Nvidia Thread

IDC offers their analysis on the market trends and the justification for desk-side "supercomputers" such as NVIDIA's DGX Station.

Download this whitepaper to learn how personal AI workstations are a game-changer in the race to AI-infuse the enterprise, overcoming the limitations of traditional data center infrastructure.
https://www.iotcentral.io/groups/an...ia-dgx-systems-run-deep-learning-at-your-desk

 

Solid evidence of NEW Video Cards!

 

12nm Pascal+ yipe...

We Have All The GTX 1180 Details [Warning: Satire]
Hardware Unboxed
Published on Jun 24, 2018
Spoiler: This is a joke, not a real news video. Hope you had a laugh

 

Making AI Real with HPE and NVIDIA

 

Nvidia NDA Causes Controversy as Press Claim it Gags Journalists, Forces Positive Reviews
Written by Jon Sutton on 26 June 2018 at 11:40
http://www.game-debate.com/news/253...m-it-gags-journalists-forces-positive-reviews

"Quite a storm is blowing up after an alleged Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) has leaked concerning Nvidia’s relationship with press partners. The NDA first appeared on German website Heise, but a number of other sites such as HardOCP have also picked up on it and poked holes in Nvidia’s confidentiality agreement.

Spoiler: details...

The first thing to point out is that NDAs are nothing new. We’ve agreed to NDAs from Nvidia, AMD, Ubisoft, EA, MSI. Basically, anyone and everything that is operating under embargo falls under an NDA. They can be written, verbal, or implied, and they typically cover a far broader range than is necessary in order to cover all bases. The NDAs also vary greatly in their aggressiveness, but this Nvidia NDA has certainly ruffled a few feathers.

The first key takeaway under Section 2 of the Nvidia NDA is that the expiration of the agreement with respect to the Confidential Information is, by default, five years after the disclosure of the information to the recipient. If Nvidia were to reveal to press the GTX 1180, for example, this information could not be revealed until five years is up or after a date that is agreed with Nvidia. For the GTX 1180, this date would probably be the same date the GTX 1180 is officially revealed, or when reviews for the graphics card go live. In this sense, the five-year timeframe is basically irrelevant in practice as the information is typically overridden by Section 3 (Termination of Obligation to Confidentiality) within a matter of days or weeks.

In that sense, this makes the NDA a fairly typical yet rigorous agreement. Nvidia provides behind-the-scenes secrets and access to hardware and announcements in exchange for publication of this news at an agreed time or date. Again, no surprise there, it’s standard form.

In Section 3 we do get an interesting statement though, which has spun off into several news articles citing that Nvidia is forcing the press to only publish positive reviews. Under Section 3: Use Restriction, Nvidia writes that the“Recipient shall use Confidential Information solely for the benefit of Nvidia and shall not...”, before proceeding to outline several steps that can’t be taken by the press if the NDA is agreed to. This includes posting Confidential Information from press events, sharing the Confidential Information in news stories or on forums, predicting future announcements using the Confidential Information as a basis for this, threatening to expose the information in exchange for cash, or providing login information that could allow others to gain access. Basically, this information is private until the agreed date and any move to break the NDA could result in legal action.

As with much of what’s been said before, this is absolutely normal behaviour. The part that seems to have stuck though is the “Recipient shall use Confidential Information solely for the benefit of Nvidia.” Unfortunately, this is a rather nebulous statement and thus causing the confusion. It could be read as an agreement that the recipient can only write positive things that benefit Nvidia, but bearing in mind of the rest of the third clause, it appears this is purely in regardings to the leaking of potentially sensitive Confidential Information rather than a restriction imposed on any qualitative assessments from journalists.

To go back to the earlier example, the end result is that a hardware reviewer would be absolutely restricted from posting about the GTX 1180 they were reviewing until the embargo is up, as this would be “for the benefit of Nvidia”. Once the embargo is up though, they would then be free to make a judgment on the quality of the product. To that end, information that is in the public domain is not subject to any NDA restrictions from Nvidia.

I would argue that HardOCP is wrong on this particular issue, probably just as a result of misunderstanding the agreement, and then a few sites followed suit. The only restrictions in place are in regards to information that is confidential in the first place, rather than as a blanket ban on negative press.

The bigger issue, as ever with these things, is how the press gets the opportunity to get the hardware in the first place. This is a decision that would be totally down to Nvidia and yes, they can pick and choose the sites which receive the coverage. This relies on a healthy relationship and, as we see HardOCP allege, printing negative stories about Nvidia “could damage this relationship”, preventing access. This is an entirely separate issue and much more difficult to manage, although it’s certainly not true that most sites would alter their impressions in order to benefit Nvidia rather than their user base, a user base which is contemplating spending potentially several hundred dollars based upon the review.

German tech site Heise.de posted the entire Nvidia NDA on its website and said it would not be signing the agreement. You can read the NDA in its entirety below.

Source: Heise.de
HardOCP
The Nerd Mag
DSO Gaming

Talking to an Actual Lawyer on NVIDIA's NDA
Gamers Nexus
Published on Jun 26, 2018
Rather than leave the internet to speculate based on what all of the reddit armchair lawyers say, we decided to speak with an actual licensed attorney in the US about NVIDIA's NDA for press.
We spoke with an attorney on the phone for this, rather impromptu, and so it is not heavily edited for video. We'd encourage you to just listen and tab away. This is in response to Heise.de's publication of an NVIDIA press NDA, and calls-in a GN Legal Correspondent -- a US-based attorney -- to discuss the NVIDIA NDA's language.

 

Cool, cheers for the link to the GN video - I watched it just now, (they're a great site), and they debunked all the hoo-ha about the NDA - just a mountain out of a molehill, nothing unusual in the NDA - review sites will still be able to be as rude as they want about the launched NVidia products once they're launched.

 

This is unrelated to the posts so far, but is topic related... The work there must go on... Check out who's holding the third highest position - https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/ne...-tech-workers-are-suffering-from-job-burnout/

 

ISC 2018: IBM and NVIDIA Power the World's Fastest Supercomputers

 

ISC 2018: Dell and NVIDIA Enabling HPC and AI

 

GPU Prices To Drop 20% in July!!
• 10:11 - GPU Price Drop:

Graphics card prices expected to drop in July
Monica Chen, Taipei; Joseph Tsai, DIGITIMES Friday 29 June 2018
https://www.digitimes.com/news/a20180629PD204.html

"The cryptocurrency mining chill has weakened demand for graphics cards, with suppliers planning to axe prices trying to clear their inventory. Sales of ASIC mining systems have also been significantly impacted by the stagnant demand, according to sources from the upstream supply chain.

Spoiler: Details...

The sources pointed out that graphics card prices are expected to see an average drop of around 20% in July, while the dramatic slowdown in orders for mining ASICs will also negatively affect revenues at Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) as well as its IC design service partners, such as Global Unichip, in 2018.

The dwindling profitability has sent small-to-medium mining firms gradually bowing out from the market, while large mining firms have also cut their procurements of new machines.

Currently, the worldwide graphics card market has an inventory of around several million units and Nvidia has around a million of GPUs waiting to be released, said the sources. With cryptocurrency miners also expected to begin selling their used graphics cards to the retail channel, vendors are expected to introduce major price cuts to compete.

Nvidia's next-generation GPUs made using TSMC's 12nm and 7nm processes are also expected to be postponed to late fourth-quarter 2018 until after inventory returns to safe levels, the sources said."

Gigabyte graphics card shipments to fall 20% in 2Q18
Monica Chen, Taipei; Willis Ke, DIGITIMES Thursday 28 June 2018
https://www.digitimes.com/news/a20180628PD205.html

"A slowdown in cryptocurrency mining demand is dragging down Gigabyte Technology's graphics card shipments in the second quarter, which are set to fall about 20% sequentially with average selling price (ASP) for such cards dropping 10%, according to the company.

Spoiler: Details...

At an investors conference held June 27, Gigabyte said its graphic card shipments for the second quarter are estimated at around one million units, down from 1.2 million of a quarter earlier.

As it remains unclear as to when Nvidia will release its new GPU platform in the second half of 2018, Gigabyte can hardly assess its shipment momentum in the third and fourth quarters. Nevertheless, the firm still expects its annual earnings from graphic cards for 2018 to be higher than that a year earlier, bolstered by the much higher corresponding profits scored in the first half of the year than in 2017.

Before the crypto mining craze subsided abruptly in April 2018, Gigabyte maintained a hefty profitability scenario in the first quarter, with its net earnings for the quarter shooting up 91% sequentially and skyrocketing five-fold on year to NT$1.61 billion (US$52.75 million), a new quarterly high and even higher than net profits for the first half of 2017. Revenues for the first five months still surged 40% on year to NT$30.53 billion.

Promoting gaming graphic cards
As crypto mining graphic cards can hardly generate high gross margins amid the sustained weakness in demand, Gigabyte will focus more on promoting graphic cards for gaming devices in the second half of 2018, the company said.

Company statistics also indicate Gigabyte's revenue ratio for graphic cards hit a high of 49% in the first quarter of 2018, compared to 36% for motherboards and 15% for servers. But the ratio for servers already soared to 20% in the second quarter amid the declining graphics card shipment momentum.

Meanwhile, Gigabyte's motherboard shipments reached 3.3 million units in first-quarter 2018, and 1.1 million units each for April and May, with second-quarter shipments likely to remain flat or increase slightly compared to the first quarter.

The company expects its annual motherboard shipments to be in the same range of 12-13 million units as posted for 2017, instead of accomplishing a 10% annual growth estimated in early 2018. This is due mainly to a delay in the arrival of Intel's new-generation CPU platform, the company indicated.

Gigabyte has landed big orders from Yandex of Russia and Penguin Computing of the US for server products. This is expected to help push up the firm's 2018 server revenues by 20% on year."

Massive GPU Price Drop In July, Next Gen GPUs Postponed?!
Gamer Meld
Published on Jul 1, 2018
GPU price drop incoming, Nvidia's next generation GPUs might be postponed and (AMD) PCI-e 4.0?!