NVIDIA's old Tesla V100 GPUs outpace new rivals in AI benchmarks

A modder put four NVIDIA Tesla V100 GPUs—originally launched in 2017—on a single board using NVLink and custom cooling, then put the setup through AI inference tests against much newer hardware. The result: this Frankenstein quad-V100 rig beat both Apple’s M5 Ultra and two DGX Spark units in several benchmarks, sometimes by over 200%. Still, pulling it off required hardware hacking and space for a hefty, power-hungry system.

• Quad-V100 rig used NVLink and custom heatsinks
• Beat M5 Ultra by up to 230% in prompt benchmarks
• Surpassed DGX Spark by up to 167% performance
• V100 GPUs with 32GB sell for around $744 each on eBay
• Setup needed significant modification and cooling