this post was submitted on 06 Nov 2023
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There's a company making analog chips that do the matrix calculations at a (15 or) 60x (I forget which) more efficient rate than moden chips (by multiplying voltages I believe). Even though one is only about 1/3 the processing power of a modern gpu, stack enough together and you're cooking. The matrix multiplication aspect is what we're using the VRAM for right?
The actual models telling them what to multiply are, to my knowledge.
VRAM isn't the low level "working" memory. You still have to pull structures from memory and into actual use. If you're working on pen and paper, a bookshelf might be system storage and your desk might be RAM/VRAM, but you still need to copy the numbers from your desk onto the piece of paper you're working on. That's lower level cache, registers, the tensor cores, etc.
If the chip you're discussing is a better calculator, that's useful, but you still need the big desk to hold the huge amount of information you need to reference at any given time.
My brain is mush for some reason today, so that might not make sense, but better matrix operations shouldn't remove the need to have access to a huge model.
Thanks for the informative reply! Looks like I need to brush up on my hardware knowledge lol