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The performance jumps that Nvidia has had in a fairly short amount of time is impressive, but I can't help but feel like there is a real need for another player

The performance jumps that Nvidia has had in a fairly short amount of time is impressive, but I can't help but feel like there is a real need for another player in this space. Hopefully AMD can challenge this supremacy soon.

2OEH8eoCRo0 3y ago
I'd prefer another player that doesn't rely on TSMC.
- 01100011 3y ago
  Not sure why you were downvoted. Taiwan is in a precarious position and diversifying manufacturing away from them makes sense.
  - xethos 3y ago
    > diversifying manufacturing away from them Diversifying manufacturing away from Taiwan makes their position more precarious, not less.
    - notact 3y ago
      Both parent comments were likely referring to any entity other than Taiwan. If you are a fabless chip designer or one of their customers, it makes sense to diversify away from Taiwan, even if that comes at Taiwan's expense.
      - 2OEH8eoCRo0 3y ago
        I worry that a lot of large cap companies either depend directly on TSMC (Nvidia, AMD, Apple) or depend on a company that depends on TSMC (Microsoft/OpenAI, Arm). It's TSMC all the way down and that scares me. I never thought I'd root for Intel.
        signatoremo 3y ago
        It’s easy to forget that TSMC was not the chipmaking leader until 7 or 8 years ago. Intel was. Things can change quickly in tech. Intel is trying to reclaim their old glory. We’ll see if they succeed.
        ls612 3y ago
        Historians might look back at Intel’s and GloFo’s stumbles in the mid 2010s as being a pivotal turning point. Chips are the new oil and that makes the mid term future very dangerous.
- sofixa 3y ago
  Doesn't that leave pretty much Samsung and Intel as the only options?
  - brucethemoose2 3y ago
    And Nvidia has used Samsung before.
  - astrodust 3y ago
    So basically Samsung.
    - signatoremo 3y ago
      Nvidia has been test driving Intel’s foundry services - [0] Intel is on track with their node rollout roadmap, according to their CEO - [1] [0] - https://www.tomshardware.com/news/nvidia-ceo-intel-test-chip-results-for-next-gen-process-look-good https://www.tomshardware.com/news/nvidia-ceo-intel-test-chip... [1] - https://focustaiwan.tw/sci-tech/202311070017 https://focustaiwan.tw/sci-tech/202311070017
  - evanjrowley 3y ago
    Maybe IBM, if the stars align: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38256558 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38256558
brucethemoose2 3y ago
Or even just offer an alternative, along with Intel: https://www.servethehome.com/intel-shows-gpu-max-1550-performance-and-gaudi3-ai-updates-at-sc23/ https://www.servethehome.com/intel-shows-gpu-max-1550-perfor... There aren't many many Gaudi/Instinct cloud offerings even though the market is accelerator starved.
- singhrac 3y ago
  You can use Gaudi2s at the new Intel Developer Cloud[0]. Not sure why don't offer it on AWS though, seems a bit odd since they have the DL1 instances for the first-gen Gaudis. [0]: https://developer.habana.ai/intel-developer-cloud/ https://developer.habana.ai/intel-developer-cloud/
  - brucethemoose2 3y ago
    Interesting, this looks like what I might want: https://eduand-alvarez.medium.com/llama2-fine-tuning-with-low-rank-adaptations-lora-on-gaudi-2-processors-52cf1ee6ce11 https://eduand-alvarez.medium.com/llama2-fine-tuning-with-lo...
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
meragrin_ 3y ago
I'd rather Intel. People have been pleading with AMD for years to compete with Nvidia, but AMD really has not put in a proper effort. They still don't look like they are putting in a proper effort.
- JonChesterfield 3y ago
  AMD shipped Frontier. Compare and contrast with Intel's Aurora. Epyc took the performance crown from Intel. Games consoles have been AMD for ages. AMD are competing with Intel and Nvidia simultaneously with fewer resources than either, having come back from near bankruptcy in recent memory. There's been plenty of effort and execution from team red. It's commercially unfortunate that the crypto and now deep learning crowd don't particularly value the flexibility or control that comes from an open source toolchain. Regardless, I don't think the Cuda moat will hold out.
- sangnoir 3y ago
  AMD was fighting Intel for its life. After a number of flops, it only got a big breakthrough on the CPU-side with Zen just over half a decade ago - which is not that far back. Hopefully they now have a bit of money saved up in their war chest to help the GPU division.
- viewtransform 3y ago
  <They still don't look like they are putting in a proper effort.> Quite the contrary, they've turned around the company to focus on AI. Legacy software projects are on hold and software developers moved to work on AI under a new VP (former Xilinx exec). They have purchased some startups to get experienced AI developers. Here is Andrew Ng giving a positive evaluation of AMD's software efforts https://youtu.be/KDBq0GqKpqA?t=2359 https://youtu.be/KDBq0GqKpqA?t=2359

2OEH8eoCRo0 3y ago

I'd prefer another player that doesn't rely on TSMC.

01100011 3y ago
Not sure why you were downvoted. Taiwan is in a precarious position and diversifying manufacturing away from them makes sense.
- xethos 3y ago
  > diversifying manufacturing away from them Diversifying manufacturing away from Taiwan makes their position more precarious, not less.
  - notact 3y ago
    Both parent comments were likely referring to any entity other than Taiwan. If you are a fabless chip designer or one of their customers, it makes sense to diversify away from Taiwan, even if that comes at Taiwan's expense.
    - 2OEH8eoCRo0 3y ago
      I worry that a lot of large cap companies either depend directly on TSMC (Nvidia, AMD, Apple) or depend on a company that depends on TSMC (Microsoft/OpenAI, Arm). It's TSMC all the way down and that scares me. I never thought I'd root for Intel.
      - signatoremo 3y ago
        It’s easy to forget that TSMC was not the chipmaking leader until 7 or 8 years ago. Intel was. Things can change quickly in tech. Intel is trying to reclaim their old glory. We’ll see if they succeed.
      - ls612 3y ago
        Historians might look back at Intel’s and GloFo’s stumbles in the mid 2010s as being a pivotal turning point. Chips are the new oil and that makes the mid term future very dangerous.
sofixa 3y ago
Doesn't that leave pretty much Samsung and Intel as the only options?
- brucethemoose2 3y ago
  And Nvidia has used Samsung before.
- astrodust 3y ago
  So basically Samsung.
  - signatoremo 3y ago
    Nvidia has been test driving Intel’s foundry services - [0] Intel is on track with their node rollout roadmap, according to their CEO - [1] [0] - https://www.tomshardware.com/news/nvidia-ceo-intel-test-chip-results-for-next-gen-process-look-good https://www.tomshardware.com/news/nvidia-ceo-intel-test-chip... [1] - https://focustaiwan.tw/sci-tech/202311070017 https://focustaiwan.tw/sci-tech/202311070017
- evanjrowley 3y ago
  Maybe IBM, if the stars align: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38256558 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38256558

brucethemoose2 3y ago

Or even just offer an alternative, along with Intel: https://www.servethehome.com/intel-shows-gpu-max-1550-performance-and-gaudi3-ai-updates-at-sc23/ https://www.servethehome.com/intel-shows-gpu-max-1550-perfor... There aren't many many Gaudi/Instinct cloud offerings even though the market is accelerator starved.

singhrac 3y ago
You can use Gaudi2s at the new Intel Developer Cloud[0]. Not sure why don't offer it on AWS though, seems a bit odd since they have the DL1 instances for the first-gen Gaudis. [0]: https://developer.habana.ai/intel-developer-cloud/ https://developer.habana.ai/intel-developer-cloud/
- brucethemoose2 3y ago
  Interesting, this looks like what I might want: https://eduand-alvarez.medium.com/llama2-fine-tuning-with-low-rank-adaptations-lora-on-gaudi-2-processors-52cf1ee6ce11 https://eduand-alvarez.medium.com/llama2-fine-tuning-with-lo...

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

meragrin_ 3y ago

I'd rather Intel. People have been pleading with AMD for years to compete with Nvidia, but AMD really has not put in a proper effort. They still don't look like they are putting in a proper effort.

JonChesterfield 3y ago
AMD shipped Frontier. Compare and contrast with Intel's Aurora. Epyc took the performance crown from Intel. Games consoles have been AMD for ages. AMD are competing with Intel and Nvidia simultaneously with fewer resources than either, having come back from near bankruptcy in recent memory. There's been plenty of effort and execution from team red. It's commercially unfortunate that the crypto and now deep learning crowd don't particularly value the flexibility or control that comes from an open source toolchain. Regardless, I don't think the Cuda moat will hold out.
sangnoir 3y ago
AMD was fighting Intel for its life. After a number of flops, it only got a big breakthrough on the CPU-side with Zen just over half a decade ago - which is not that far back. Hopefully they now have a bit of money saved up in their war chest to help the GPU division.
viewtransform 3y ago
<They still don't look like they are putting in a proper effort.> Quite the contrary, they've turned around the company to focus on AI. Legacy software projects are on hold and software developers moved to work on AI under a new VP (former Xilinx exec). They have purchased some startups to get experienced AI developers. Here is Andrew Ng giving a positive evaluation of AMD's software efforts https://youtu.be/KDBq0GqKpqA?t=2359 https://youtu.be/KDBq0GqKpqA?t=2359