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

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

#131
post #104
post #52

NVIDIA is obviously not above market segmentation via dubious means (see: driver limitations for consumer GPUs), but I think binning due to silicon defects is a more likely explanation in this case. Some 4090s have this extra fp16 -> fp32 ALU disabled because it's defective on that chip. Other 4090s have it disabled because it failed as an Ada 6000 for some other reason, but NVIDIA didn't want to make a 4095 SKU to s…

Depending on who you ask, binning is segmentation. Generally demand isn't going to exactly match how the yields work out, so companies often take a bunch of perfectly good high-end chips, nerf them, and throw them in the cheapo version. You used to be able to (and still can, in some cases) take a low-end device and, if you'd won the chip lottery, "undo" the binning and have a perfectly functional high-end version. Fo…

> You used to be able to (and still can, in some cases) take a low-end device and, if you'd won the chip lottery, "undo" the binning and have a perfectly functional high-end version.

For the purposes you tested it, sure. Maybe some esoteric feature you don't use is broken. NVIDIA still can't sell it as the higher end SKU. The tests a chip maker runs to bin their chips are not the same tests you might run.

I'm sure chip makers make small adjustments to supply via binning to satisfy market demand, but if the "technical binning" is too far out of line from the "market binning", that's a lot of money left on the table that will get corrected sooner or later.

edit: And that correction might be in the form of removing redundancies from the chip design, rather than increasing the supply/lowering the price of higher end SKUs. The whole point here is, that's two sides of the same coin.

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

#132
post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Different markets, similar semantics. Both are artificially supply restricted.

Infact you can argue that something is really wrong in our governance if housing is human right and yet there are people profiteering from how unaffordable it has become.

I am more appalled at how long it has taken for the big tech other than Google to standardized ML workload and not be bound by CUDA.

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

#133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

e-fuses ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EFuse ) are typically etched into the silicon as an exactly-once operation, meant to irrevocably set a configuration. Some devices, for instance, have an e-fuse that makes it impossible to change cryptographic trust signatures after the e-fuse has been blown.

That's intriguing; one might assume that a key feature of eFuse would be the ability to reset easily. But I guess it could be implemented without it

Why would that be the assumption? An eFuse is a literal trace that gets burnt up, you can't connect it back again.

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

#134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AMD has inexplicably decided not to invest in software. Just like car manufacturers don't realize that a shitty infotainment system can keep people from buying the $100k car, AMD doesn't seem to realize that people aren't buying a GPU for ML if their ML framework doesn't run on it... And this goes down to consumer drivers too. I've sworn to myself that I'm not buying AMD for my next laptop, after endless instability…

I have AMD in my desktop and my laptop and it has been pretty good under Linux (I use Fedora) the past year or two. AMD definitely was late to the game, and I still don't think they care as much as they should , but they are definitely working on it. I've been easily running GPU accelerated Ollama on my desktop and laptop through ROCm. AMD is definitely not perfect but I don't think it's fair to say they decided not…

I thought they finally learned their lesson... then they cancelled the funding of ZLUDA... then they seem to have gone back on an agreement and demanded the open sourced version to be taken down.

The years it took them to get their Linux drivers into a usable shape are another issue.

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

#135
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

they have to do that to server different segments. how would you price a 4090 that can be used for crypto, gaming, ai, cad, video editing if you were to discover that is cheaper to create the same chips for all of them, but the segments are really different, 90% coming from datacenter and 10% from gaming we're lucky they still do gaming by limiting the datacenter chips it's like getting a ferrari speed limited for us…

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, are you going to tell your boss to decrease your salary to the level where it covers just your basic needs and no more?

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

#136
post #6

There was a time when Intel seemed unbeatable. In 2000 they had a 500 billion USD valuation. That's almost a trillion dollars in today's (2024) USD. Today they are valued at 90 billion USD and Broadcom was thinking about buying them... My point is these things don't seem to last in tech.

> and Broadcom was thinking about buying them...

I'm thinking about buying Nvidia

(this is bullshit)

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

#137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AMD has inexplicably decided not to invest in software. Just like car manufacturers don't realize that a shitty infotainment system can keep people from buying the $100k car, AMD doesn't seem to realize that people aren't buying a GPU for ML if their ML framework doesn't run on it... And this goes down to consumer drivers too. I've sworn to myself that I'm not buying AMD for my next laptop, after endless instability…

How long ago was this? I bought an AMD laptop this year and it's been great with both windows and Linux. I can't say the same for my Nvidia pc ...

I think it went away either with Ubuntu 23.10 or 24.04 - but I don't know if they actually fixed it or just changed something random that masks the bug for now, only to come back with the next kernel version (I've had that issue before).

Given that the issue (or variants thereof, because there were at least 10 different workarounds to try) was somewhat widely reported, the time it took to get this fixed far exceeded anything I would consider tolerable.

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

#138
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In any case, I am sure that in a generation or two after Blackwell, Nvidia will have some other bright idea for changing the paradigm and its competition will lag behind in adopting it. This is the most important point. Everyone seems to think that Nvidia just rests on its laurels while everyone and their dog tries to catch up with it. This is just not how (good) business works.

Nvidia has been very smart to be well prepared, but the emergency of Bitcoin and AI were two huge bits of good luck for them. It's very unlikely that there is another once-in-a-lifetime event that will also benefit Nvidia in that way. Nvidia will be successful in the future, but it will be through more normal, smart business, means.

I would never bet against the market finding a use for higher performance products.

~"Good fortune favors those who are prepared to take advantage of it", etc.

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

#139

This is why Nvidia needs competition. I love the performance of their hardware and the quality of their drivers, but I don't love being their customer. They have a long, long history of price discrimination using techniques like this. Back in the day it was "workstation" graphics for CAD programs that they would nerf for consumer cards by downgrading various features of OpenGL. Different markets, same techniques. It'…

they have to do that to server different segments. how would you price a 4090 that can be used for crypto, gaming, ai, cad, video editing if you were to discover that is cheaper to create the same chips for all of them, but the segments are really different, 90% coming from datacenter and 10% from gaming we're lucky they still do gaming by limiting the datacenter chips it's like getting a ferrari speed limited for us…

> they have to do that to server different segments.

No, they don't.

That they are able to price discriminate this way is a sign that they are functionally a monopoly exercising pricing power, otherwise, they would be easily undercut in the market where they charge premium prices by a competitor.

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

#140
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?

> So company profit margins should be capped? At what level and how would that work exactly?

That a competitive market drives prices to zero economic profit is a fairly basic result; no active measures besides the existence of competition are necessary for this.

> What about all other stuff?

Yes, this applies in all competitive markets. If it doesn't apply in a market, there is a constraint on competition causing it.

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