Mysterious NVIDIA A100 spotted in China
Never seen before prototypes now on sale.
Prototypes of NVIDIA Ampere HPC accelerators can now be found on Chinese second-hand retail platforms. While the source of these GPUs is unknown, it is clear that some configurations have never been seen before.
A seller claiming to offer a GRID A100 engineering sample on PCIe board with three 8-pin power connectors asserts that it is technically the A100B variant. The GPU has never been flashed into SXM BIOS and works without major issues. However, it has a bug that consistently reports a maximum power of 750W. The board clearly has non-standard voltage measurement points and appears to have many exposed jumpers for validation. This GPU was never meant to be sold in this form.
NVIDIA A100 Prototype, Source: Goofish
The interesting aspect of this model is that it actually utilizes more CUDA cores than the standard retail product. The A100 typically comes with 6912 cores, which means that the engineering sample features 15% more cores (7936 to be exact). At least two versions were spotted featuring 96GB and 40GB of HBM2 memory.
Although the core count is higher, this still doesn’t represent the full configuration of the GA100 GPU (8192 CUDA cores), as 2 Streaming Multiprocessors are disabled. Additionally, NVIDIA didn’t release a 96GB version; they only launched 40GB and 80GB models. Therefore, it’s indeed a rare configuration of the A100 to encounter.
A100 with 7936 cores, Source: Goofish
The GPU in question is being listed for sale at a hefty price of 16800 RMB, approximately equivalent to 2300 USD. This might seem a bit high, especially considering it comes with no warranty or official drivers. However, the seller claims it’s a rare prototype that still functions properly (except for power reporting).
It’s worth noting, though, that this accelerator, isn’t intended for sale. Engineering samples like these are owned by NVIDIA, and any attempt to sell them is against the law. Despite this, many large GPU collections often include such prototypes, which often find their way onto online platforms regardless.
Source via Wccftech:
