[shjake]

They might be putting themselves in a similar position as Intel though (maybe worse since I don’t recall Intel ever being as greedy..) if their competitors eventually catch up.

Unlike in gaming in the data center initial cost + performance per watt are the only thing that really matter (besides software, Nvidia has a huge moat there..). And in relation to how much Nvidia is charging per GPU total power costs are close to zero.. So 4 ‘worse’ but much cheaper chips might be a better deal than buying an A/H100 etc.

[ascar]

> Unlike in gaming in the data center initial cost + performance per watt are the only thing that really matter

That's not true from a hardware perspective either. You can't just plug in 4 worse cards in the same rack. The savings on the graphics cards become less significant if you need to double/quadruple all other hardware to increase the number of racks. A 1U blade can easily cost $10000 without a graphics card.

[btilly]

You can plug in multiple GPUs on a computer. AWS has fleets with 4 and 8, see https://docs.aws.amazon.com/dlami/latest/devguide/gpu.html for pricing.

For anything datacenter related, customers are very sensitive to price per performance. And datacenters are happy to oblige.

[ascar]

You're missing the point GP made though. He wants to replace one good card with 4 worse ones. It's not like that rack has 3 or 7 additional slots just unused. They're also already taken by the setup. And in the link you provided 5 out of 6 offerings are still Nvidia GPUs.

Of course data centers are happy to oblige to customer demands, but initial cost per GPU and performance per watt are certainly not the only relevant factors.

[apmcduck]

I can build a GPUless microATX tower for $600 and the 3sqft of extra space costs $400. Somebody is overcharging you for 1U blades.

[soco]

But does Nvidia have their own AMD-like foe waiting around the corner to fight them for the crown? I'm not sure there is in the near future anyone capable to sustain such a fight...