Limits GeForce Data Center Usage

#31

Post by freeone3000 »

mickronome wrote: post #24
m3kw9 wrote: post #8

I can see the reason they are making this move is because the supply of GeForce Video cards is being used up for things other than Graphics duty like mining block chains or AI training. It’s probably a desperate supply move

While I think it's probably part of the reason, if it was the only reason there are bound to be other less customer hostile ways of solving that particular problem.

They can't price-differentiate FP64 compute out, since ML uses FP32 or even FP16. They tried discriminating FP16 performance but frameworks switched to using FP32 units and downconverting to FP16 after. They can't kill FP32 performance since that's used for gaming. They tried killing the virtualization, they tried differentiating based on clustering, they tried every reasonable technical procedure.

This seems consumer-hostile because the entire thing is consumer-hostile - they want ML researchers to pay more for graphics cards because they have more money to spend, not because they can offer superior performance. (They can offer superior performance to GeForce, just not superior performance/$ or performance/W.)

Re: Nvidia’s New Policy Limits GeForce Data Center Usage

#32

Post by dnautics »

make3 wrote: post #16
dnautics wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if you write your own block chain where the POW is "do a deep learning task"?

courts aren't (yet?) ruled by machines; you'll have a hard time arguing this to an actual human being

And an actual human judge is not going to sympathize with a have your cake and eat it too EULA like nvidias especially if the competitor is offering a product that is more efficient for the consumer

Re: Nvidia’s New Policy Limits GeForce Data Center Usage

#33

Post by freeone3000 »

jacquesm wrote: post #17
sabalaba wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's true, here is the updated license: http://www.nvidia.com/content/DriverDownload-March2009/licen... . Text: No Datacenter Deployment. The SOFTWARE is not licensed for datacenter deployment, except that blockchain processing in a datacenter is permitted.

So, once again proof that open source is the only way to go.

Open-source drivers don't even support Tesla, not to mention Volta. An EULA challenge seems to the way to go here. I'll be emailing legal for advice once I get back to work.

Re: Nvidia’s New Policy Limits GeForce Data Center Usage

#35

Post by guitarbill »

forgotpassagan wrote: post #5

In good news, this may finally force a court case around EULA's, which basically everyone have known for a decade as bullshit. Having to agree to draconian terms to use something you own is ridiculous. If EULA's become enforceable there's nothing preventing a toaster maker from banning you from toasting bagels in your machine and countless other absurd usurious machinations. EULA 'shrinkwrap' license agreements are a…

Agreed, however this depends heavily on jurisdiction. E.g. in Germany [0], license agreements presented after purchase are completely void anyway (although defining the moment of purchase for non-physical goods is tricky - not so for a graphics card though). So in Japan, maybe?

[0] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endbenutzer-Lizenzvertrag

Re: Nvidia’s New Policy Limits GeForce Data Center Usage

#37

Post by pzxc »

From a sales point of view, Nvidia actually doesn't care that much about researchers, they make up a small percentage of sales. They care about gamers (VR has been a big help), and especially cryptocurrency mining where customers will buy multiple video cards at a time (kaching). There are even blockchains now that are resistant to ASIC mining, where GPU mining is the best again. (BTG for example)

I suspect that from Nvidia's viewpoint, cloud providers are a middleman and make GPU usage more efficient, which threatens sales. Why should I, ask a cryptocurrency miner, buy 4 new video cards when I can rent unused time that has already been paid for by someone else at the data center? (if the cost is cheaper, which sometimes it is)

Though I question how they intend to enforce this new provision of theirs given that GPU cloud usage is already widespread.

Re: Nvidia’s New Policy Limits GeForce Data Center Usage

#38

Post by K0SM0S »

jacquesm wrote: post #23
vinayan3 wrote: post #4

For the longest time they have encouraged people to use Geforce cards for doing machine learning. Now they are changing the licensing and making it not okay for data centers is not gonna sit well with people. Especially with the carveout for Bitcoin miners. The number of customers who are impacted like the article points out will be mainly universities. This is bad move overall and isn't gonna gain them any good will…

The exemption makes it even more ridiculous, not only do they want to restrict where you can use the software but they also want to have a say in what kind of applications you can use their software for. This besides the fact that Bitcoin on GPUs is fairly dead, it's almost entirely done on ASICs now. If you read the license agreement it states that the term applies to 'blockchain processing', not to bitcoin specific…

Indeed.

There are a number of "alt-coins" (blockchain-based cryptocurrencies other than bitcoin) designed to be "ASIC-resistant" e.g. by using the Lyra2REv2 algorithm.*

This is notably the case of Monero and Monacoin, two popular cryptos in Japan. Generally, the Japanese and Koreans are very enthusiastic about cryptocurrencies in general.

Cryptocurrency GPU-mining on Tesla cards would be outright unprofitable.

These facts may contribute to Nvidia's decision not to displease Japanese GPU miners specifically.

____

* This is to avoid big ASIC farms as is the case of bitcoin (apparently, more than 70% of bitcoin's hash rate comes from China, most notably from a specific valley where electricity is dirt cheap). One purpose of ASIC-resistance is to maintain a high-enough degree of decentralization in mining, which increases security for the network/blockchain.

Re: Nvidia’s New Policy Limits GeForce Data Center Usage

#39

Post by nightcracker »

This is just a blatant attempt to sell the exact same product to two different types of customers at different prices based on their (presumed) willingness to spend.

Actually it's worse. It's an attempt to cripple a perfectly functioning cheap product aimed at a different audience (gamers) for another audience (machine learning folks) in order to drive them to more expensive products that do the same thing.

Pure greed.

Re: Nvidia’s New Policy Limits GeForce Data Center Usage

#40

Post by m3kw9 »

freeone3000 wrote: post #31
mickronome wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I think it's probably part of the reason, if it was the only reason there are bound to be other less customer hostile ways of solving that particular problem.

They can't price-differentiate FP64 compute out, since ML uses FP32 or even FP16. They tried discriminating FP16 performance but frameworks switched to using FP32 units and downconverting to FP16 after. They can't kill FP32 performance since that's used for gaming. They tried killing the virtualization, they tried differentiating based on clustering, they tried every reasonable technical procedure. This seems consume…

You cannot just look at that, the Tesla’s have bigger memory bandwidth and bigger memory which can help to utilize the GPUs better by having faster access to more data
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