3 ms·
No they don't. 5-8 years is common. The source for the 3 year number is an unnamed random person claiming to be a Google engineer, and Google specifically reach
by trenchpilgrim 1y ago
No they don't. 5-8 years is common. The source for the 3 year number is an unnamed random person claiming to be a Google engineer, and Google specifically reached out to all the journalists publishing that claim with this response.
> Recent purported comments about Nvidia GPU hardware utilization and service life expressed by an “unnamed source” were inaccurate, do not represent how we utilize Nvidia’s technology, and do not represent our experience.
- rhubarbtree 1y agoIt dropped down, but is now being extended to 5 years. The 3 year number was reported by the FT this year from a bunch of companies, where they were saying their accountants are extending to 5 years. Another example, MS just moved from 4 years to 5.
- trenchpilgrim 1y agoYou are confusing depreciation (which is mostly driven by tax reasons) with service lifecycle.
- mr_toad 1y agoA lot of these tax codes were written when computers were outdated within a year. The turnover of computers slowed a lot in the last two decades, but the tax codes haven’t changed.
- mbesto 1y agoAnd you're confusing all of these terms. The "3 years" is the standard warranty and typically gets extended to 5 years (and maybe 7 or 8 depending on the vendor). This is consistent with Dell PowerEdge, HP ProLiant, etc. servers. Nvidia GPUs on the other hand...there likely could be different terms, but idk because they are not typical purchases for 95% of the companies who make server hardware purchases. Source - I regularly work with IT departments and review their contracts as part of diligence.
- trenchpilgrim 1y agoNobody in this thread has mentioned warranty periods. The original comment was about the hardware lifecycle, claiming the hardware was only commercially viable for months. The 3 year number that people are tossing around came from a discredited interview that made the rounds on social media a while back: https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/gpus/datacenter-gpu-service-life-can-be-surprisingly-short-only-one-to-three-years-is-expected-according-to-unnamed-google-architect https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/gpus/datacenter-g...
- mbesto 1y agoYou're proving my point. Hardware's lifecycle is based on warranty - that's it. The parent comment was: > Data centre hardware is more like 3 years. That comment is actually referencing the standard warranty period (which is indeed typically 3 years), which may or may not be consistent with the useful life of server hardware (which is much more subjective and varies based on appliance).
- trenchpilgrim 1y agoNot that immediate parent comment. This original comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45575908 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45575908
- mbesto 1y agoI know, and I'm explaining to you that I'm responding to that specific comment that you responded to. You're confusing the two things. Stop it.
- boroboro4 1y agoData centers might be, GPUs not really. No one needs GPUs from 8 years, and hardly even 5.
- trenchpilgrim 1y agoA100s are over 5 years old and still widely used for HPC. 8 year old V100s are still available on cloud providers for low-intensity workloads.
- dragonwriter 1y agoIf GPU demand growth continues to outpace GPU production growth, that is necessarily going to change. Older GPUs may not be cost competitive to operate with newer GPUs, but when the alternative is no GPU...