Using the same exploit that recently allowed unlocking features of Nvidia mining GPUs, an unlocker for RTX 3090 has been created. Unfortunately the card doesn’t have hidden VRAM to enable, but we can get some free floating point processing power.
The install instructions are a bit vague, but on my Fedora install I had to manually add the kernel command line arg (gpu_unlock.targets) and rebuild initramfs after running the build/install command.
I did some simple comparison using ComfyUI, and image generation became 33% faster when using fp8 and bf16 models. However, with an int8 convrot quantized model I only got around 8% speedup, which make sense since it would use the int8 tensor cores of the RTX 3090 which weren’t locked to begin with.
I didn’t write down my exact tokens/s in llama.cpp before installing the unlocker, but the numbers I got after were roughly the same as I remembered, which also makes sense since I use quantized models that afaik use integer tensor ops.
As with all hardware “hacking” you should be careful. This seemed relatively safe to me since it doesn’t permanently alter anything on the GPU so it should be easy to revert. And it shouldn’t mess with current limits or clock speeds, which could more easily damage the hardware.
The install procedure does involve changing some kernel boot parameters, so if you make a mistake it’s possible that you soft-brick your OS.
What do you think would happen if it was illegal? I’m only coming up with two scenarios:
I just fucking explained how competition does the opposite of that.
If it costs more to manufacture a product than it can be sold for, it won’t be manufactured. Competition isn’t going to drive down the manufacturing cost, it only drives down sales price. If you drive the sales price too far down, or drive the manufacturing cost too far up (or a combination of the two), the product gets canceled.
You’re already paying the lower price… for the full-featured object. That’s the whole topic! If you can’t imagine a competitor offering a better deal that customers prefer, what are you worried about?
If a company sells one product at 2 different prices, everyone will pay the lower price. I’ve already explained how it’s cheaper to manufacture a low-end product based on a high-end design instead of creating a totally new design.
Do you think you’d be better off if companies were forced to remove unused components from low-end versions of products? How do you think that would benefit you?
Baloney. You stated the rationale behind selling the same high-end internals as a low-end product, as if I didn’t know. As if that’s not the complaint.
I am telling you for the fourth time - that means there is no low-end version. It’s all the same goddamn product. The separate price points are artificial, arbitrary, and a nakedly anti-competitive practice. It is a fraud which destroys the incentives behind tolerable prices for optimal quality.
What benefits everybody is when multiple companies want your money, and will balance their shameless greed against your ability to buy from someone else.
This conversation is going nowhere. I think I’ve adequately explained my point. Peace.
You weren’t even listening to yourself.