[metadat]

> Twenty-four 200 gigabit (Gb) Ethernet ports are integrated into every Intel Gaudi 3 accelerator

How much does a single 200Gbit active (or inactive) fiber cable cost? Probably thousands of dollars.. making even the cabling for each card Very Expensive. Nevermind the network switches themselves..

Simultaneously impressive and disappointing.

[lillecarl]

https://www.fs.com/de-en/products/115636.html 2 meters seems to be about 100$, which isn't unreasonable.

If you're going fiber instead of twinax it's another order of magnitude and a bit for trancievers, but cables are pretty cheap still.

You seem to be loading negative energy into this release from the get-go

[metadat]

You're going to need a lot more than 2 meters... It's probably AOC (Active-Optical Fiber Cable), they're pricey even for 40Gbit, at DC lengths.

[pezezin]

2 meters is enough to connect a server to a leaf ToR switch.

Now, connecting the leaf switches to the spine is a different story...

[throwaway2037]

What do you mean by active vs inactive fiber cable? I tried to Google about this distinction, but I couldn't find anything helpful.

[metadat]

My off-the-cuff take: AOC's are a specific kind of fiber optic cable, typically used in data center applications for 100Gbit+ connections. The alternate types of fiber are typically referred to as passive fiber cables, e.g. simplex or duplex, single-mode (single fiber strands, usually in a yellow jacket) or multi-mode (multiple fiber strands, usually in an orange jacket). Each type of passive fiber cable has specific applications and requires matching transceivers, whereas AOCs are self-contained with the transceivers pre-terminated on.

If you search for "AOC Fiber", lots of resources will pop up. FS.com is one helpful resource.

https://community.fs.com/article/active-optical-cable-aoc-ri...

> Active optical cable (AOC) can be defined as an optical fiber jumper cable terminated with optical transceivers on both ends. It uses electrical-to-optical conversion on the cable ends to improve speed and distance performance of the cable without sacrificing compatibility with standard electrical interfaces.