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Nvidia’s New Policy Limits GeForce Data Center Usage

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Re: Nvidia’s New Policy Limits GeForce Data Center Usage

#121

Post by tfolbrecht »

Typical HN kneejerk comments.

The GeForce series cards are designed, spec'd, priced for consumer usage. Nvidia has to warranty and guarantee what they sell, consumer confidence is important.

When you're doing ML or blockchain Proof-of-Work the card becomes a consumable. Is it fair for manufacturers to guarantee them like they would a consumer desktop or gaming GPU? You expect people who play with ML in their free time to subsidize your GPU cluster?

That said, hope this gets people angry enough to make TF support OpenCL. CUDA is too pervasive.

Re: Nvidia’s New Policy Limits GeForce Data Center Usage

#122

Post by samfisher83 »

tfolbrecht wrote: post #121

Typical HN kneejerk comments. The GeForce series cards are designed, spec'd, priced for consumer usage. Nvidia has to warranty and guarantee what they sell, consumer confidence is important. When you're doing ML or blockchain Proof-of-Work the card becomes a consumable. Is it fair for manufacturers to guarantee them like they would a consumer desktop or gaming GPU? You expect people who play with ML in their free tim…

They want people to buy their more expensive card for ML stuff. The silicon probably isn't all that different.

Re: Nvidia’s New Policy Limits GeForce Data Center Usage

#123

Post by arcanus »

reilly3000 wrote: post #84
sabalaba wrote: post #74

Developers should be mad about this. Here's where to start contributing to open alternatives: ROCm: https://rocm.github.io/ OpenCL: https://www.khronos.org/opencl/ TensorFlow: https://github.com/tensorflow/tensorflow Nouveau: https://nouveau.freedesktop.org/wiki/

TensorFlow depends exclusively (st time of writing) on CUDA for GPU acceleration. Leaning on them to support OpenCL fully would unlock the world of AMD GPUs that are move affordable and don’t have the same crazy EULA. I regret having bought GeForce cards for machine learning now...

Actually, AMD has a version of tensorflow that works on their devices:

https://github.com/ROCmSoftwarePlatform/hiptensorflow

Re: Nvidia’s New Policy Limits GeForce Data Center Usage

#124

Post by WhitneyLand »

Veratyr wrote: post #86
WhitneyLand wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are 100% wrong. When that’s the concern, companies add warning labels or warranty limitations. Whether the GeForce cards are less reliable in that environment or not, that is not why the EULA was changed in this way.

I don't think you read my comment. I said that they're likely motivated by greed but there _exists_ a legitimate reason too. I didn't say that _is_ their reason, just that it exists.

I read it, and I’m saying there does not exist any legitimate reason to add that language to the EULA. There’s no benefit it provides to addressing the problem of supposed realiability. It’s just almost never the way companies address such issues.

Re: Nvidia’s New Policy Limits GeForce Data Center Usage

#125

Post by tomc1985 »

mindslight wrote: post #66
tomc1985 wrote: post #26

So... fuck the license agreement. They can't sue everyone.

It's so weird to see the responses in this thread of people saying they're going to ask their legal department. Have fun when your self-justifying legal department turns around and dictates the company can only buy the more expensive cards, they now want to review the legalese bombs for everything else, etc. Just ignore the wordbarfs as the UPPER CASE INCOHERENT SHOUTING THEY ARE. Everybody knows that nobody reads "E…

This is more about making a statement of defiance against openly monopolistic and abusive terms, about showing companies that they do not get to twist around the market like this. Show them that customers are in charge, and that companies are mere stewards

Re: Nvidia’s New Policy Limits GeForce Data Center Usage

#126

Post by [deleted] »

WhitneyLand wrote: post #124
Veratyr wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think you read my comment. I said that they're likely motivated by greed but there _exists_ a legitimate reason too. I didn't say that _is_ their reason, just that it exists.

I read it, and I’m saying there does not exist any legitimate reason to add that language to the EULA. There’s no benefit it provides to addressing the problem of supposed realiability. It’s just almost never the way companies address such issues.

[deleted]

Re: Nvidia’s New Policy Limits GeForce Data Center Usage

#127

Post by tfolbrecht »

samfisher83 wrote: post #122
tfolbrecht wrote: post #121

Typical HN kneejerk comments. The GeForce series cards are designed, spec'd, priced for consumer usage. Nvidia has to warranty and guarantee what they sell, consumer confidence is important. When you're doing ML or blockchain Proof-of-Work the card becomes a consumable. Is it fair for manufacturers to guarantee them like they would a consumer desktop or gaming GPU? You expect people who play with ML in their free tim…

They want people to buy their more expensive card for ML stuff. The silicon probably isn't all that different.

Not all chips are born equal and that's why faulty/poor performance cores and components are deactivated and chips sold in tiers. Look into it, same silicon on paper, but not on silicon. The problem comes from those specs and the warranties, guarantees, consumer protection, etc.

So decide, overbuilt GPUs (more expensive), firmware gimped GPUs (less performant), or non warrantied( risky ).

Re: Nvidia’s New Policy Limits GeForce Data Center Usage

#128

Post by sangnoir »

tomc1985 wrote: post #27
tomc1985 wrote: post #26

So... fuck the license agreement. They can't sue everyone.

Also, in the US at least, doctrine of first sale means NVIDIA's power in this space should be close to nothing.

Until you need to update the drivers and agree to the restrictive EULA.

Re: Nvidia’s New Policy Limits GeForce Data Center Usage

#129

Post by jacquesm »

le-mark wrote: post #113
K0SM0S wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. There are a number of "alt-coins" (blockchain-based cryptocurrencies other than bitcoin) designed to be "ASIC-resistant" e.g. by using the Lyra2REv2 algorithm.* This is notably the case of Monero and Monacoin, two popular cryptos in Japan. Generally, the Japanese and Koreans are very enthusiastic about cryptocurrencies in general. Cryptocurrency GPU-mining on Tesla cards would be outright unprofitable. These…

$20,000 btc can make mining on gpu's potentially profitable again, more so as the price goes up. If the price holds the 6 months or a year it takes to mine one is another matter entirely :)

You'll have to wait for a few hours until it is back at that level again.

Re: Nvidia’s New Policy Limits GeForce Data Center Usage

#130

Post by tomc1985 »

sangnoir wrote: post #128
tomc1985 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, in the US at least, doctrine of first sale means NVIDIA's power in this space should be close to nothing.

Until you need to update the drivers and agree to the restrictive EULA.

Not sure how courts see the issue now (and it may vary by district) but last I checked in some cases an EULA is insufficient
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