4 ms·

Networking has never been so cheap at the highest end. Look at the road we've been through in the last 8 in years, rapidly going from 40 to 100 to 400 (200 was

Networking has never been so cheap at the highest end. Look at the road we've been through in the last 8 in years, rapidly going from 40 to 100 to 400 (200 was somewhat of a dud, 400 came too early) to 800 to 1600Gbps. It's amazing. I'm having trouble feeding things at 400GB/s (not a typo, it's gigabyte/s) per H100 box. For 10 boxes ideally you want 4TB/s...

starspangled 2y ago
No, but this isn't high end (in 2024), or "enterprise". It's their own designed 100Gb dumb NIC.
- _zoltan_ 2y ago
  I've replied in a thread, and what I've replied to above was about the enterprise tax and that it's surely cheaper to do your own, not if the original article is about enterprise or not.
  - starspangled 2y ago
    I read the thread. What you replied to was this, > > an IB switch is in the same ballpark as an ethernet switch with the same port speed > And both price tags will make Elon's "someone's scamming me with a 'you're an enterprise customer' surcharge" sense tingle. In the context of Tesla doing their own protocol and not-high-end NICs.
  - rv3909i 2y ago
    If you were starting a team from scratch this is surely true. But, if you can leverage existing teams and infrastructure, it’s very possible.
rv3909i 2y ago
On the other hand, silicon has never been so cheap. The hardest things would've been the DDR4 and PCIE interface. But as they're using standard interfaces, and last generation. I'm sure they got a good discount on all that IP and it didn't cost them hardly any man hours to integrate. And Tesla might've even already had the licenses and IP setup as they make other ASICs. I didn't do a budget or anything, but at even 10Ks of units, I could see how this could save money. Or at least not loose money. Assuming a comparable IB network card is ~$1000, which I also didn't price. And there could be other potential cost offsetting features, like power savings.

starspangled 2y ago

No, but this isn't high end (in 2024), or "enterprise". It's their own designed 100Gb dumb NIC.

_zoltan_ 2y ago
I've replied in a thread, and what I've replied to above was about the enterprise tax and that it's surely cheaper to do your own, not if the original article is about enterprise or not.
- starspangled 2y ago
  I read the thread. What you replied to was this, > > an IB switch is in the same ballpark as an ethernet switch with the same port speed > And both price tags will make Elon's "someone's scamming me with a 'you're an enterprise customer' surcharge" sense tingle. In the context of Tesla doing their own protocol and not-high-end NICs.
- rv3909i 2y ago
  If you were starting a team from scratch this is surely true. But, if you can leverage existing teams and infrastructure, it’s very possible.

rv3909i 2y ago

On the other hand, silicon has never been so cheap. The hardest things would've been the DDR4 and PCIE interface. But as they're using standard interfaces, and last generation. I'm sure they got a good discount on all that IP and it didn't cost them hardly any man hours to integrate. And Tesla might've even already had the licenses and IP setup as they make other ASICs. I didn't do a budget or anything, but at even 10Ks of units, I could see how this could save money. Or at least not loose money. Assuming a comparable IB network card is ~$1000, which I also didn't price. And there could be other potential cost offsetting features, like power savings.