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Nvidia CEO Introduces Nvidia Ampere Architecture, Nvidia A100 GPU

blogs.nvidia.com

31–40 of 347 posts

Re: Nvidia CEO Introduces Nvidia Ampere Architecture, Nvidia A100 GPU

#31
post #25
post #16

Probably even more closed than ever. They tend to become more and more restrictive with every new hardware generation. I wonder where their promised open source announcement they preannounced before.

The large majority of researchers and business getting into NVidia products doesn't seem to find it that relevant, rather what tools, GPU programming languages and hardware they are able to put their hands on.

It's irrelevant to researchers. Research operates on rapid cycles: prototype, publish, move on.

It does impact businesses. It doesn't prevent adoption for e.g. deep learning, but I haven't seen e.g. GPU-based databases reach broad adoption, or many other places where MIMD/SIMD would reduce costs or improve performance. Using classical hardware is clearly cheaper than the business risk and engineering time of relying on a proprietary, closed hardware solution.

I'm at the edge, where my workloads don't require GPU, but could benefit from it. This sort of thing factors into decision-making. I dabble in GPU, but never beyond prototypes, for those reasons.

I think this is one of the reasons why these devices haven't reached wide-spread marketshare. Most computers sold have an integrated chipset. People buying NVidia GPUs are researchers (who don't care), deep learning applications (who don't have a choice), and gamers. There have been predictions for two decades that GPU-style SIMD and MIMD architectures would displace the centrality of the GPU.

Technically, it makes sense. If I type a list comprehension in Python, it would run at higher speed and lower power on a SIMD or MIMD platform.

I think the reason that hasn't happened is because x86 and x64 are open and widely-supported. NVidia is a walled garden, and is only practical for markets NVidia explicitly targets.

This story plays out over and over. Business people push for closed. Eventually, open comes along, and wipes it out. Sometimes, as with x86 or the iPhone, that leads to increased profits. Sometimes, as with Wikipedia, that kills businesses.

Re: Nvidia CEO Introduces Nvidia Ampere Architecture, Nvidia A100 GPU

#32
post #28
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah. That's been my general problem with adopting NVidia for anything. They make good hardware, but there's a lot of lock-in, and not a lot of transparency. That introduces business risk. I'm not in a position where I need GPGPU, but if there wasn't that risk, and generally there were mature, open standards, I'd definitely use it. The major breakpoint would be when libraries like Numpy do it natively, and better yet…

Given that I hardly saw any clone vendors other than AMD, I really doubt that they had any influence on Intel's market share. What worked out was IBM not being able to prevent PC clones, but given the wide adoption of laptops, tablets and phones that hardly matters nowadays.

Maybe not recently, but in the years that cemented Intel dominance, there were many clones on the market.

Re: Nvidia CEO Introduces Nvidia Ampere Architecture, Nvidia A100 GPU

#34
post #28
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah. That's been my general problem with adopting NVidia for anything. They make good hardware, but there's a lot of lock-in, and not a lot of transparency. That introduces business risk. I'm not in a position where I need GPGPU, but if there wasn't that risk, and generally there were mature, open standards, I'd definitely use it. The major breakpoint would be when libraries like Numpy do it natively, and better yet…

Given that I hardly saw any clone vendors other than AMD, I really doubt that they had any influence on Intel's market share. What worked out was IBM not being able to prevent PC clones, but given the wide adoption of laptops, tablets and phones that hardly matters nowadays.

Intel was forced to license to AMD for government contracts. There's a super-complex story there I won't get into.

There were a few clone vendors aside from AMD. None were ever a serious threat, and AMD itself didn't become more than a bottom-feeder until after maybe 15 years. But their existence did drive a lot of adoption.

And yes, I did oversimplify. MS-DOS, IBM not being able to prevent clones, and so on, all really played together here as part of the same story.

Re: Nvidia CEO Introduces Nvidia Ampere Architecture, Nvidia A100 GPU

#35
post #28
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah. That's been my general problem with adopting NVidia for anything. They make good hardware, but there's a lot of lock-in, and not a lot of transparency. That introduces business risk. I'm not in a position where I need GPGPU, but if there wasn't that risk, and generally there were mature, open standards, I'd definitely use it. The major breakpoint would be when libraries like Numpy do it natively, and better yet…

Given that I hardly saw any clone vendors other than AMD, I really doubt that they had any influence on Intel's market share. What worked out was IBM not being able to prevent PC clones, but given the wide adoption of laptops, tablets and phones that hardly matters nowadays.

[deleted]

Re: Nvidia CEO Introduces Nvidia Ampere Architecture, Nvidia A100 GPU

#37
post #33

In my experience, Jensen Huang's keynotes are unprofessional in the best possible way. I remember thinking during an entire GTC presentation "Wait, this guy is the CEO?" He seemed like an excited engineer who happened to stumble onto stage.

> He seemed like an excited engineer

Is this a bad thing? I personally avoid presentations made by CEO of big corporations as it’s usually a Bingo of all the trendy buzzwords that as in fine no meaning.

Re: Nvidia CEO Introduces Nvidia Ampere Architecture, Nvidia A100 GPU

#39
post #18

I'm confused. Is there any relationship between the recent Ampere Arm64 servers ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22475036 ) and Nvidia's "Ampere Architecture", or is it just a case of them using the same name?

I don't like that people downvoted you for asking a question. If someone thinks the question is stupid or not doesn't mean that a downvote is warranted. (nor an upvote, answer the question and move on.) To answer though; it's just a coincidence, as you might already know Nvidia uses famous scientists (especially in the field of electricity) as the names of their microarchitectures. * Volta (Alessandro Volta, inventor…

Tesla is famous in the US for inventing polyphase AC and induction motors, but this is really one of these stories were a bunch of people invented the same thing very closely to each other due to a precipitating reaching of understanding.

Note that Tesla's designs were IIRC two-phase which is largely inferior to three-phase. The push for three-phase and associated designs and inventions (three phase transformers on a single core etc.) came from outside the US.

Re: Nvidia CEO Introduces Nvidia Ampere Architecture, Nvidia A100 GPU

#40
post #34
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given that I hardly saw any clone vendors other than AMD, I really doubt that they had any influence on Intel's market share. What worked out was IBM not being able to prevent PC clones, but given the wide adoption of laptops, tablets and phones that hardly matters nowadays.

Intel was forced to license to AMD for government contracts. There's a super-complex story there I won't get into. There were a few clone vendors aside from AMD. None were ever a serious threat, and AMD itself didn't become more than a bottom-feeder until after maybe 15 years. But their existence did drive a lot of adoption. And yes, I did oversimplify. MS-DOS, IBM not being able to prevent clones, and so on, all rea…

That's why Intel realized that fab technology was the true differentiator.

The only way to outcompete in a sea of clones is to secure exclusive access to a valuable resource they can't.

Intel with fabs. Dell with lean supply chains. The surviving hard drive and memory companies with scale.

I think IBM and Sun show what happens when you try to fight a stand-up brawl in a commodity space.

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