Monolyth:

I know the article says it's a modified AD102, but did they actually remove the cores physically or just disable them through software? Would love to see a circuit diagram of this modified core to know for sure. My guess is that Nvidia went the LHR-pattern with soft locks. If that's the case, any bets on how long it will take China to break them? I put the effort at about 3, maybe 4 weeks. Not that we'll hear about it, and if we do I doubt anything changes. Nvidia will have restored a major flow of profit and ensure they don't have to lower prices in the consumer market any time soon. They'll just shift supply of 4090 chips over to China and profits will go back up. 5-10 years probably see a major shift away from selling consumer GPUs at all. Why bother? AI, compute, and cloud gaming are all growing in demand year over year. We (DIYers) are just a drop in the bucket to their server and SoC component sales.

fantaskarsef:

undone in a matter of weeks

Monolyth:

I know the article says it's a modified AD102, but did they actually remove the cores physically or just disable them through software? Would love to see a circuit diagram of this modified core to know for sure. My guess is that Nvidia went the LHR-pattern with soft locks. If that's the case, any bets on how long it will take China to break them? I put the effort at about 3, maybe 4 weeks. Not that we'll hear about it, and if we do I doubt anything changes. Nvidia will have restored a major flow of profit and ensure they don't have to lower prices in the consumer market any time soon. They'll just shift supply of 4090 chips over to China and profits will go back up. 5-10 years probably see a major shift away from selling consumer GPUs at all. Why bother? AI, compute, and cloud gaming are all growing in demand year over year. We (DIYers) are just a drop in the bucket to their server and SoC component sales.

H83:

I wouldn`t be surprised if those cards are using defective chips instead of regular ones disabled by software. After all, Nvidia must have a good number of chips that aren`t good enought and this way they have a customer for them.

Monolyth:

I know the article says it's a modified AD102, but did they actually remove the cores physically or just disable them through software? Would love to see a circuit diagram of this modified core to know for sure. My guess is that Nvidia went the LHR-pattern with soft locks. If that's the case, any bets on how long it will take China to break them? I put the effort at about 3, maybe 4 weeks. Not that we'll hear about it, and if we do I doubt anything changes. Nvidia will have restored a major flow of profit and ensure they don't have to lower prices in the consumer market any time soon. They'll just shift supply of 4090 chips over to China and profits will go back up. 5-10 years probably see a major shift away from selling consumer GPUs at all. Why bother? AI, compute, and cloud gaming are all growing in demand year over year. We (DIYers) are just a drop in the bucket to their server and SoC component sales.

southamptonfc:

The article does cover that.

Monolyth:

An altered configuration is stated, but it could also just be marketing double-speak.

southamptonfc:

hmm, no, it's quite specific - "include performance constraints at the firmware and driver levels, a unique ASIC code, and a distinct device ID that hinders BIOS modifications"

Venix:

Ok someone help me understand this restriction to china.... So the USA government forbids the trade of 4090 in china so they can use bleeding edge in ai training and applications as such ....but a version of the same hardware nerfed 5-10% is ok ? Do they pat themselves in the back and believe they stopped anything...or it will stop em from buying 10% more GPUs ? It seems so pointless to me .

H83:

Ideally they would ban all GPU/hardware sales to China but then Nvidia and others would complain and they could stop promoting the politics that want to band hardware sales to China and in turn they would help others if they allowed the same sales. So, to make everyone happy, they let Nvidia sell a slightly crippled 4090, this way politicians can say they are acting strong against China and Nvidia can continue to make money... It`s a question of politics and pretending to be tough against China...