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Nobody knows what a used GPU cluster is worth

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Re: Nobody knows what a used GPU cluster is worth

#21

Post by tyfon »

holoduke wrote: post #19
mschuster91 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The GPU alone has a TDP of 700W, together with everything else (CPU, RAM, storage, fans) you're looking at 1500W+. Depending on the country, that may be enough to saturate your home's electricity uplink...

Hell no. 1.5kw is half a socket capacity. A heat pump or many kitchen appliances are using much more. Our car charger uses more as well.

In the US they have a 120V system so it might actually saturate a normal socket over there. My PC room has a 16A fuse and 230V though, so should be plenty :)

Re: Nobody knows what a used GPU cluster is worth

#22

Post by jermaustin1 »

holoduke wrote: post #19
mschuster91 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The GPU alone has a TDP of 700W, together with everything else (CPU, RAM, storage, fans) you're looking at 1500W+. Depending on the country, that may be enough to saturate your home's electricity uplink...

Hell no. 1.5kw is half a socket capacity. A heat pump or many kitchen appliances are using much more. Our car charger uses more as well.

That's why they said "depending on country"

In North America we are on 120V, making a standard 15A outlet only 1500W max, and something like 1200W sustained. To use higher wattage appliances, we have to upgrade our outlets to 20A (2000/1600W) or up our voltage to 240V, but that carries a different set of plugs and outlets as well.

Re: Nobody knows what a used GPU cluster is worth

#23

Post by cgyvbunji »

latchkey wrote: post #15

I like Meg a lot a human, but Meg is all doom and gloom. Every single post she makes is about how GPUs fail [0] and now she's onto how financing is a big thing just waiting to crash and "nobody knows what a used GPU cluster is worth"... Actually, we do, people offer them to me all the time. A used box of MI300x is $257k. "There is no GPU futures market"... actually there are a few of them that people have pitched to…

Somehow at any given moment every possible topic to discuss on HN belongs to either the set of "it's amazing and nobody can say anything bad about it" or the set of "this thing sucks and nobody is allowed to say anything positive about it" and I never have ANY idea which one any given topic will be in on any given day.

Re: Nobody knows what a used GPU cluster is worth

#25

Post by datadrivenangel »

jermaustin1 wrote: post #22
holoduke wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hell no. 1.5kw is half a socket capacity. A heat pump or many kitchen appliances are using much more. Our car charger uses more as well.

That's why they said "depending on country" In North America we are on 120V, making a standard 15A outlet only 1500W max, and something like 1200W sustained. To use higher wattage appliances, we have to upgrade our outlets to 20A (2000/1600W) or up our voltage to 240V, but that carries a different set of plugs and outlets as well.

Usually the home service is 200+ amps these days which is 24 KW total across all circuits, though you're right that most individual circuits are only 10-15 amp.

Re: Nobody knows what a used GPU cluster is worth

#26

Post by bayindirh »

rtkwe wrote: post #14
echelon wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't that be crazy - a hobbyist market for H100s? Maybe someone could start a business buying up and rehousing these.

They're pretty specific to the datacenter use case with no outputs and they need to be cooled externally, principally through the very loud high speed fans used in data centers. I suppose you could strap a fan to one and put it in a normal case or maybe make a dedicated after market cooler (like the water blocks made for water cooling cases).

Or you can secure yourself a DLC one and try to feed it with the correct regime (liquid composition, temperature and flow rate). I'd say good luck.

These things get hot and are fussy about their requirements.

Re: Nobody knows what a used GPU cluster is worth

#27

Post by 2III7 »

someguyiguess wrote: post #6
tyfon wrote: post #2

I half expect Nvidia to have buyback contacts like Ferrari with the larger customers to prevent a price crash when they all upgrade and to keep them scarce. I hope not though, perhaps I can pick up a H100 in a few years if they get sold on the open market.

That should be illegal. Sounds like a very fraudulent business tactic.

[flagged]

Re: Nobody knows what a used GPU cluster is worth

#28

Post by fancyfredbot »

The relatively slow depreciation of GPU value is an artifact of supply constraints. If you run fp4 inference and could choose freely between Hopper and a Rubin, the performance per watt would make the Hopper unattractive even if you paid zero for the hardware and only for the power.

You can't get the Rubin, or even the Blackwell, so you will pay for the H100 but this won't last if fabs ramp up capacity.

Re: Nobody knows what a used GPU cluster is worth

#30

Post by fragmede »

cgyvbunji wrote: post #23
latchkey wrote: post #15

I like Meg a lot a human, but Meg is all doom and gloom. Every single post she makes is about how GPUs fail [0] and now she's onto how financing is a big thing just waiting to crash and "nobody knows what a used GPU cluster is worth"... Actually, we do, people offer them to me all the time. A used box of MI300x is $257k. "There is no GPU futures market"... actually there are a few of them that people have pitched to…

Somehow at any given moment every possible topic to discuss on HN belongs to either the set of "it's amazing and nobody can say anything bad about it" or the set of "this thing sucks and nobody is allowed to say anything positive about it" and I never have ANY idea which one any given topic will be in on any given day.

latchkey is being restrained. He runs a data center filled with AMD GPUs. He's got a lot more insight to the business of it than the post does.
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