Pictured: The U.S. Air Force's PS3 Cluster Set-up
Oh, so THAT'S what 336 PS3s looks like.
A couple of weeks ago we reported that the US Air Force had plans to purchase 2,200 PlayStation 3s for to use as part of its supercomputing cluster.
Last year, the Air Force acquired at least 300 PS3s for test purposes of the Cell Broadband Engine. The systems are at Air Force Research Laboratory's information directorate in Rome, N.Y. The Air Force used the PS3 cluster to stitch multiple radar images into higher resolution composite images, video processing, and building computers with brain-like properties.
It looks very cool and impressive when they have them all hooked up. That said, how ever cool 336 looks now, there's no way it will look as awesome as over 2,500 together.
Check the image above, via SFGate. To read more about using consoles for things that aren't Modern Warfare 2 or Uncharted, check out the full piece here.
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Very cool.
That's one heck of a LAN Party!!
So beautiful it brings a tear to my eye. Now if only I could afford it...
I wonder if they have cooling issues?
Would 100 quad cpus be better? I don't think of power when it comes to ps3
Sorry I see now why they used ps3 I had no idea of the power it has...
But can it play Crysis???
)
(Sorry... I just had to...
SKYNET!
SKYNET!
But can it play Crysis??? (Sorry... I just had to... )
OMG!!!
My Tax dollars at work...
that is one fine looking cluster
I fail to see the practicality of this setup. True, the cell processor can move large amounts data, but I don't see it having the effectiveness of what a render farm could deliver. This seems to me as being a media recruiting machine, "come join us,look how cool we are".
But can it play Crysis??? (Sorry... I just had to... )
God damn it! Will you (all of you) stop doing this childish shit?
forget crysis it aint on ps3 ,
so to revise "can it play crysis 2?"
I fail to see the practicality of this setup. True, the cell processor can move large amounts data, but I don't see it having the effectiveness of what a render farm could deliver. This seems to me as being a media recruiting machine, "come join us,look how cool we are".
Do some research, you'll find your answer. A render farm made up of 2,200 NVIDIA cards would be nice but I don't think nearly as cost effective. Plus, this really smacks the other consoles in the face. Go Sony.
Your tax dollars at work
I fail to see the point of this. Would it not take less power and be better to just use computers? Core i7s plus a range of video cards could do whatever PS3s could do better.
PS3 is not some godly computing powerhouse compared to PCs and nice video cards.
yes, but it won't play Super Mario Bros or Halo
I fail to see the point of this. Would it not take less power and be better to just use computers? Core i7s plus a range of video cards could do whatever PS3s could do better.PS3 is not some godly computing powerhouse compared to PCs and nice video cards.
Perhaps, but it's a hell of a lot cheaper.
Would 100 quad cpus be better? I don't think of power when it comes to ps3
No it wouldn't.
PS3 = 1.7 Teraflops GPU. 2 Teraflops Floating Point.
Intel Core i7 965 XE = 40 Gigaflops
For 100 quad cores to match the PS3 they'd need to be packing some good GPUs raising the cost of the system and the development. The PS3s they are using support linux and thus the C programming language if they have 1 PS3 C compiler. This means with very little tweeking they can have the system up and running. If they went to GPU processing, they would need to convert all the calculations (the meat of the program) to use whatever proprietary language NVidia or ATI/AMD dictated. So, not only would the hardware of the quad core cluster be more expensive, the development would too.
Sony was shooting itself in the foot. They are taking a loss on the PS3 hardware while trying to sell Cell based servers at a profit. I think they figured it out and that's why we don't see Linux in the Slim (one of the reasons at least).
Well, it does seem cost effective (bulky and slow, IMO). But if the new PS3's won't run Linux are they using older ones? I wonder if the Xbox 360 will jump on building clusters and create a giant RRoD.
Can you imagine if they used Xbox 360s instead? That would be an awful lot of RRoD!
Forgot sources:
PS3 #s: http://ps3.ign.com/articles/614/614682p1.html
i7 965 #: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FLOPS
Would 100 quad cpus be better? I don't think of power when it comes to ps3
The processor in the PS3 is actually quite powerful. Powerful enough to be called a super-computer.
"...a microprocessor designed to bridge the gap between conventional desktop processors (such as the Athlon 64, and Core 2 families) and more specialized high-performance processors, such as the NVIDIA and ATI graphics-processors (GPUs)."
It actually has 8 SPE units on the chip.
I bet it's like 120 degrees in that room.
Very cool.
How's that cool? The USAF is using japanese/chinese video game consoles for high-res video purposes. I don't think it's cool in practice or in concept. This is where their multi billion (trillion?) dollar budget goes? I get the idea, but come on - talk about cheese. Can you imagine the person who had to open all the PS3 boxes. I wonder if they registered the products too for warranty coverage. WHAT A JOKE! I bet you anything all the air forces around the word are laughing at this. Guaranteed!
Why is there a big screen?
Now... how would a cluster of nVidia/ATI GPU cluster looks like?
Why is there a big screen?
So they can play some games while the code's compiling of course!
We use every-bodies technology in everything. Gone are the days of isolationism, I do have a problem with how they are using this stuff to spy/police our own people and it is only going to get worse.