This is the end goal, to push us to cloud gaming where corps hold all the cards. I’m willing to bet RAM prices won’t recover to reasonable levels either, and CPU supplies will be next. AI is the current reason being pushed on us, Crypto was the previous one. The excuses will keep coming, but the goal will stay the same.
we’ll all just buy used-up AI GPUs and some genius will figure out how to run them from exisiting drivers and we’ll have to pirate the software because the GPU manufacturers will try and lock down their ‘IP’. Eventually, the card makers will throw us a bone and provide a much shittier piece of software, but we’ll all just keep using the cracked one.
AI GPUs either just use the same standard driver packages that gaming GPUs use, or they use slightly cut down ones because they physically lack internal hardware like display heads or rt cores. With those it’s not a matter of drivers, it’s a physical lack of hardware that a game engine or display would expect.
If you had an rtx 6000 Blackwell in your PC right now you’d just install the same drivers as the 5090, 5050, or 3060 (its the same driver across all three of these)
I wonder if display ports can be added. If they become cheap enough and demand is strong enough, I could see there being a market for modded cards. I once bought a weird laptop CPU soldered onto a board that made it fit into a desktop Intel socket, and it worked.
Common misconception, display head =/= display socket.
It’s not just missing the physical plug, it’s missing the entire logic circuit dedicated to rendering and encoding a display output. Even if you wired an hdmi or dp to the board, it would have nothing to drive and time the signal.
That circuitry isn’t a separate chip it’s physically part of the GPU die architecture and you can’t add it on later via a mod.
You could definitely do that for rasterization, but if any part of the graphics API required something the card didn’t have (like ray tracing) you couldn’t synchronize the work between it and another RT capable card fast enough.
See also: why they killed crossfire and sli in the gaming space, and why the derivative works of that technology only exists in the data center for non latency-intensive workloads.
GPU pass through to a VM perhaps? Home cloud gaming servers!!! Get a bunch of old AI GPUs and stick them in a system and give each VM it’s own GPU and stick steam on the VM. Play games from anything that can run steam link.
Basic output? probably. Gaming? Probably not. Again same problem of some cards missing hardware components that are required for a rendering pipeline, regardless of physical or virtual outputs
The 6000 Blackwell has all of this and would totally work, the H200 does not, etc
This depends a lot on your definition of “high-end” in this context. If something like the RX 9070 XT falls within your expectations, you could definitely buy an AMD card over Nvidia especially now that their features like FSR is getting pretty good. But Nvidia offers cards like the 4090 and 5090 that AMD simply isn’t even close to competing against, so if that’s the kind of performance you want you’re sadly stuck with Nvidia for the foreseeable future. Luckily, not that many people actually need something that powerful, but the point still stands.
Even an RX9060 would probably be a mild improvement over my RTX2070, but don’t think it would be a massive change either. So not worth it while my 2070 works still.
AMD is very close to compete against the 4090 and 5090, in a few years they will have the same power for halve the price, that’s why you didn’t mention 3090 or the titan series. Consumer GPUs, and i’m not sure the Titan/90s can even be called that, will keep improving even without NVIDIA, just at a slightly slower rate.
The reason I specifically mentioned 4090 and 5090 is just that those are the only two cards AMD does not have an answer for right now. In all the other segments they have solid options. And to be clear, I really wish AMD was a real option at the top end as well, but they just aren’t yet and looking at their best card vs a 5090 it’s not even in the same ballpark.
My worry is that while I agree that AMD will have a 5090 competitor in a few years, Nvidia will also keep pushing unless they actually pull out of the market to focus on AI and datacenters (which they very well might do). Right now their lead is massive, but I could definitely see it getting much closer if nothing else.
i have the suspicion that the next GPU i’ll buy will be from a chinese manufacturer.
Or, alternatively, the world recognizes that AI in its current form is only cost effective in special cases and only a hole to shovel money into when used broadly. In this case, the hundreds of thousands of Blackwell GPUs sitting in warehouses will lose their worth rapidly and i can build my own AI cluster for myself from the fire sales.
Everything they leave is up for grabs. Someone will take their place. Let’s just hope it’s soon.
I’m starting to think we will end up with no high-end dedicated graphics hardware being available for home use.
This is the end goal, to push us to cloud gaming where corps hold all the cards. I’m willing to bet RAM prices won’t recover to reasonable levels either, and CPU supplies will be next. AI is the current reason being pushed on us, Crypto was the previous one. The excuses will keep coming, but the goal will stay the same.
we’ll all just buy used-up AI GPUs and some genius will figure out how to run them from exisiting drivers and we’ll have to pirate the software because the GPU manufacturers will try and lock down their ‘IP’. Eventually, the card makers will throw us a bone and provide a much shittier piece of software, but we’ll all just keep using the cracked one.
AI GPUs either just use the same standard driver packages that gaming GPUs use, or they use slightly cut down ones because they physically lack internal hardware like display heads or rt cores. With those it’s not a matter of drivers, it’s a physical lack of hardware that a game engine or display would expect.
If you had an rtx 6000 Blackwell in your PC right now you’d just install the same drivers as the 5090, 5050, or 3060 (its the same driver across all three of these)
I wonder if display ports can be added. If they become cheap enough and demand is strong enough, I could see there being a market for modded cards. I once bought a weird laptop CPU soldered onto a board that made it fit into a desktop Intel socket, and it worked.
Common misconception, display head =/= display socket.
It’s not just missing the physical plug, it’s missing the entire logic circuit dedicated to rendering and encoding a display output. Even if you wired an hdmi or dp to the board, it would have nothing to drive and time the signal.
That circuitry isn’t a separate chip it’s physically part of the GPU die architecture and you can’t add it on later via a mod.
Probably easier to build a modified driver that uses the Blackwell card for rendering and pushes the frames back to a lower powered display card.
You could definitely do that for rasterization, but if any part of the graphics API required something the card didn’t have (like ray tracing) you couldn’t synchronize the work between it and another RT capable card fast enough.
See also: why they killed crossfire and sli in the gaming space, and why the derivative works of that technology only exists in the data center for non latency-intensive workloads.
GPU pass through to a VM perhaps? Home cloud gaming servers!!! Get a bunch of old AI GPUs and stick them in a system and give each VM it’s own GPU and stick steam on the VM. Play games from anything that can run steam link.
Basic output? probably. Gaming? Probably not. Again same problem of some cards missing hardware components that are required for a rendering pipeline, regardless of physical or virtual outputs
The 6000 Blackwell has all of this and would totally work, the H200 does not, etc
deleted by creator
Buy an AMD GPU Challenge (Impossible)
This depends a lot on your definition of “high-end” in this context. If something like the RX 9070 XT falls within your expectations, you could definitely buy an AMD card over Nvidia especially now that their features like FSR is getting pretty good. But Nvidia offers cards like the 4090 and 5090 that AMD simply isn’t even close to competing against, so if that’s the kind of performance you want you’re sadly stuck with Nvidia for the foreseeable future. Luckily, not that many people actually need something that powerful, but the point still stands.
Even an RX9060 would probably be a mild improvement over my RTX2070, but don’t think it would be a massive change either. So not worth it while my 2070 works still.
AMD is very close to compete against the 4090 and 5090, in a few years they will have the same power for halve the price, that’s why you didn’t mention 3090 or the titan series. Consumer GPUs, and i’m not sure the Titan/90s can even be called that, will keep improving even without NVIDIA, just at a slightly slower rate.
The reason I specifically mentioned 4090 and 5090 is just that those are the only two cards AMD does not have an answer for right now. In all the other segments they have solid options. And to be clear, I really wish AMD was a real option at the top end as well, but they just aren’t yet and looking at their best card vs a 5090 it’s not even in the same ballpark. My worry is that while I agree that AMD will have a 5090 competitor in a few years, Nvidia will also keep pushing unless they actually pull out of the market to focus on AI and datacenters (which they very well might do). Right now their lead is massive, but I could definitely see it getting much closer if nothing else.
Also these cards are room heaters.
looks at my 7900 XTX
looks at my older VII in a family machine
uhh…
i have the suspicion that the next GPU i’ll buy will be from a chinese manufacturer.
Or, alternatively, the world recognizes that AI in its current form is only cost effective in special cases and only a hole to shovel money into when used broadly. In this case, the hundreds of thousands of Blackwell GPUs sitting in warehouses will lose their worth rapidly and i can build my own AI cluster for myself from the fire sales.
I hope you’re right, but the other companies that could make them all seem interested in AI too.