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Prof Turns PS3s into Supercomputer |
If this doesn’t tell the Sony executives that they better get a killer app game out for its PlayStation 3 sooner rather than later, we don’t know what will. Over at the North Carolina State University an associate professor of computer science went out and bought eight PS3 units and then clustered them together to combine their processing power. Apparently the demos for “Resistance: Fall of Man” wasn’t enough to impress Dr. Frank Mueller about the PS3’s gaming ability, but he can get a decent level of supercomputing processing power out of the 64 logical processors that are banked together.
Mueller admits that his Sony supercomputer solution is constrained by the 256 megs of RAM and networking hiccups, but for $5,000 the Cell chip architecture gives high enough performance for a relatively cheap cost. And, Mueller says, if he had 10,000 PS3s networked together he could create the world’s fastest computer. “Of course, here at NC State we will use it for educational purposes and for research,” said Professor Mueller, dispelling any hopes we had of a 8-player “Armored Core 4” deathmatch on campus. We would like to see what Professor Mueller would create with a Nintendo Wii or Microsoft Xbox 360 but then again the software for those consoles may distract him from his academic work.
TAGS: cluster, Playstation 3, PS3, Sony, Supercomputer   |
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you must be the first person to ever crack a joke at sony’s expense, despite news that is almost undoubtably playstation positive.
oh wait, no, your not at all!
Whatever Joel, bloody Sony fanboy.
At least there’ll be plenty more PS3’s for the prof to pick up. He should be able to get 10,000 quite easily.
hah. its not so much that im a fanboy, as much as that your an anti-sony fanboy…
…just like hundreds of other grumpy whiny snotty-nosed babies on the internet these days.
Yeah, Joel, not only are you not a Sony fanboy, but you know proper English, too!
Good Job “Joel” if that really is your actual name.
Actually, its not that he’s an anti-sony person so much, but on the contrary it really is that your such a fanboy for sony. And thus you feel the need to become a “player hater” to all those who crack jokes that are actually funny.
I did actually “laugh out loud” when I stumbled upon this article.
This article is fairly lame, and not from a pro or anti-sony point of view. What’s the performance of the so called supercomputer? Why is this an achievement? Smells like a publicity stunt. Cell processor-based supercomputers already hold world records for the fastest supercomputers. (see top500.org).
Ok seriously, as soon as someone uses the word “thus” in a lame message board you know that people are about to start talking shit. I don’t think anyone here is a “fanboy” or “anti-fan boy” or whatever the HELL you guys are talking about, I think you all love PS3 almost - but not quite - as much as you love Dungeons and Dragons. You’re all just starting to realise that Sony’s about to get its ass kicked if it doesn’t actually put out a game!
wow and i wonder if any of those ps3 had any problems
The point is not really the PS3 or it’s gaming ability. It’s about how awesome the Cell processor is. Seriously, Sony made a great move by incorporating a near-100 GFLOP processor into a system that can easily be refitted to run linux. Think of the publicity and the many linux users who now want a PS3, regardless of games. I’ve never owned or wanted to own any sort of playstation, but hey, now it looks pretty interesting.