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I'm ambivalent about this sort of thing (or, as another example, Intel's CPUs many years ago that offered paid firmware upgrades to enable higher performance).
by harshreality 2y ago
I'm ambivalent about this sort of thing (or, as another example, Intel's CPUs many years ago that offered paid firmware upgrades to enable higher performance).
On one hand, it's very bad because it reduces economic output from the exact same input resources (materials and labor and r&d).
On the other hand, allowing market segmentation, and more profits from the higher segments, allows more progress and scaling for the next generation of parts (smaller process nodes aren't cheap, and neither is chip R&D).
- chillingeffect 2y agoInteresting no one considers the environmental impact. This creates tonnes of e-waste with a shortened useful life. We should demand that it's unlockable after a certain time.
- dotancohen 2y agoMaybe not demand that it be unlockable, but rather if Nvidia were to provide a paid upgrade path to unlock these features that would help. They would need some way to prevent the open source drivers from accessing the features, though.
- fransje26 2y ago> but rather if Nvidia were to provide a paid upgrade path to unlock these features that would help. You do not revert a blown e-fuse with a software update.
- dotancohen 2y agoYes, but an e-fuse would not be the only way to lock the feature if Nvidia were to want to unlock it later.
- fransje26 2y agoThe point being that they knowingly went down the e-fuse route to make sure nobody could unlock it later. They probably learnt their lesson in the early 2000s, when users could do a bit of soldering and apply a patch to unlock more performance on cards that had been artificially throttled.
- wmf 2y agoE-waste is mostly a fake concept. By the time a 4090 has outlived its usefulness for gaming it's also likely that no one wants it for AI (if they ever did).
- beepbooptheory 2y agoAren't you giving a good reason why its not a fake concept there?
- wmf 2y agoNope. Putting electronics in landfills simply isn't that harmful.
- beepbooptheory 2y agoOkdokie well not really going touch that bit, but just still want to point out that the way you have it written it sounds like the second claim is an argument for the first and it makes it a little confusing.
- mensetmanusman 2y ago“On one hand, it's very bad because it reduces economic output from the exact same input resources (materials and labor and r&d).” This is not true with the economies of scale in the semiconductor industry.
- itsthecourier 2y agoI want to add nvidia sales are 90% data center and 10% gaming, and the author being part of the 10% who wasn't abandoned is complaining they got a product at half the speed, way lower price, instead of half the price same specs as the datacenter client man.
- zeusk 2y agoOr the 90% are charged absurd markup because clearly they can deliver the hardware for 10% use-case for 1000$ and still make money on top but they would rather charge the data centers 50k for the same product
- evoke4908 2y agoOr they can't afford to sell the cards at consumer prices. If they take a loss in the consumer segmet, they can recoup by overcharging the datacenter customers. That's how this scheme works. The card is most likely not profitable at consumer price points. Without this segmentation, consumer cards would trail many years behind the performance of datacenter cards.
- zeusk 2y agoYou can theorize a million scenarios, but clearly no one here will know what really transpired for Nvidia to hobble their consumer chips. I really don't think consumer is loss leading, GPUs for AI is a fairly recent market while Nvidia has existed churning out consumer GPUs since 90s. But clearly, lack of competition is one thing that supports whatever rent Nvidia seeks.
- hamandcheese 2y agoThere are companies lined up around the block to hand over $$$$$ for the only competitive GPUs on the market. Is the markup actually absurd?
- zeusk 2y agoThere are investors lined up around the block to hand over $$$$$ for SFHs on the market while people delay family making because they cannot afford housing or end up on the streets. So, is the market really absurd? Just because some billionaires are desperate for growth to grow their hundred billions into trillions outbidding each other does not mean that 90% of humanity cannot make use of ML running locally on cheaper GPUs.