selective binning of semiconductors is not a new or inherently evil practice. that being said, someone managing to get a 170hx to 80 gigs is possibly the most prominent example of unlocking manufacturer restricted features.

80gb to 8gb seems like a bit more than normal binning (eg 5800x3d with bad core/etc cut down to 5600x3d).

HBM is quite expensive so it's strange to see so much disabled.

You can't change the HBM configuration after the GPU is manufactured, so I guess this points to some combination of "redirecting GA100 stock", "volume is too low to justify a separate spin of GA100" or "demand is expected to be transient". The savings from actually shipping less HBM would be very substantial though (hundreds of dollars on a 4-5k GPU).

Yeah I never really shared the adulation the AI community still seems to have for Jensen. To me he was always a sleazebag.

This was the discussion - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50451903