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"Nvidia is so far ahead that all the 4090s are nerfed to half speed"

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121–130 of 186 posts

Re: "Nvidia is so far ahead that all the 4090s are nerfed to half speed"

#121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d still take the bet. FIB and SEM stuff is highly specialized and miniaturizing it to be obtainable by a garage user seems unlikely even in the distant future. Either way, you still couldn’t take a 4090 and make it functional as a 6000 series. You’d destroy it in the process if it was even possible at all.

Nah, it's going to become democratized. It's already started. There's been a few different stories like this lately: https://interestingengineering.com/videos/guy-builds-integra... People said the same thing you're saying now about computers. You're just being silly and forgetting history.

Making a hobby etching thing that isn’t anywhere close to the state of the art is cool, but not exactly anywhere close to what is needed to look at a modern chip.

You’re trivializing the challenge of modifying something that is on the order of 50nm wide and specifically designed to not be able to be tampered with.

Re: "Nvidia is so far ahead that all the 4090s are nerfed to half speed"

#122
post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or the 90% are charged absurd markup because clearly they can deliver the hardware for 10% use-case for 1000$ and still make money on top but they would rather charge the data centers 50k for the same product

There are companies lined up around the block to hand over $$$$$ for the only competitive GPUs on the market. Is the markup actually absurd?

There are investors lined up around the block to hand over $$$$$ for SFHs on the market while people delay family making because they cannot afford housing or end up on the streets.

So, is the market really absurd?

Just because some billionaires are desperate for growth to grow their hundred billions into trillions outbidding each other does not mean that 90% of humanity cannot make use of ML running locally on cheaper GPUs.

Re: "Nvidia is so far ahead that all the 4090s are nerfed to half speed"

#123
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They just shouldn't do that. If they can afford to sell the Ferrari for $20k, they should do so. To everyone who wants one, for whatever reason.

So company profit margins should be capped? At what level and how would that work exactly? What about all other stuff? i.e. maybe you or somebody else can "afford" to sell their labour at 10-80% of what they are paid?

If NVIDIA had real competition they would do this naturally to gain market share. The GP saying they 'should' do x isn't something we can expect companies to do out of the goodness of their hearts, it's what the market should force them to do.

Re: "Nvidia is so far ahead that all the 4090s are nerfed to half speed"

#124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you read the last part? Pytorch uses drivers, and drivers exists for Google's TPU and Apple's M1 GPU as well and both works pretty well. I have tested both and it reaches similar MFU as Nvidia.

Are M1 GPUs available for data center deployment at scale? Are Google TPUs available outside of Google? Can Amazon or Microsoft or other third parties deploy them? Anyone that wants off the shelf parts at scale is going to turn to Nvidia.

So Nvidia's moat is mainly hardware and not software?

Re: "Nvidia is so far ahead that all the 4090s are nerfed to half speed"

#125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe not demand that it be unlockable, but rather if Nvidia were to provide a paid upgrade path to unlock these features that would help. They would need some way to prevent the open source drivers from accessing the features, though.

> but rather if Nvidia were to provide a paid upgrade path to unlock these features that would help. You do not revert a blown e-fuse with a software update.

Yes, but an e-fuse would not be the only way to lock the feature if Nvidia were to want to unlock it later.

Re: "Nvidia is so far ahead that all the 4090s are nerfed to half speed"

#126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So company profit margins should be capped? At what level and how would that work exactly? What about all other stuff? i.e. maybe you or somebody else can "afford" to sell their labour at 10-80% of what they are paid?

If NVIDIA had real competition they would do this naturally to gain market share. The GP saying they 'should' do x isn't something we can expect companies to do out of the goodness of their hearts, it's what the market should force them to do.

I'm not sure if everything turning into a commodity and no companies having any surpluses would be ideal either. That would probably significantly slow down innovation in some ways.

Re: "Nvidia is so far ahead that all the 4090s are nerfed to half speed"

#127
post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are companies lined up around the block to hand over $$$$$ for the only competitive GPUs on the market. Is the markup actually absurd?

There are investors lined up around the block to hand over $$$$$ for SFHs on the market while people delay family making because they cannot afford housing or end up on the streets. So, is the market really absurd? Just because some billionaires are desperate for growth to grow their hundred billions into trillions outbidding each other does not mean that 90% of humanity cannot make use of ML running locally on cheap…

I consider those two very different problems. One is a supply problem, the other is a competition problem.

Also, housing is a basic human right, whereas fast GPUs probably are not.

Re: "Nvidia is so far ahead that all the 4090s are nerfed to half speed"

#128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nah, it's going to become democratized. It's already started. There's been a few different stories like this lately: https://interestingengineering.com/videos/guy-builds-integra... People said the same thing you're saying now about computers. You're just being silly and forgetting history.

Making a hobby etching thing that isn’t anywhere close to the state of the art is cool, but not exactly anywhere close to what is needed to look at a modern chip. You’re trivializing the challenge of modifying something that is on the order of 50nm wide and specifically designed to not be able to be tampered with.

I feel like you don't understand how time works. ;) We've barely had any of this technology 50 years. Give me 500 years and I absolutely guarantee you that I'll fuck up some 4090s with some gadget the size of a mobile phone that costs the 10 cents and it'll work perfectly fine.

Re: "Nvidia is so far ahead that all the 4090s are nerfed to half speed"

#130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't lol. How do you wanna restore a blown fuse on nanometer level INSIDE the GPU die. Its simply not possible. By the way, AMD also uses fuse blowing if you e.g. overclock some of their CPUs to mark them as warranty voided. They give you a warning in the BIOS and if you resume a fuse inside the CPU gets blown that will permanently indicate that the CPU has been used for overclocking (and thus remove the warrant…

> How do you wanna restore a blown fuse on nanometer level INSIDE the GPU die. Its simply not possible. Bullshit. There will be hackers in the future who can do it in their garage. Just... not anytime soon. > By the way, AMD also uses fuse blowing if you e.g. overclock some of their CPUs to mark them as warranty voided. They give you a warning in the BIOS and if you resume a fuse inside the CPU gets blown that will p…

Not anytime soon as in 50? 100 years? 4090 is on 5nm node, how about you first demonstrate its possible on something 100x bigger? For example Intel started locking CPU multipliers in Pentium manufactured in 0.8 μm (800 nm), unlock that fuse :)
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