Is this caused by the fact there are only a few companies making graphics chips?
Resistor hack turns a Nvidia GTX690 into a Quadro K5000 or Tesla K10
101–110 of 196 posts
Re: Resistor hack turns a Nvidia GTX690 into a Quadro K5000 or Tesla K10
#102The 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…
It seems every company screws up on binning, sometimes repeatedly. AMD and Intel and nVidia have had 're-binning' issues on a lot of hardware.
Outside of smaller community of tinkerers it's not much of a trend. On the scales the companies operate it makes no difference to bottom line. Few can be bothered with learning SMD soldering.
Re: Resistor hack turns a Nvidia GTX690 into a Quadro K5000 or Tesla K10
#103Why not patch the driver in software instead?
1. This is way easier.
2. You are unlikely breaking any bizarre U.S. reverse engineering law by doing it.
Re: Resistor hack turns a Nvidia GTX690 into a Quadro K5000 or Tesla K10
#104I 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…
Laughing is a coping mechanism.
I am well aware of the seriousness of the assault on our freedoms on behalf of the corporate overlords.
And I would rather be chided for being ridiculous writing this comment than rewarded with an uneasy laugh of the people that recognize how close to home it hits.
Re: Resistor hack turns a Nvidia GTX690 into a Quadro K5000 or Tesla K10
#105The 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…
Doesn't the fact that they're selling the same chip for a lower price mean they are profitable with that low-end price, too? I doubt they are just dumping the leftovers for the low-end, and taking a loss.
Also how is this any different from the Adobe scandal in Australia from a couple of months ago? I believe the Australian government even took them, Microsoft and Apple to court over charging Australians a lot more than Americans or others for the same products.
Re: Resistor hack turns a Nvidia GTX690 into a Quadro K5000 or Tesla K10
#106The 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…
One thing to keep in mind, is that author mentions that the same card does not perform equivalently in Windows and Linux, specifically multi-screen support under Linux. From the forum post:
"I own a NVidia GTX 690 which I bought for two reasons, gaming, and multi monitor setup for work, NVidia made it very clear that this card would drive up to 3 screens in 2d, which it does quite nicely :-+... under windows :--! The tight asses have decided that if you want this feature under Linux you have to get a Quadro which has Mosaic support :palm:. So naturally I decided to look at how mod the card, as the price difference is over $1000 between the GTX 690 and the Quadro K5000 (same GPU) and, get this... the K5000 is only single GPU and clocked some 25-30% slower then the gaming card, what a joke"
It might be that he had expected 3 screens under Linux but didn't get it, so he set out to "fix" it. It seems a bit excessive to expect someone to spend $1000 for a card performing 25-30% less just to get Linux support :)
Re: Resistor hack turns a Nvidia GTX690 into a Quadro K5000 or Tesla K10
#107Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think that if I own a piece of hardware, I am the sole owner of every single chip and screw on it, including every hardware hack that it may have. On the other side, usually you don't own the software but only a license that grants you permission to use it.
On the contrary, most individuals purchase a tangible copy of software in a retail store without any licensing terms attached at the time of purchase. (Granted: App Stores are changing this) Shrink-wrap licenses attempt to end-run this by making the product unusable unless the user agrees to forfeit his existing property rights. The legality of these sorts of after-the-fact licenses on a traditional retail purchase i…
I upvoted, but hope people understand that software shrinkwrap/clickwrap licenses are still a legal gray area. Yes, it's been this way for 25+ years, but it's still an exception to regular property rights.
Re: Resistor hack turns a Nvidia GTX690 into a Quadro K5000 or Tesla K10
#108This was compared to software that ships with all the features but requires a serial number to unlock the good ones. However I think this is different, and I think modifying hardware in this way is considerably more moral than using keygens to unlock software. It's hard to exactly state why I feel that this hardware mod is entirely moral behavior while software piracy is not but it's hard to put my finger on the righ…
This makes sense because "buying" software is different than "buying" hardware. When you buy (a license to use) software, (at least nowadays), you're paying for the right to use the software, not the actual bits on the disc/file. When you buy hardware, you're paying for the materials and manufacturing effort that produced a physical thing. Given that mass reproducing hardware is non-trivial compared to software, ther…
While you might have a right to mod the hardware you bought you probably don't have a licence to use different drivers?
Re: Resistor hack turns a Nvidia GTX690 into a Quadro K5000 or Tesla K10
#109Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 proces…
The problem with such things cross-financing.
They give free/cheap stuff to poor/normal people and expensive stuff to rich people.
Then the expensive stuff pays for the cheap stuff.
It's like socialism for capitalists.
Re: Resistor hack turns a Nvidia GTX690 into a Quadro K5000 or Tesla K10
#110I would not be surprised, if he runs into stability issues.
Silicon manufacturers have long used the approach, to just manufacture the top of the line chip and then after testing, deactivate certain parts of the chip, to sell as a lower product. It was famous with AMD processors, where you were able to unlock more cores. The thing is, often those cores were disabled for a reason. I would not be surprised if a similar sheme would apply here, too.