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(I run a company that buys MI300x.) > Why is it I can't buy a single one of these, on a motherboard, in a workstation format case, to use as an insane workstat

(I run a company that buys MI300x.) > Why is it I can't buy a single one of these, on a motherboard, in a workstation format case, to use as an insane workstation? AMD doesn't have the resources to support end users for something like this. They are a public company, look at their spend. They are pouring everything they've got into trying to keep up with the Nvidia release cycle for AI chips. These chips are cutting edge, they are not perfect. They are still working through the hardware and software issues. It is hard enough to deal with all the public opinion on things as it is. Why would they add another layer of potential abuse?

AnthonyMouse 2y ago
The people who buy stuff like that are professionals. They often know something about the tools they're using and if there are any problems, provide bug reports that actually describe what's happening instead of some non-descriptive mush like "I have your GPU and Windows crashes sometimes". That is extremely helpful if you're trying to get rid of those bugs. This is the same reason software shops have found it useful to support Linux, even if not many people use it. The people who do will make your product suck less, which in turn makes it easier to sell to the mass market, which will get upset and think unfavorably of you if they have the same problem but not be as good at telling you about it.
- Aurornis 2y ago
  > provide bug reports that actually describe what's happening Doesn’t matter if the bug reports are good or bad. Supporting low volume applications is a bad business move when the alternative is 9-figure data center contracts. The data center business is orders of magnitude larger. Trying to support individual developers would be a huge business mistake when they already can’t keep up with data center.
  - AnthonyMouse 2y ago
    It's the same hardware running the same software. You want the bug reports so you can fix them and then your data center customers don't encounter them when they're evaluating your product. What they can keep up with is basically a matter of how much capacity they order from TSMC. If they underestimated demand for some generation, that's the sort of thing you fix with the next contract or you're just throwing money away.
- latchkey 2y ago
  Groq is a good example here: https://www.eetimes.com/groq-ceo-we-no-longer-sell-hardware/ https://www.eetimes.com/groq-ceo-we-no-longer-sell-hardware/ Our users give them plenty of feedback. They just RMA'd whole bunch of our GPUs over this issue so that they could take them back to the mothership and figure out what's up... https://github.com/ROCm/ROCm/issues/4021 https://github.com/ROCm/ROCm/issues/4021 It takes a lot of coordination, across ourselves (with customers), our DC, AMD and Dell to make that happen.
  - AnthonyMouse 2y ago
    It's not that you don't get bug reports from data center customers, it's that data center customers have scale in a bad way. They buy thousands of GPUs, they do whatever they're going to do with them, they have a problem, they report the bug. One bug report across thousands of GPUs, because they're all being used for the same thing by that customer so they only have the problems you have when you try to do that. Another data center buys thousands of GPUs and they're doing something else which is extremely common and well supported, so they don't have any issues and you get zero bug reports from them. Compare this to, you sell a thousand GPUs to a thousand professionals and 10% of them have some problem, but each a different one. You get 100 bug reports, you fix 100 bugs instead of just one, things improve much faster.
    - latchkey 2y ago
      We have 136 of these things. Not thousands. AMD is intentionally keeping their number of providers limited [0](bottom of page). No two providers has the same customers, meaning the workloads vary quite a lot, and a lot of the "professional" developers you're talking about all have jobs that rent this compute. These GPUs are enterprise, they only come in one form factor. It is a 350lbs box that takes 10kW of power and some pretty serious cooling. It costs as much as an expensive Ferrari. If you're now also suggesting that AMD also release another product that is easier for developers to get their hands on and deploy, then now you've totally lost me. You're exponentially trying to increase the amount of work and money they spend, for what? Some feedback? [0] https://www.amd.com/en/products/accelerators/instinct.html https://www.amd.com/en/products/accelerators/instinct.html

AnthonyMouse 2y ago

The people who buy stuff like that are professionals. They often know something about the tools they're using and if there are any problems, provide bug reports that actually describe what's happening instead of some non-descriptive mush like "I have your GPU and Windows crashes sometimes". That is extremely helpful if you're trying to get rid of those bugs. This is the same reason software shops have found it useful to support Linux, even if not many people use it. The people who do will make your product suck less, which in turn makes it easier to sell to the mass market, which will get upset and think unfavorably of you if they have the same problem but not be as good at telling you about it.

Aurornis 2y ago
> provide bug reports that actually describe what's happening Doesn’t matter if the bug reports are good or bad. Supporting low volume applications is a bad business move when the alternative is 9-figure data center contracts. The data center business is orders of magnitude larger. Trying to support individual developers would be a huge business mistake when they already can’t keep up with data center.
- AnthonyMouse 2y ago
  It's the same hardware running the same software. You want the bug reports so you can fix them and then your data center customers don't encounter them when they're evaluating your product. What they can keep up with is basically a matter of how much capacity they order from TSMC. If they underestimated demand for some generation, that's the sort of thing you fix with the next contract or you're just throwing money away.
latchkey 2y ago
Groq is a good example here: https://www.eetimes.com/groq-ceo-we-no-longer-sell-hardware/ https://www.eetimes.com/groq-ceo-we-no-longer-sell-hardware/ Our users give them plenty of feedback. They just RMA'd whole bunch of our GPUs over this issue so that they could take them back to the mothership and figure out what's up... https://github.com/ROCm/ROCm/issues/4021 https://github.com/ROCm/ROCm/issues/4021 It takes a lot of coordination, across ourselves (with customers), our DC, AMD and Dell to make that happen.
- AnthonyMouse 2y ago
  It's not that you don't get bug reports from data center customers, it's that data center customers have scale in a bad way. They buy thousands of GPUs, they do whatever they're going to do with them, they have a problem, they report the bug. One bug report across thousands of GPUs, because they're all being used for the same thing by that customer so they only have the problems you have when you try to do that. Another data center buys thousands of GPUs and they're doing something else which is extremely common and well supported, so they don't have any issues and you get zero bug reports from them. Compare this to, you sell a thousand GPUs to a thousand professionals and 10% of them have some problem, but each a different one. You get 100 bug reports, you fix 100 bugs instead of just one, things improve much faster.
  - latchkey 2y ago
    We have 136 of these things. Not thousands. AMD is intentionally keeping their number of providers limited [0](bottom of page). No two providers has the same customers, meaning the workloads vary quite a lot, and a lot of the "professional" developers you're talking about all have jobs that rent this compute. These GPUs are enterprise, they only come in one form factor. It is a 350lbs box that takes 10kW of power and some pretty serious cooling. It costs as much as an expensive Ferrari. If you're now also suggesting that AMD also release another product that is easier for developers to get their hands on and deploy, then now you've totally lost me. You're exponentially trying to increase the amount of work and money they spend, for what? Some feedback? [0] https://www.amd.com/en/products/accelerators/instinct.html https://www.amd.com/en/products/accelerators/instinct.html