
If this is so good ...
Why is Facebook such a piece of uselessness?
Four years after Facebook open sourced its data center hardware with the Open Compute Project, the company has done it again with a server built for deep learning neural networks. Dubbed Big Sur, the reference design uses eight high-performance GPUs of up to 300 watts each to crunch data in an air-cooled rack that fits with …
Is it though? Global village, "happy online family" bullshit aside, Facebook is a business and designed to turn a profit. Investors and advertisers seem more than happy to continue to plow ever larger sums into Facebook's coffers in order to get just a lick of the large chunk of users on the FB site. So if money is going into FB, it's achieving it's goal and keeping the FB accountants happy.
The ethics of farming people's lives for details to sell and the interfaces offered by FB to the populace they appeal to, oh dear Lord yes those are bloody awful!!
All of this will make uncomfortable reading for the AI boffins at Google.
It's an easily maintainable server box. Big fucking deal. I'm sure that has the chaps and chapesses at Google quaking in their boots!
Server density, memory speed, network interconnects, total power draw, etc. are probably what keep the engineers in Mountain View awake at night.
agreed, this reads like a press release with some editorial lines put in for easier digestion. Fine for your average tech blog site, but I"m afraid Vulture Central has spoiled us (I'd say rotten but that's hardly on El Reg)... bestowing upon us lavish servings of rapier wit and biting sarcasm.
If it had said: "Facebook, in an attempt to amp up the AI arms race, annouced a piece of concept kit to show off its rabid desire to win this particular hardware-measuring contest with The Alphabet Podpeople to all and sunder." or somesuch we would have been more entertained.
That being said, "WLL IT RUN CRYSIS IN 4K at 100 FPS?1!!|?¿!1? is still the only relevant metric...