This means that straightforward comparison of flops-per-USD between home computer GPU cards and data center flops-per-USD is incorrect. If someone already has a GPU card, they already have a computer and house where this computer stays “for free.” But if someone needs to scale, they have to pay for housing and mainframes.
Such comparisons of old 2010s GPUs with more modern ones are used to show the slow rate of hardware advances, but they don’t take into account the hidden costs of owning older GPUs.
This means that straightforward comparison of flops-per-USD between home computer GPU cards and data center flops-per-USD is incorrect. If someone already has a GPU card, they already have a computer and house where this computer stays “for free.” But if someone needs to scale, they have to pay for housing and mainframes.
Such comparisons of old 2010s GPUs with more modern ones are used to show the slow rate of hardware advances, but they don’t take into account the hidden costs of owning older GPUs.