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I think the real competitors for hobbyists are physical GTX 1060s. Hobbyist cloud-computing is a different question though.

cobookman 9y ago
Doesn't Nvidia's new eula make that Difficult. Anything requiring more than a handful of gpus would be classified as a data center deployment. Which is against the eula. IANAL though so I might have interpreted this incorrectly. http://www.nvidia.com/content/DriverDownload-March2009/licence.php?lang=us&type=GeForce http://www.nvidia.com/content/DriverDownload-March2009/licen...
- amelius 9y ago
  I'm not getting it. Do they want to sell a product or a service? And instead of restricting our rights, shouldn't we get a discount when buying multiple GPU cards?
- jdietrich 9y ago
  I doubt that any court would consider a half-rack in someone's closet to be a "datacenter", nor would I expect Nvidia to enforce that EULA term against a hobbyist.
  - cobookman 9y ago
    But if that hobbyist ends up creating a billion dollar business, that's leverage Nvidia has for a lawsuit. Similar strategy of Adobe won't sue a single user for pirating Photoshop, but the second they have a successful business...that's a different story.
    - vlod 9y ago
      > ends up creating a billion dollar business, > that's leverage Nvidia has for a lawsuit. A great problem to have. Maybe first concentrate on creating a billion dollar business and by that time you can afford to get some 'approved' cards.. ;)
    - nl 9y ago
      They (NVidia) don't have any recompense beyond withdrawing support. The ELUA is on the (free) drivers, so a court would find no monetary damages. (IANAL etc)
minimaxir 9y ago
When I bought a 2016 MacBook Pro, I was expecting to buy an external GPU + an nVidia card so I could do deep learning/video gaming. Unfortunately, using nVidia GPUs with a Mac is still fussy even in High Sierra. And with the GPU instance price drops making deep learning pay-as-you-go super affordable, it's no longer worth the physical investment in a card, especially because they depreciate quickly.
- mciancia 9y ago
  Depends how much are you using this. Looks like right now, for k80+4cores/15G of ram, you will have to pay $0.26 per hour. PC with 1060 would run you probably less than 600USD, so ~100days of using VM 24/7, excluding network traffic on one side, and power consumption on other (although, latter should not be that much when looking at the whole cost). And you will still have pretty powerful PC at your home for everyday use/gaming
  - minimaxir 9y ago
    I wouldn't call someone who trains models 24/7 a hobbyist.
    - maksimum 9y ago
      One benefit to owning the hardware is that you can use it mine cryptocurrencies when you're not using it. I bought my GTX 1060 for $200 used in March 2017, and it's generated around $1300 worth of Ethereum...
      - minimaxir 9y ago
        How much did it generate before the price of cryptocurrency exploded in November?
        maksimum 9y ago
        It's been at around $40/mo net since March, briefly shooting up to over $100/mo in July (when the price of Eth increased faster than network Hashrate) and now it's back down to $40/mo. The overall profit is higher than the sum of the monthlies because I managed to hold some Eth rather than selling.

cobookman 9y ago

Doesn't Nvidia's new eula make that Difficult. Anything requiring more than a handful of gpus would be classified as a data center deployment. Which is against the eula. IANAL though so I might have interpreted this incorrectly. http://www.nvidia.com/content/DriverDownload-March2009/licence.php?lang=us&type=GeForce http://www.nvidia.com/content/DriverDownload-March2009/licen...

amelius 9y ago
I'm not getting it. Do they want to sell a product or a service? And instead of restricting our rights, shouldn't we get a discount when buying multiple GPU cards?
jdietrich 9y ago
I doubt that any court would consider a half-rack in someone's closet to be a "datacenter", nor would I expect Nvidia to enforce that EULA term against a hobbyist.
- cobookman 9y ago
  But if that hobbyist ends up creating a billion dollar business, that's leverage Nvidia has for a lawsuit. Similar strategy of Adobe won't sue a single user for pirating Photoshop, but the second they have a successful business...that's a different story.
  - vlod 9y ago
    > ends up creating a billion dollar business, > that's leverage Nvidia has for a lawsuit. A great problem to have. Maybe first concentrate on creating a billion dollar business and by that time you can afford to get some 'approved' cards.. ;)
  - nl 9y ago
    They (NVidia) don't have any recompense beyond withdrawing support. The ELUA is on the (free) drivers, so a court would find no monetary damages. (IANAL etc)

minimaxir 9y ago

When I bought a 2016 MacBook Pro, I was expecting to buy an external GPU + an nVidia card so I could do deep learning/video gaming. Unfortunately, using nVidia GPUs with a Mac is still fussy even in High Sierra. And with the GPU instance price drops making deep learning pay-as-you-go super affordable, it's no longer worth the physical investment in a card, especially because they depreciate quickly.

mciancia 9y ago
Depends how much are you using this. Looks like right now, for k80+4cores/15G of ram, you will have to pay $0.26 per hour. PC with 1060 would run you probably less than 600USD, so ~100days of using VM 24/7, excluding network traffic on one side, and power consumption on other (although, latter should not be that much when looking at the whole cost). And you will still have pretty powerful PC at your home for everyday use/gaming
- minimaxir 9y ago
  I wouldn't call someone who trains models 24/7 a hobbyist.
  - maksimum 9y ago
    One benefit to owning the hardware is that you can use it mine cryptocurrencies when you're not using it. I bought my GTX 1060 for $200 used in March 2017, and it's generated around $1300 worth of Ethereum...
    - minimaxir 9y ago
      How much did it generate before the price of cryptocurrency exploded in November?
      - maksimum 9y ago
        It's been at around $40/mo net since March, briefly shooting up to over $100/mo in July (when the price of Eth increased faster than network Hashrate) and now it's back down to $40/mo. The overall profit is higher than the sum of the monthlies because I managed to hold some Eth rather than selling.