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Resistor hack turns a Nvidia GTX690 into a Quadro K5000 or Tesla K10

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Re: Resistor hack turns a Nvidia GTX690 into a Quadro K5000 or Tesla K10

#81

Post by tadfisher »

wtallis wrote: post #66
sliverstorm wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When it refers to crippling a chip that has already passed QA, it's a symptom of insufficient competitive pressure. I don't know, as I'm familiar with it early in the development of a process node they sell every top-bin-SKU they can make, and as the process matures they just have too many top-bin parts. I can only guess your argument is that in a competitive market they would start dropping the price of the top-bin…

When a working chip is crippled, that's a destruction of economic value. It may be offset in the long run by helping sustain Moore's Law, but that claim is very much in need of evidence. You have to actually consider what the computer market would look like if we could now buy the flagship CPU from 3-4 years ago for little more than the marginal cost on a mature process. That level of performance is good enough for m…

On the other hand, high-end CPUs on a warehouse shelf are of little economic value to anyone.

Re: Resistor hack turns a Nvidia GTX690 into a Quadro K5000 or Tesla K10

#82

Post by tomrod »

scotty79 wrote: post #75
auctiontheory wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You keep using that word "monopolist." I do not think it means what you think it means.

I know it's bit inappropriate here. I mean provider or clique of providers entrenched in the market and large enough to shape the market.

Ah, so an oligopolist.

Re: Resistor hack turns a Nvidia GTX690 into a Quadro K5000 or Tesla K10

#83

Post by ffk »

scotty79 wrote: post #75
auctiontheory wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You keep using that word "monopolist." I do not think it means what you think it means.

I know it's bit inappropriate here. I mean provider or clique of providers entrenched in the market and large enough to shape the market.

The term you may be looking for is oligopoly - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oligopoly

Re: Resistor hack turns a Nvidia GTX690 into a Quadro K5000 or Tesla K10

#84

Post by jamesaguilar »

rumcajz wrote: post #44
memset wrote: post #23

The corresponding reddit thread is quite insightful: "It is far cheaper to make one very good chip for the highest market, and modify it slightly for lower end markets... Now, this is the part you hate: this is the only viable alternative. There's no point demanding different designs for different market segments as that would significantly increase the cost you, the consumer, pays. You can demand chips be sold at lo…

Lot of industries are able to survive without extensive market segmentation. Why should it not be possible for HW manufacturers?

And lots of industries aren't. Why should it be possible for HW manufacturers?

It's not relevant that some industries have different practices. It would be like asking why can't manufacturing let people work from home, since it works in programming. It's because they are different industries. Their attributes, particularly in terms of R&D and capital costs, aren't on the same scale.

Re: Resistor hack turns a Nvidia GTX690 into a Quadro K5000 or Tesla K10

#85

Post by wladimir »

DoubleMalt wrote: post #78

I am astonished there is no law to put you away for 10 years for posting such disrupting stuff ;)

Please don't joke about this. Perception of ownership has changed so much over the last ~20 years, that I wouldn't be surprised if someone actually tried to jail people for improving hardware they bought, by claiming that you only 'license' the device instead of having bought it, or some other contorted reasoning (give it to the IP maximalists to come up with twisted lines of thought and sad analogy stories). Luckily NVidia isn't that sue-happy, but still...

Edit: see also this, currently on the frontpage: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5394928

Re: Resistor hack turns a Nvidia GTX690 into a Quadro K5000 or Tesla K10

#86

Post by afreak »

brownbat wrote: post #70
memset wrote: post #23

The corresponding reddit thread is quite insightful: "It is far cheaper to make one very good chip for the highest market, and modify it slightly for lower end markets... Now, this is the part you hate: this is the only viable alternative. There's no point demanding different designs for different market segments as that would significantly increase the cost you, the consumer, pays. You can demand chips be sold at lo…

Reminds me of all those guys that were arrested for selling modified modems to give speed boosts to internet subscribers. The ISPs run the same pipes to everyone's house, they then check the device you're renting and tighten the spigot. I'm fine with this as a business necessity, but I really wish someone would pitch a service that only throttles me during peak times. I feel like we're tossing a bunch of idle capacit…

The big difference between the graphics card modification and the modification of those modems is that unlike the Internet connection, you're stealing from nobody when you modify the card.

If you're going to spend the effort to modify the card to behave as what is described in the hack, then it is really no loss to the manufacturer as they had already made a sale to you and you're forgoing your warranty in the process, so they will unlikely need to spend any further money on you.

Contrast this to a cable modem modification where you modify the uploaded file to allow for faster speeds, to the detriment of others. People who legitimately pay for those speeds you've effectively stolen could be hindered as a result. You're stealing from a service in this case.

So I don't think your comparison is fair here.

A better example would be those who have older video game consoles and are tapping into the RGB lines to produce a video signal superior to of what is offered out of the box. The manufacturer never intended for this but physically it allowed for it due to different markets or how the video was processed to begin with.

Re: Resistor hack turns a Nvidia GTX690 into a Quadro K5000 or Tesla K10

#88

Post by eksith »

n3rdy wrote: post #39

For the past few months my GeForce 450 drivers have been acting up, and my computer was actually unusable until I disabled just about all hardware accelleration for the card. Is it possible that the new drivers for this card are so unstable just because nVidia is trying to thwart this type of hack? If that's the case, totally unacceptable to cripple my machine just because they want to prevent other people from alter…

That's a very bold assertion. I don't think they would push a driver out that recklessly just to stop one hardware hack. Besides, this was posted within a few days of him posting on the nVidia forums and you said yourself, the issues you had with the card are a few months in.

Even if they knew about it before hand, it's not like a critical vulnerability or something; just an interesting modification to hardware (rarely how intrusions happen) that very few people know to implement correctly and fewer still who would want to do to their cards.

Re: Resistor hack turns a Nvidia GTX690 into a Quadro K5000 or Tesla K10

#89

Post by brudgers »

"the K5000 is only single GPU and clocked some 25-30% slower then the gaming card"

Makes sense. Quadro cards are used for life critical visualizations, e.g. finite element analysis of a bridge. That's what justifies their expense. Rendering speed only needs to be "fast enough." The premium is on accuracy and reliability.

Re: Resistor hack turns a Nvidia GTX690 into a Quadro K5000 or Tesla K10

#90

Post by confluence »

Not too surprising - classic example of price discrimination: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_discrimination.

Think of any product you see out in the world - and I guarantee you that there is some level of price discrimination going on. It really is very expensive to develop completely different lines of products - any rational company would just slap on a few restrictions and a different brand name and bam! whole new market being served, with the existing one remaining in play.

It's actually quite elegant.

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