GPU depreciation continues to be a hot topic that fascinates me endlessly. As someone with a handful of old computers, CPUs, GPUs, and various other devices in closets and storage, I can't help but wonder if we could do a better job making use of these old things. A while back, I was thinking about making an app for people to set up their old iPhones or Android devices as smart security cameras.
Anyway, Michael Burry has been out and about discussing his short positions in various companies, arguing that their depreciation schedules are cooked. He uses the history of GPU and server depreciation as the basis for his argument — but he fails to notice that the actual useful life of these servers is lengthening.
I think its actually quite reasonable to lengthen the depreciation schedules given that the hardware is lasting longer and performing better than expected. Remember replacing your laptop every couple years? A few things I'd like to chart out:
- Performance increase for a server over time
- GPU thread performance over time
- CPU thread and total performance over time
- Backblaze drive failure rates over time
Maybe I'll get to it sometime. My hypothesis is that the useful life of hardware is extending.