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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

#121

Post by ohaal »

driax wrote: post #106
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…

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…

Apparently triple monitors on linux with nvidia cards can be achieved without this hardware hack.

Source: http://www.reddit.com/r/techsupport/comments/13vkup/3_monito...

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

#122

Post by Tuna-Fish »

hmottestad wrote: post #119
Tuna-Fish wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are thinking about chip costs as if you were selling bread or cars, where the majority cost in making the product are the marginal costs of manufacture. This is not true for microchips. The marginal cost to produce any modern Intel cpu is When the economics of making chips are $2B down to make the first one, then $25 for each that goes off the line, you cannot measure profitability like that. They need to recover…

Making the mask is really expensive. I had an external lecturer tell me it cost about 1 million usd to make a set of masks for their silicon, I assume Intel pays way more. Once you have the mask though, pushing out chips is cheap and easy.

And the masks are just a really, really small part of the total cost. Intel has to pay for their fabs, they have to pay for the research into ever smaller line widths, they have to pay for materials research for new gate materials, and they have to pay for the massive research and development to design new, better chips.

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

#123

Post by joelthelion »

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…

It's just a situation where capitalism doesn't lead to the most economically efficient solution.

The company and the consumers are rational, yet for no additional cost, everyone could be benefiting from better hardware.

Unfortunately I don't have a better system to propose :)

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

#124

Post by chii »

sergiosgc wrote: post #111
mtgx wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

It isn't about just being profitable, it's about extracting maximum value from every customer. Ideally, the company would haggle with each and every customer, and get each customer to pay the highest price he in particular accepts. Since haggling is not feasible in mass markets, customers get grouped in segments, where the price is set to the maximum the segment will accept. Clearly, if you misclassify a hacker into…

Yep. in my view, if the product is already profitable at a lower segment, and they manage to sell it to the pros for a higher price, then the company is making undeserved money, rightly so, bears the anger of their customers when found out.

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

#125

Post by jsmeaton »

cookiecaper wrote: post #94
jsmeaton wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We see this behaviour in lots of industries. Car manufacturers will nerf the lower end vehicles so that there is more 'value' in purchasing a higher end car for enthusiasts. And to hit a little more close to home - think of all the web companies doing exactly the same thing. There are usually 3 or 4 price points, each segment operating within the same code, but features enabled for the higher price points. I see the…

In the case of software as a service, different pricing tiers are at least semi-justifiable because you can argue that additional featuresets require more system resources to be added to the hardware infrastructure undergirding the site. If you want the more demanding features, you must compensate the provider for the extra infrastructure hit they'll be taking. Therefore, it doesn't feel as lame as intentionally perf…

As far as more demanding resources go, that's not always the case but in a lot of them it would be. Think then about the various versions of Visual Studio or even Windows (Pro/Home) etc. The argument is still the same.

And with this nvidia case, the hardware hack only lights up new features in the drivers. It's exactly the same principle, and one others have shown is acceptable market practice.

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

#127

Post by JonnieCache »

usea wrote: post #68
rumcajz wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Because it's about growth, not profitability.

Could you (or someone) expand on this?

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

#128

Post by makomk »

colechristensen wrote: post #117
GhotiFish wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

no, he's only altering how the drivers perceive the card. Frankly, throwing in resistors to modify how it get's identified by the computer is really a hardware hack for a software problem. The drivers are stupid, and they're deliberately choosing to not use card features.

When you buy a high end card, you're buying the development time required to enable advanced features, you are not buying hardware; the silicon simply doesn't cost that much to produce. Most people do not want or need these advanced features, nor do they want to pay for them. The alternative environment has everyone paying $2000 for the same card and much fewer sales vs. premium users paying for premium features, and…

They're not just spending the development time on advanced features. NVidia appear to have intentionally crippled stuff like data transfer speeds to and from the GPU on their consumer models (but only for OpenGL/OpenCL and DirectCompute - you still get full speed when doing the exact same thing through DirectX) on the basis that it mostly only screws professional users.

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

#129

Post by makomk »

n3rdy wrote: post #55
eksith wrote: post #10

So this is basically a change of the PCI device ID. The capabilities are essentially the same; he just changed the device signature. A cool hack nonetheless. Edit: After looking at the screenshots closer, that seems to be the case. The device ID 0x11BA becomes 0x118F. Vendor ID remains 0x10DE on both. Memory, CPU and other important stuff are basically the same. Very cool!

Maybe the configuration is a little different too. If the professional counterpart is actually worse for gaming, perhaps its because the resources are allocated to supporting multiple displays instead? In that case, is it reasonable to consider this crippling the device?

The professional versions of NVidia cards generally tend to be more conservatively clocked than the gaming ones. Obviously that affects performance.

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

#130

Post by chii »

latimer wrote: post #12
fosk wrote: post #6

Earlier 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.

This is a good point. When you buy hardware, you are now the owner of it so they shouldn't be able to stop you from doing it, just like once you buy a phone you should be able to unlock it or install whatever software you want on it.

> just like once you buy a phone you should be able to unlock it or install whatever software you want on it.

unless, of course you signed an agreement to not do that, in exchange for a cheaper price on the phone and some period of contract with a particular carrier...

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