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AWS raises GPU prices 15% on a Saturday, hopes you weren't paying attention

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Re: AWS raises GPU prices 15% on a Saturday, hopes you weren't paying attention

#361

Post by hyperbovine »

xvxvx wrote: post #12

- GPU prices rising - RAM prices rising - hard drive prices rising Are we looking at a future where home computers are replaced by thin clients and all the power lies in subscription services? ‘You don't need storage space, use our cloud subscription’ ‘You don’t need processing power, stream your games through our subscription service.’ Game publishers have already publicly floated the idea of not selling their games…

On the flip side, if the rumored AI crashdepressionapocalyspe does in fact materialize, those things will become super cheap.

Re: AWS raises GPU prices 15% on a Saturday, hopes you weren't paying attention

#362

Post by MSFT_Edging »

rfrey wrote: post #151
MSFT_Edging wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(Who's gonna tell him)

Tell him what? Why don't you start?

The free market as described is imaginary. Large companies due to their size hold a lot of power, and can use a mix of regulatory capture and monopolies to make better ideas financially infeasible to bring to light.

Re: AWS raises GPU prices 15% on a Saturday, hopes you weren't paying attention

#363

Post by miki123211 »

xvxvx wrote: post #12

- GPU prices rising - RAM prices rising - hard drive prices rising Are we looking at a future where home computers are replaced by thin clients and all the power lies in subscription services? ‘You don't need storage space, use our cloud subscription’ ‘You don’t need processing power, stream your games through our subscription service.’ Game publishers have already publicly floated the idea of not selling their games…

Subscriptions have always been, and will always be, more economical and efficient than ownership.

Unless you're using a resource 100% of the time, that resource is partially wasted. A GPU can be much cheaper for you if others are allowed to use it when you're asleep.

I don't think this will ever work for gaming, as gaming has strict bandwidth and latency requirements. This means you need to colocate gaming datacenters with the people who actually use them, and people in a given timezone usually play at similar times.

LLMs are a completely different beast. The user experiences of using an LLM next door and using an LLM from across the world are basically indistinguishable. This means you can have a single datacenter with really high GPU utilization during the day.

Re: AWS raises GPU prices 15% on a Saturday, hopes you weren't paying attention

#365

Post by krior »

pc86 wrote: post #166
bluGill wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> presumably China would still want to keep selling those products and would have an interest in avoiding destroying those factories It has been hinted by people who might know something that Taiwan has rigged their factories to explode if China invades to ensure China can't get a hold of those factories. I'm not sure if it is true, but it wouldn't be hard to do (the hard part is ensuring the explosives don't go off…

ASML can also disable much of the equipment remotely, from Europe. So even if the buildings aren't actually bombed (they likely would be though), someone presses a button a few thousand miles away and most of it gets bricked anyway.

Dunno if I would trust any remote-bricking-capability in an environment where electronic warfare saturates all communication channels.

Re: AWS raises GPU prices 15% on a Saturday, hopes you weren't paying attention

#366

Post by vladvasiliu »

walthamstow wrote: post #355
vladvasiliu wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know that I buy your basic economics theory. Starter prices are a thing to get people in the door and upsell them later. According to [0], the iphone 17 pro has a larger share than the regular 17, although it's more expensive. And, again, paying for cloud storage doesn't automatically mean that they do it because their local storage is too small for their needs. Apple pushed iCloud as a solution to safely bac…

> Starter prices are a thing to get people in the door and upsell them later. Yes, with services such as storage.

I very much doubt that. I just checked the apple store page for an iphone 17. They try to sell me the larger storage model, they try to sell me apple care, but I don't see anything related to icloud. If I look at the pro, they try to sell me the max.

The difference between a 512 GB and a 256 GB non-pro model is 250 Euros. The 200 GB icloud subscription (which, again, they don't talk about when buying an iphone) costs 2.99 Euros a month. Break even is in seven years. I bet many phones don't actually last that long. If you look at a 2TB plan (which doesn't have an equivalent phone) the break-even is 2 years.

It makes no sense to try to sell the cheaper iPhone in the hope that I'll buy some icloud storage, since they actually leave money on the table. Looking at pro models, the difference between the base 256 + 2TB icloud and 2 TB model has an even longer break-even period!

So, basically, it looks actually cheaper to get a smaller phone + icloud than a bigger one.

Re: AWS raises GPU prices 15% on a Saturday, hopes you weren't paying attention

#367

Post by realo »

miki123211 wrote: post #363
xvxvx wrote: post #12

- GPU prices rising - RAM prices rising - hard drive prices rising Are we looking at a future where home computers are replaced by thin clients and all the power lies in subscription services? ‘You don't need storage space, use our cloud subscription’ ‘You don’t need processing power, stream your games through our subscription service.’ Game publishers have already publicly floated the idea of not selling their games…

Subscriptions have always been, and will always be, more economical and efficient than ownership. Unless you're using a resource 100% of the time, that resource is partially wasted. A GPU can be much cheaper for you if others are allowed to use it when you're asleep. I don't think this will ever work for gaming, as gaming has strict bandwidth and latency requirements. This means you need to colocate gaming datacenter…

I like to play AAA games casually. Think Witcher etc... I own a macbook, not really made for that.

Years ago I got a subscription to GE Force Now and never looked back. I can play all the games I want , no problem.

The only thing really needed is a good Internet connection, and my Gbps fiber link works very well.

So... Subscriptions also work well for casual gaming, no problem.

Re: AWS raises GPU prices 15% on a Saturday, hopes you weren't paying attention

#368

Post by kllrnohj »

nradov wrote: post #285
kllrnohj wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on how much you play. geforcenow is limited to 100 hours a month, with additional hours sold at a 200% premium. This dramatically changes the economics ( https://www.techpowerup.com/344359/nvidia-puts-100-hour-mont... has a handy chart for this )

Yikes. If you're playing more than 100 hours a month then it's time to touch grass.

If you live alone by yourself such that the concept of a shared gaming system is entirely unimaginable, maybe you're the one that needs to touch grass

Re: AWS raises GPU prices 15% on a Saturday, hopes you weren't paying attention

#369

Post by charcircuit »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #204
Traubenfuchs wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You still have to pay for utilities and taxes: No way to escape that unless you live in the wilderness.

“Rent” needs to better defined at this point. At least some portion of utilities and tax charges pay for ongoing maintenance and investment to provide expected quality of life. Similar to how rent for a home eventually pays for a new roof or other repairs. The profit margin component of rent is probably what most are referring to in this discussion, but presumably tax and (government owned) utilities don’t have that.

Government utilities fo have a profit margin, they aren't a charity.

Re: AWS raises GPU prices 15% on a Saturday, hopes you weren't paying attention

#370

Post by deadbabe »

xvxvx wrote: post #12

- GPU prices rising - RAM prices rising - hard drive prices rising Are we looking at a future where home computers are replaced by thin clients and all the power lies in subscription services? ‘You don't need storage space, use our cloud subscription’ ‘You don’t need processing power, stream your games through our subscription service.’ Game publishers have already publicly floated the idea of not selling their games…

New physical media could be killed off, but we already have a ton of old retro physical media, more than a person could ever consume in their lifetime. I wouldn’t worry about it. There are more old games and movies out there than you’ll ever be able to watch or play.
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