Isn’t this how these things are always done? Same with number of cores in a CPU, the higher core and lower core come from the same fabrication process, it’s just that the lower core CPU had more faulty cores that are disabled.
Depends a lot on when its from in the product cycle, the yield at the end of production runs are usually so good that it turns into artificial product segmentation
Testing hardware is a complicated matter (you can do a PhD on the topic), and nvidia probably does a better job at it than a hacker in their basement who thinks they can upgrade their GPU for free.
Before you get too excited about the CMP 170HX, the prices had already skyrocketed and that card doesn't a cooler on it and is designed for a server cooler that sounds like a jet engine. Also most of the 80GB vram unlocks have bad RAM and that is the reason they were locked in the first place, otherwise they would have became A100s.
Anyways, that's what I tell myself as I taste my bowl of sour grapes.
(which is the more likely scenario because they can make much more money on enterprise/datacenter products, see DRAM)
Testing hardware is a complicated matter (you can do a PhD on the topic), and nvidia probably does a better job at it than a hacker in their basement who thinks they can upgrade their GPU for free.
Hard to believe $1k was a deal a few months ago (and $200 before then).
Anyways, that's what I tell myself as I taste my bowl of sour grapes.