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Nvidia releases a Linux desktop supercomputer that's better price/performance wise than anything Wintel is doing and their whole new software stack will only ru
by narrator 2y ago
Nvidia releases a Linux desktop supercomputer that's better price/performance wise than anything Wintel is doing and their whole new software stack will only run on WSL2. They aren't porting to Win32. Wow, it may actually be the year of Linux on the Desktop.
- CamperBob2 2y agoWhere does it say they won't be supporting Win32?
- narrator 2y agoHere he says that in order for the cloud and the PC to be compatible, he's going to only support WSL2, the Windows subsystem for Linux which is a Linux API on top of Windows. Here's a link to the part of the keynote where he says this: https://youtu.be/MC7L_EWylb0?t=7259 https://youtu.be/MC7L_EWylb0?t=7259
- stonogo 2y ago"Linux API on top of Windows" is an interesting way to describe a virtual machine.
- sedatk 2y agoThat’s more like WSL1, yes.
- SteveNuts 2y agoWSL2 is no longer a VM, afaik.
- gnabgib 2y agoOther way around (1 wasn't, 2 runs in a managed HyperV VM) https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/compare-versions#comparing-features https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/compare-versio...
- pulse7 2y agoWSL1 was "Linux API on top of Windows", WSL2 is "Linux VM on top of Windows"
- pjmlp 2y agoMore like, WSL1 was "Linux API on top of NT kernel picoprocesses", WSL2 is "Linux VM on top of Hyper-V"
- mycall 2y agoI wish WSL1 was open sourced
- pjmlp 2y agoPicoprocesses are based on Drawbridge research, so at least there is some reading about how it all works, https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/project/drawbridge/ https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/project/drawbridge/ https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/archive/blogs/wsl/windows-subsystem-for-linux-overview https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/archive/blogs/wsl/windows-... https://www.zdnet.com/article/under-the-hood-of-microsofts-windows-subsystem-for-linux/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/under-the-hood-of-microsofts-w...
- sliken 2y agoThe keynote mentioned that it could be used as a Linux workstation.
- rvz 2y ago> Wow, it may actually be the year of Linux on the Desktop. ? Yeah starting at $3,000. Surely a cheap desktop computer to buy for someone who just wants to surf the web and send email /s. There is a reason why it is for "enthusiasts" and not for the general wider consumer or typical PC buyer.
- fooker 2y agoThe typical PC buyer is an enthusiast now.
- yjftsjthsd-h 2y ago> Surely a cheap desktop computer to buy for someone who just wants to surf the web and send email /s. That end of the market is occupied by Chromebooks... AKA a different GNU/Linux.
- Topfi 2y agoI see the most direct competitor in the Mac Studio, though of course we will have to wait for reviews to gauge how fair that comparison is. The Studio does have a fairly large niche as a solid workstation, though, so I could see this being successful. For general desktop use, as you described, nearly any piece of modern hardware, from a RasPI, to most modern smartphones with a dock, could realistically serve most people well. The thing is, you need to serve both, low-end use cases like browsing, and high-end dev work via workstations, because even for the "average user", there is often one specific program on which they need to rely and which has limited support outside the OS they have grown up with. Course, there will be some programs like Desktop Microsoft Office which will never be ported, but still, Digitis could open the doors to some devs working natively on Linux. A solid, compact, high-performance, yet low power workstation with a fully supported Linux desktop out of the box could bridge that gap, similar to how I have seen some developers adopt macOS over Linux and Windows since the release of the Studio and Max MacBooks. Again, we have yet to see independent testing, but I would be surprised if anything of this size, simplicity, efficiency and performance was possible in any hardware configuration currently on the market.
- sliken 2y ago
- immibis 2y agoNever underestimate the open source world's power to create a crappy desktop experience.
- sliken 2y agoNot sure how to judge better price/perf. I wouldn't expect 20 Neoverse N2 cores to do particularly well vs 16 zen5 cores. The GPU side looks promising, but they aren't mentioning memory bandwidth, configuration, spec, or performance. Did see vague claims of "starting at $3k", max 4TB nvme, and max 128GB ram. I'd expect AMD Strix Halo (AI Max plus 395) to be reasonably competitive.
- z4y5f3 2y agoNVIDIA is likely citing 1 PFlops at FP 4 sparse (they did this for GB200), so that is 128 TFlops BF16 dense, or 2/3 of what RTX 4090 is capable of. I would put the memory bandwidth at 546 GBps, using the same 512 bit LPDDR5X 8533 Mbps as Apple M4 max.
- aparashk 2y agoI can't see how this will work in terms of a TDP. 2/3 of the 4090 power would be several times more power than can be effectively cooled in the physical form factor of an Apple Mini. Either there is severe downclocking happening under full throttle, or NVIDIA have come up with more low power design mojo than Apple has been able to muster for the M4 Max.
- gardnr 2y agoBased on your evaluation, it sounds like it will run inference at speed similar to an M4 Max and also allow "startups" to experiment with fine tuning larger models or larger context windows. It's the best "dev board" setup I've seen so far. It might be part of their larger commercial plan but it definitely hits the sweet spot for the home enthusiast who have been pleading for more VRAM.
- skavi 2y agoIt’s actually “10 Arm Cortex-X925 and 10 Cortex-A725” [0]. These are much newer cores and have a reasonable chance of being competitive. [0]: https://newsroom.arm.com/blog/arm-nvidia-project-digits-high-performance-ai https://newsroom.arm.com/blog/arm-nvidia-project-digits-high...
- bee_rider 2y agoSeems more like a workstation. So, that’s just a continuation of the last could Decades of Unix on the Workstation, right?
- throw310822 2y agoThey should write an AI-centered OS for it, allowing people to write easily AI heavy applications. And you'd have the Amiga of 2025.
- pjmlp 2y agoBecause NVidia naturally doesn't want to pay for Windows licenses. NVidia works closely with Microsoft to develop their cards, all major features come first in DirectX, before landing on Vulkan and OpenGL as NVidia extensions, and eventually become standard after other vendors follow up with similar extensions.
- diggan 2y ago> their whole new software stack will only run on WSL2. They aren't porting to Win32 Wait, what do you mean exactly? Isn't WSL2 just a VM essentially? Don't you mean it'll run on Linux (which you also can run on WSL2)? Or will it really only work with WSL2? I was excited as I thought it was just a Linux Workstation, but if WSL2 gets involved/is required somehow, then I need to run the other direction.
- awestroke 2y agoNo, nobody will run windows on this. It's meant to run NVIDIAs own flavor of Ubuntu with a patched kernel
- hx8 2y agoYes, WSL2 is essentially a highly integrated VM. I think it's a bit of a joke to call Ubuntu WSL2, because it seems like most Ubuntu installs are either VMs for Windows PCs or on Azure Cloud.