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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

#131

Post by TheAnimus »

habosa wrote: post #37

This 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…

I used to modify my printer cartridges so that they didn't cost me a fortune for all my university printing.

Some might suggest Epson sell the printer at such a low price because they expect to earn money from the ink.

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

#132

Post by canadev »

afreak wrote: post #86
brownbat wrote: post #70

Earlier 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…

Tangent: To anyone wondering about the "RGB lines" comment, apparently it has something to do with SCART cables ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCART ).

Here are some screenshots: http://www.reddit.com/r/gamecollecting/comments/mcmsz/my_sne...

Found this out when I was wondering what he was talking about...

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

#133

Post by chii »

sneak wrote: post #59
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.

What about my laptop? Do I own the RAM? Can I put any bytes I want into it? How about the ones that cause software to skip a license check?

> Can I put any bytes I want into it? How about the ones that cause software to skip a license check?

yes you can - as long as you didn't have a prior agreement to not do it. For example, you downloaded a piece of software off a torrent site. you didn't have any prior agreement with anyone about anything. The agreement between the uploader who originally first distributed the software and the copyright holder is the only place that is valid in my view.

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

#134

Post by stdbrouw »

joelthelion wrote: post #123
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 :)

I think nobody would call nerfing high-end chips for people with higher price sensitivity an optimal solution, but something gotta give. Either there's a lot of consumer surplus (cheaper prices for better products), or there's a lot of producer surplus through market segmentation (bigger R&D budgets, better products in the long term). You can't have both.

This problem is more obvious with software, by the way: higher-end SaaS plans may cost marginally more (storage, support) but they're really mostly about price discrimination: getting people who can pay more to pay more even if you could provide all your customers with the top-tier experience.

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

#135

Post by chii »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #116
sargun wrote: post #5

I don't entirely know how I feel about this hack. I feel like this is really similar to unlocking the "Professional" version of a piece of software with a serial key generator. Although, I understand hardware is dramatically different than software, it's using the same principal -- the same reusable bits to assemble many different products, and then just using tools to mask features unless a user pays for them. Then…

I see it this way: were they giving the cards for free, they wouldn't ever disable features to create different models. In this magic world everyone would get to use the 100% of what the most current technology can do. The only reason they limit their cards is to extract more money out of the economic system . It feels wrong to us because brains don't reason via market economics. You can feel the waste in this soluti…

> it's the inefficiency inherent in the market economy.

i think this inefficiency exists because there is no perfect competition (i.e., anyone can start a semi-conductors company and compete in the market).

We should push for a future where there _is_ perfect competition, and this problem will resolve itself. For example, 3D printing is a viable method of reaching such a future, if the printing tech keeps increasing in fidelity and durability etc.

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

#136

Post by ansgri »

seanp2k2 wrote: post #56
ippisl wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's possible for nvidia to replace the resistors with one-time-programable memory ,and program it at factory. And it's cheap, it's being used in $1 FPGA from silicon blue. And they'll probably do this in their next chip.

I don't even know if they'd bother to do this due to the handful of people who are actually going to buy the gaming card to make it into a pro card. Most people who are probably doing this are hobbyists at best. Most professionals would probably just have their company buying the cards anyway, and this hack won't at all change that. Actually, it being a hardware hack rather than a software hack makes it even less app…

have their company buying the cards anyway

as if the company had infinite resources and didn't want to spend less.

This isn't true for startups or any kind of small business.

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

#137

Post by xradionut »

I see no problem with either side, Nvida or the hardware hacker.

As someone who spent nearly a decade in the semiconductor industry, testing wafers and packaged die, the economics of binning and market segment are understandable. As a electronics and RF geek, I've done plenty of mods and customization that voiding plenty of warranties.

The only issue would be if a third party did this mod in volume and repackaged the card as something it was not originally.

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

#138

Post by alpine01 »

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 also worth noting that the electrical performance of your cheaper card's chip may not be as good as the higher grade chip, so may overheat more or have a failure earlier in it's life.

On chip lines like these, there's usually a process called "Speed Binning" where basically when you test the performance of each chip, and you put the higher performing ones in a different "Bin" than the slightly less efficient ones. You then sell the super high performance ones for a higher price, or put them in the more expensive product lines, as they will be less likely to fail.

i.e: Of all the chips that don't fail their tests and are rejected, 85% are of C grade performance, 12% are B grade, and 3% are A grade. Intel does this to get the "Extreme Edition" chips, and i'm assuming Nvidia does this to select the chips for their higher grade product lines.

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

#139

Post by Keyframe »

brudgers wrote: post #89

"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.

I thought the premium in quadros these days is in double operations speed. Since I need floats, not doubles I opted for two GTX 680s. They are screaming compared to Q6000, but I could always use more.

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

#140

Post by martincmartin »

joelthelion wrote: post #123
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 :)

Why is that? The major cost is the one-time cost of designing the chip, not producing it. Software is even more extreme: the distribution costs are essentially zero. That doesn't mean the most economically efficient solution is for the software to sell for nothing.
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