> hardware that has commercially useful lifetimes measured in months
What hardware is this? Most hardware including GPUs are cycled between 5 and 8 years.
What hardware is this? Most hardware including GPUs are cycled between 5 and 8 years.
It has a pile of GPUs that are completely obsolete for any task: they use way too much power, have a large form factor that burns up a PCIe x16 slot, are loud, some need extra power cables, lack driver support on modern operating systems, and in return for all that don’t have as much power as something much better you could get for $100.
Value on eBay seems to be about $10-$15, mostly for people with a retro computing hobby or people removing semiconductor components for other purposes.
An obsolete data centre isn’t worth much either. (We have a small one made from equipment being liquidated from local data centres that have been upgraded.) The power consumption is too high and it is not set up for efficient HVAC for modern ultra high power draw workloads.
Side quest: Virtualized instances at cloud providers never get upgraded unless recreated. I bet there are millions of VMs running for years on specs and prices of 2018-2020.
Innovation occurs on a sigmoid curve, we're still very early in the sigmoid for software and computer hardware, and very late in the sigmoid for machining, unless you include CNC, in which case, we're back to software and computer hardware being the new parts.
A better example would be the tape out and lifetime for semiconductor fabs, which are only about 70 years old and have lifetimes measured in the decade range.
If you don't know something for sure, it's best to not make assumptions. We're not LLMs and don't need to spit out something confidently without understanding it.
They are things like: -Measurement tools that can be checked easily against Measurement standards (its taught as good practice to check this anyway each use) -files -transfer punches -feeler gages (again, easily checked) -bore gages -gage pins - 123 blocks - on and on...
where and why did you come to this conclusion?
> 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.
> 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.
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.
Source - I regularly work with IT departments and review their contracts as part of diligence.
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).