NVIDIA Forbids GeForce Driver Deployment in Data Centers

[Bayonet]

For anyone wondering, Geforce cards are very cost effective when used for single precision workloads such as deep learning. Sakura Internet's offering of Titan X (Pascal) GPUs is about 4x as cost effective as their best Tesla alternative. Source: https://www.sakura.ad.jp/koukaryoku/specification/

 

[remixedcat]

The more I look into this the more of a dick move this is! Also people should be able to do whatever they want with thier own freakin hardware! This is a facist socialist like move.

 

[Sir Alex Ice]

How can a company prevent you from using their product - that you paid for in full - however you see fit?

 

[Dimi]

The more I look into this the more of a dick move this is! Also people should be able to do whatever they want with thier own freakin hardware! This is a facist socialist like move.

Yeah because we should all enjoy large datacenter companies gobble up ALL of the CONSUMER oriented gpu's so prices will go even higher for regular CONSUMER grade video cards and then we can complain to Nvidia that our Geforce cards are expensive in stores right?

This is a good move from Nvidia.

 

[remixedcat]

how can you say that's a good move when it will make hosting more expensive. duh.

 

[notb]

Also people should be able to do whatever they want with thier own freakin hardware! This is a facist socialist like move.

No. You're buying a product with a license, which describes how you can use it.

If you have a philosophical issue with particular product being "hardware", remember that GPU is not just the electronics: it's also the software that makes it work. I guess you're fine with software licensing.
So yes, you definitely can buy a Titan V and use it as a paperweight (hardware), but to use it as an elevated calculator, you have to meet license limits.

how can you say that's a good move when it will make hosting more expensive. duh.

But are datacenters using consumer-grade NVIDIA GPUs right now? I very much doubt that, but have no data to validate this guess.
@Solaris17 ?

 

[remixedcat]

stop with the complacency attitude. it also perpetuates false scarcity as well.

 

[Dimi]

stop with the complacency attitude. it also perpetuates false scarcity as well.

These are GeForce cards intended for GAMERS. Prices would skyrocket if all datacenters would switch to consumer hardware. And no, hosting would not get cheaper, they would only make MORE profit. That is how companies work. They write that shit off as investments either way.

 

[DRDNA]

In my opinion this is all because of what Green lost and what Red has gained. Green lost a lot in the hardware arena (one example of that loss is console GPU market) and this is an example of them trying to make up for some of the losses.

 

[Fluffmeister]

In my opinion this is all because of what Green lost and what Red has gained. Green lost a lot in the hardware arena (one example of that loss is console GPU market) and this is an example of them trying to make up for some of the losses.

Erm, that want to stop people buying up loads of GeForce cards for data centers, not increase those sales.

Besides, their last quarter seemed pretty good to me.

 

[CrAsHnBuRnXp]

These kinds of limitations are not limited to Nvidia. AMD will do exactly the same the moment someone tries to fill a datacenter with Vegas instead of WX9100s, MI25s or SSGs.

So then why is this such a huge deal just because nvidia did it first? Nvidia is within their full right to do this. They make quadro cards for a reason. Granted it may be time to offer the same things as consumer cards but nvidia wants the money.

Everyone here would do the same thing nvidia did if they were in their shoes.

 

[kruk]

Yeah because we should all enjoy large datacenter companies gobble up ALL of the CONSUMER oriented gpu's so prices will go even higher for regular CONSUMER grade video cards and then we can complain to Nvidia that our Geforce cards are expensive in stores right?

This is a good move from Nvidia.

Yeah, good guy nVidia: they cut down the datacenter Titan V sales so gamers will be able to buy them at that sweet $2999 price tag (free shipping included)

 

[Dimi]

Yeah, good guy nVidia: they cut down the datacenter Titan V sales so gamers will be able to buy them at that sweet $2999 price tag (free shipping included)

The Titan V is NOT built for datacenters but made for AI Software and research developers.

 

[lexluthermiester]

Translated: We don't want you using consumer grade GPU's that are just as good as 5/10x more expensive workstation cards at certain workloads.
Time to use modded/3rd party drivers as it seems it's a software agreement that's being breached and not a hardware one, basically you can't use standard consumer Geforce drivers in an enterprise environment

No. You're buying a product with a license, which describes how you can use it.

There's actually no legal recourse for NVidia to employ to prevent this. The reasoning behind that statement is simple, the hardware can not work properly without the driver software. Based on case law, both federal and state(in the USA at least) a manufacturer is not allowed to define how a particular product is used. Even though NVidia owns the copyright to the software, because the hardware it is intended for depends on that software, the software becomes attached to the hardware as a binding product. NVidia can not tell people, governments, business or corporations how to use their own property any more than Intel or AMD can tell the same groups that they can't buy or use Xeon or Opteron CPU's in whatever way meets their needs. NVidia can bluster all it wants. They DO NOT have the legal standing to back it up. This is a non-issue..

 

[TheoneandonlyMrK]

It doesn't matter. We love Nvidia, we promote Nvidia, we buy Nvidia.

It doesn't matter to most of us but i don't know if I love any company , no im sure i don't.

 

[Jism]

Telemetry, anyone?

How in earth does Nvidia know there are DC's deploying consumer cards in datacenter enviroments?

They might come handy in:

- virtuliazation
- GPU encoding / decoding, streaming (video website for example)
- Other sort of things where a GPU might come in handy

They are far more faster then traditional CPU's anyway. Nvidia is targetting to maximize it's profit and with Telemetry it just found a way. I really hope company's slowly move over to the red side since AMD is more easyer on that part. A sold card is a sold card.

 

[Dimi]

Telemetry, anyone?

How in earth does Nvidia know there are DC's deploying consumer cards in datacenter enviroments?

They might come handy in:

- virtuliazation
- GPU encoding / decoding, streaming (video website for example)
- Other sort of things where a GPU might come in handy

They are far more faster then traditional CPU's anyway. Nvidia is targetting to maximize it's profit and with Telemetry it just found a way. I really hope company's slowly move over to the red side since AMD is more easyer on that part. A sold card is a sold card.

And i bet you'll be the first to complain that AMD/Nvidia doesn't have any gpu's in stock at your local hardware shop. It was already a crap show during the mining craze, imagine datacenters buying up all consumer gpu's. Its not what they are intended for.

 

[lexluthermiester]

Its not what they are intended for.

What they're intended for does not matter. NVidia doesn't have the right to do this. They have no legal recourse. It's an empty threat. AMD tried something similar with the Athlon XP CPU's being used in MP boards after slight modification. AMD whimpered about it, but could legally do nothing. NVidia can whine all they want, they are impotent to stop it.

 

[newtekie1]

how can you say that's a good move when it will make hosting more expensive. duh.

Hosting machines don't use Titans. This won't affect hosting costs one bit.

Telemetry, anyone?

How in earth does Nvidia know there are DC's deploying consumer cards in datacenter enviroments?

Or, you know, it could be that the data center companies advertise machines with desktop cards right on their websites...

 

[Vya Domus]

Kind of worthless , it's not going to be as easy as sending a notice to tell these guys to stop using a product which wasn't bound by any licencing agreement upon initial purchase.

Anyway , this is yet another move which confirms their actual priorities. Turns out investing all the cash they get from consumer products to R&D for datacenters and AI wasn't really 100% effective.

 

[notb]

There's actually no legal recourse for NVidia to employ to prevent this. The reasoning behind that statement is simple, the hardware can not work properly without the driver software. Based on case law, both federal and state(in the USA at least) a manufacturer is not allowed to define how a particular product is used. Even though NVidia owns the copyright to the software, because the hardware it is intended for depends on that software, the software becomes attached to the hardware as a binding product. NVidia can not tell people, governments, business or corporations how to use their own property any more than Intel or AMD can tell the same groups that they can't buy or use Xeon or Opteron CPU's in whatever way meets their needs. NVidia can bluster all it wants. They DO NOT have the legal standing to back it up. This is a non-issue..

Now this is a really weird interpretation or a weird law. Can you give me the article that says this explicitly? Or if not, do you have a court case to support it? Or at least a regulator's opinion or something?
And are you sure this applies to commercial use? I.e. does a company also have the right to use things however it wants? Or is it just the consumers?

What about typical software licenses? Microsoft, Adobe, AutoDesk, SAS and so on. If you're right about NV, what stops companies from using non-commercial software?
In most cases (Microsoft, for example) a fully featured free version is available for learning. Why are companies paying millions for commercial SQL Server or Visual Studio?

 

[R-T-B]

Yeah because we should all enjoy large datacenter companies gobble up ALL of the CONSUMER oriented gpu's so prices will go even higher for regular CONSUMER grade video cards and then we can complain to Nvidia that our Geforce cards are expensive in stores right?

This is a good move from Nvidia.

This is NOT what's gobbling up GPUs.

There's actually no legal recourse for NVidia to employ to prevent this. The reasoning behind that statement is simple, the hardware can not work properly without the driver software. Based on case law, both federal and state(in the USA at least) a manufacturer is not allowed to define how a particular product is used. Even though NVidia owns the copyright to the software, because the hardware it is intended for depends on that software, the software becomes attached to the hardware as a binding product. NVidia can not tell people, governments, business or corporations how to use their own property any more than Intel or AMD can tell the same groups that they can't buy or use Xeon or Opteron CPU's in whatever way meets their needs. NVidia can bluster all it wants. They DO NOT have the legal standing to back it up. This is a non-issue..

All they need to do is point at nouveau to dismiss your argument.

 

[Rhyseh]

Now this is a really weird interpretation or a weird law. Can you give me the article that says this explicitly? Or if not, do you have a court case to support it? Or at least a regulator's opinion or something?
And are you sure this applies to commercial use? I.e. does a company also have the right to use things however it wants? Or is it just the consumers?

What about typical software licenses? Microsoft, Adobe, AutoDesk, SAS and so on. If you're right about NV, what stops companies from using non-commercial software?
In most cases (Microsoft, for example) a fully featured free version is available for learning. Why are companies paying millions for commercial SQL Server or Visual Studio?

Also keen to understand the answer to this. I believe that they do have legal recourse (else how do software companies enforce all their terminal services and server licensing stuff).

 

[notb]

Also keen to understand the answer to this. I believe that they do have legal recourse (else how do software companies enforce all their terminal services and server licensing stuff).

The short answer is: by buying software you're signing the EULA, which is fundamentally built around copyright (no other way, to be honest).

 

[Rhyseh]

This is an update to the GeForce EULA. How is this different to any other EULA enforcement case?