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AMD refuses to limit cryptocurrency mining: We will not be blocking any workload

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Re: AMD refuses to limit cryptocurrency mining: We will not be blocking any workload

#51

Post by arthurcolle »

smitop wrote: post #25
arthurcolle wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I was surprised by this as well, but apparently you cannot use NVIDIA cards to run enterprise deep learning workloads ("in a data center")... was super super shocked to hear this.. like isn't this one of the primary use cases...? Bizarre

IIRC you have to use their more expensive Tesla cards for these use cases. These cards are basically the same as consumer GPUs with more permissive driver licensing

Nice thanks, never followed up, I just assembled my contraband server and never thought about it again. Do you know if you can just buy them for personal (i.e. startup) use as well?

Re: AMD refuses to limit cryptocurrency mining: We will not be blocking any workload

#52

Post by [deleted] »

jsheard wrote: post #45
nhkcode wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's not like AMD is above artificially limiting the performance of certain workloads when it suits them, they do it with CAD applications unless you pay the workstation tax. I'm curious about that, do you have an example? I only know of nvidia consumer drivers giving you abysmal performance if you try to use fixed function pipeline line or wireframe rendering with opengl. Or at least they did a couple of years ago…

You can see it in action here: https://techgage.com/article/specviewperf-13-viewport-perfor... The consumer RX580 and workstation WX7100 are based on the same Polaris silicon, and the consumer card is configured with a higher power limit of 185W vs 130W, but the workstation card usually performs similarly or much better anyway. It's most egregious in the Siemens NX test where the workstation card is about 8 times fas…

[deleted]

Re: AMD refuses to limit cryptocurrency mining: We will not be blocking any workload

#54

Post by nhkcode »

jsheard wrote: post #45
nhkcode wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's not like AMD is above artificially limiting the performance of certain workloads when it suits them, they do it with CAD applications unless you pay the workstation tax. I'm curious about that, do you have an example? I only know of nvidia consumer drivers giving you abysmal performance if you try to use fixed function pipeline line or wireframe rendering with opengl. Or at least they did a couple of years ago…

You can see it in action here: https://techgage.com/article/specviewperf-13-viewport-perfor... The consumer RX580 and workstation WX7100 are based on the same Polaris silicon, and the consumer card is configured with a higher power limit of 185W vs 130W, but the workstation card usually performs similarly or much better anyway. It's most egregious in the Siemens NX test where the workstation card is about 8 times fas…

That is in interesting comparison. I really wonder if the differences between consumer and pro cards are all just in the driver or if there is a hardware reason for it too. The difference between the P2000 and the gtx 1080 ti in the Siemens NX benchmark looks insane.

Re: AMD refuses to limit cryptocurrency mining: We will not be blocking any workload

#55

Post by oliwarner »

ttt0 wrote: post #50
oliwarner wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it means people who only want to play games can actually but one for less than the price of a car, sure. Hardware manufacturers have imposed weird arbitrary feature limits on things forever. It's how they segment out valuable markets. Even in graphics you get output limits to protect workstation cards. Nothing new.

I kinda get the segmentation part, at least in theory, but I don't buy that it's to "protect the poor gamers". Maybe I'm missing something, but the production cost is the same and it costs virtually nothing to not put on those limits. If anything, it almost certainly costs more to do this. So as far as I understand it, it's just charging more money for what essentially is the same thing. Especially when you consider…

The primary supply is limited by covid affecting the component supply chain. The demand is sky high because of miners happy still making s profit at twice the price. The cards are often going straight from primary retailers to eBay.

Lots of factors colluding to make PC gaming unaffordable.

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