Pictured: The U.S. Air Force's PS3 Cluster Set-up

[omnimodis78]

The point I made initially when this story broke sort of stands on its own two feet after seeing this picture. You can't tell me that the USAF couldn't go to Intel or AMD and say, this is what we want, this is what Sony has on the table and match it. It would have been far more eloquent than using a video game system, not even stripped down to access its core technology, no, actually LANing it together like it's some Best Buy staff party (yeah they do that). I would love to find out who put the bug into some high ranking official's mind that buying up PS3 was a smart idea. I'm not knocking that it works, all I am saying is that it's a very comical solution to deploy by the "best" air force in the World.

 

[dhowie]

haha, now we know at least one of those is playing Call of Duty :]

 

[captaincharisma]

[citation][nom]Choujij[/nom]Can you imagine if they used Xbox 360s instead? That would be an awful lot of RRoD![/citation]

they would lose one per hour if it was in a setup like that

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).

umm no the reason was no one was really taking advantage of it. because Linux is one of the least used OS'es for a home PC out there and anyone who had a ps3 that was interested in Linux already had a PC with it on it so why would they bother?

 

[reichscythe]

[citation][nom]warmon6[/nom]well do you have an 8 core cpu? i guess not. Now yes, 1 of the core of a ps3 is disabled in-case another core fails although there still 7 cores compared to an core i7 8 threads and 4 cores. 7 cores will beat 8 threads.For what there needing it for, they need more cpu power than gpu. which makes scene why they went for a PS3 cluster than a sever farm.[/citation]

the 7 Cell SPEs are not "cores" in the same sense as the Cell's PPE... the SPEs are more like "Shaders" on a graphics card...


[citation][nom]Honis[/nom]Forgot sources😛S3 #s: http/ps3.ign.com/articles/614/614682p1.htmli7 965 #: http/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FLOPS[/citation]

Not arguing against the fact that the PS3 is a solid, powerful piece of tech for $299, but I've NEVER bought that 2 TFlops figure: the RSX is a glorified, GeForce 7800 GTX... everyone knows the first TeraFlop graphics chip was ATi's 4850, so I dunno where Sony was pulling that theoretical performance number from...

I reckon the whole system hovers around a 560 GFlops... tops... The only HONEST number you can give is the 210 GFlops for the Cell with 1 PPE and 7 SPEs on full blast. The posted RSX numbers are absolute crap, especially considering the G70, on which the RSX is based, has a max theoretical peak performance somewhere in the mid 200 GFlops range... I'm willing to throw a bone to the RSX and give it 350 GFlops... (extending Sony & nVidia benefit of the doubt for potentially optimizing the GPU, possibly squeezing out another 50-100 GFlops...highly unlikely, but I'm willing to make that concession)

 

[warmon6]

[citation][nom]TripGun[/nom]They are using them to render images, so they are not really utilizing the cell processor as much as the Nvidia NV70 chip that in the computer world is know as the most powerful graphics card ever invented (BS, lol).[/citation]

you know that not all the rendering done by gpu? In fact most of the rendering is done by the cpu.

Also is this "video processing, and building computers with brain-like properties" part of rendering images? Doesn't sound like there "just rendering" images.

 

[obsidian86]

[citation][nom]captaincharisma[/nom]they would lose one per hour if it was in a setup like [/citation]that will be a lot of RROD and a slap to microsoft as if using linux aint enough of a slap

 

[warmon6]

[citation][nom]reichscythe[/nom]the 7 Cell SPEs are not "cores" in the same sense as the Cell's PPE... the SPEs are more like "Shaders" on a graphics card...[/citation]

You are right about that. haven't look at the PPE and SPE in while.

 

[SuckRaven]

What if they used 360 PS3's. Oh the irony.

 

[fatedtodie]

The main thing is that while other things can "process better" they cannot process better $$$ for $$$. The ps3 is very powerful in a power per $$ scale. They WANTED a real farm, they were able to AFFORD a ps3 farm for less than 1/10th the price. Which would you rather have? another Roadrunner? or maybe they spend less than 14 bazillion dollars and use this sort of setup.

 

[Guest]

its not hot in them rooms, special air conditioning systems are dam high dollar in all the server rooms and stuff like that, keeping it nice and chilly always

 

[djsample]

The cell processor is a shame especially considering that the ones in the PS3 actually have an SPE disabled and another locked out for special functions and security. The PPE in the CELL processor is more akin a conventional CPu although for out of order code it will fall flat compared to even a low range CPU. The CELL processor was designed for specially written code with small to no branch predicting. Sure it has a large theoretical perfomance figure but thats only for in order code doign the same thingover and over again, Give it anything complex and it'll stumble and fall, The SPE's like someone quoted are merely like pixel shaders, they dont do much, the PPE takes the brunt work and passes it on to the SPE's. So 336 ps3 render farm = fail.

 

[Micropat]

You people are all overlooking the most important issue here:
The black and yellow barrier on the floor. No one will dare mess with that stuff!!

 

[lejay]

[citation][nom]ssalim[/nom]God damn it! Will you (all of you) stop doing this childish shit?[/citation]
Maybe if you stopped commenting on it.

 

[joebob2000]

[citation][nom]gmcboot[/nom]I so agree. People are still under the false impression that the Cell Processor is the most advance piece of silicon on the planet. It never was and never would be. It has it purpose, it strengths and weaknesses. The CELL IS NOT a super computer. That marketing hype. Stop looking at raw calc numbers as the sole benchmark for CPU power. If the Cell was then every sever on the planet would be running it under Linux or Unix variation. The cost of the cell processor would be little to nothing if it provides 2, 3, 10 time the performance so many people want to believe. Secondarily the FLOPs quote from Honis above is actual the GPU score, not the Cell Processor. I own a PS3 and a 360, both are wonderful game machines, but neither is a world class super computer. If PS3 is so powerful, then when the military puts this rig together it should blow ever other supercomputer on the planet away. Lets see if that happens.[/citation]

The cell isn't that advanced? What a shame, better tell six of the top500 list members, including the second most powerful supercomputer on the planet, that the cell chips in their computers are 'marketing hype'. Never mind the benchmarks, they bought a glorified game console! You said so, and you have to be right!

 

[brockh]

A single HD 5870 has around 1.2 Teraflops; the PS3 really isn't that impressive. Dare I say you might even be able to buy HD 5870s in bulk cheaper than PS3s, not to mention what it'd save on power and heat.

 

[mlopinto2k1]

[citation][nom]TripGun[/nom]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.[/citation]Yes, they are using the older ones. In an article on Tom's a little while back they discussed that they were purchasing 2,200 of the old ones.

 

[gmcboot]

[citation][nom]warmon6[/nom]you know that not all the rendering done by gpu? In fact most of the rendering is done by the cpu.Also is this "video processing, and building computers with brain-like properties" part of rendering images? Doesn't sound like there "just rendering" images.[/citation]

Brain like properties... PLEASE! Some 22 year old kids said that to his managing officer and that officer ran with it.

 

[reichscythe]

[citation][nom]joebob2000[/nom]The cell isn't that advanced? What a shame, better tell six of the top500 list members, including the second most powerful supercomputer on the planet, that the cell chips in their computers are 'marketing hype'. Never mind the benchmarks, they bought a glorified game console! You said so, and you have to be right![/citation]

I think you're missing gmcboot's point, he's not saying that super-computers that use the CELL are not powerful, he's just saying that the truth behind CELL performance/ability is often obscured in the haze of PS3 marketing hype and completely lost on fankids who post things like, "THE CELL IS THE MOST POWERFUL PROCESSOR EVER IN THE MULTIVERSE!!1!!" in forums across the internet.

And, since you bring it up, the "second most powerful supercomputer on the planet" also relies on AMD's Opteron technology and the #1 supercomputer on the planet is a full AMD rig that doesn't use CELL chips at all...

 

[bk420]

no wonder Sony stopped selling these.

 

[reichscythe]

[citation][nom]brockh[/nom]A single HD 5870 has around 1.2 Teraflops; the PS3 really isn't that impressive. Dare I say you might even be able to buy HD 5870s in bulk cheaper than PS3s, not to mention what it'd save on power and heat.[/citation]

Actually, a single 4870 will get you 1.2 TFlops... a single 5870 is theoretically worth 2.72 TFlops