Sidestepping GPU ban, Chinese factories dismantle and transform Nvidia RTX 4090 gaming cards into AI accelerators
www.tomshardware.com
Thousands of GeForce RTX 4090 transformed into AI accelerators.

This is the reason why you can’t find ones in your local best buy. They are paying premium for it. But it indeed is very helpful, if I can get my hand on a few for my build.

  • trailer_dog@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    China needs to start pumping out their own dedicated AI accelerator cards. I’m sick of Nvidia’s VRAM business model. Having to run multiple giant GPUs in parallel instead of simply soldering more RAM chips onto the board is extremely wasteful.

    • fallingdowndizzyvr@alien.topBEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      China needs to start pumping out their own dedicated AI accelerator cards.

      They already do. Or should I say would.

      https://www.tomshardware.com/news/chinese-biren-rolls-out-new-gpus-with-77-billion-transistors-2-pflops-of-ai-performance

      The problem for China is that like the US, they have to have Taiwan build their chips for them. And the US has told Taiwan in no uncertain terms that they better not build chips for China or else. So even though they have their own designs, they can’t get them built. Or should I say they couldn’t. Since China pulled a July surprise when Huawei released domestically made 7nm chips. 7nm is what the BR100 is designed to be made at. It was thought that China wouldn’t be able to make 7nm chips for at least another 5 years.

      Having to run multiple giant GPUs in parallel instead of simply soldering more RAM chips onto the board is extremely wasteful.

      That’s not what they do. They use custom PCBs. Even the 16GB RX580 is not a piggy backed 8GB RX580. They basically harvest the chips from an existing card and then solder them onto a newly designed PCB.

      • MrArborsexual@alien.topBEnglish
        1·
        1 year ago

        I mean Taiwan isn’t exactly jumping at the chance to build advance chips for the rougue provences of West Taiwan, that constantly warn of their impeding violent invasion of Taiwan.

        Also their yields at 7nm are apparently terrible, assuming they are being honest about the actual production. A few years ago China put out news of a home grown x86 chip that was on par with Zen 1 or something like that, and it turned out they had just repackaged old chips.

        • fallingdowndizzyvr@alien.topBEnglish
          1·
          1 year ago

          I mean Taiwan isn’t exactly jumping at the chance to build advance chips for the rogue provences of West Taiwan, that constantly warn of their impeding violent invasion of Taiwan.

          Ah… then why are they trying to convince the US to give them a license to run factories in China. TSMC, you know those Taiwan chipmakers, want the US to give them permanent license to run factories those “rogue provences of West Taiwan”.

          You know what a good way is to keep someone from invading you? Be so crucial that they don’t want to even risk damaging you in any way. They would be making chips for them right now if the US allowed it.

    • mcmoose1900@alien.topBEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      I’m sick of Nvidia’s VRAM business model

      At the top end, they are actually limited by how much they can physically hang off the die (48GB for current silicon, or 196GB(?) for the interposer silicon).

      But yeah, below that its price gouging. What are ya gonna do, buy an Arc?

      AMD is going along with this game too. You’d see a lot more 7900s on this sub, and on GitHub, if AMD let their manufacturers double up the VRAM to 48GB.