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Eight PlayStation 3 units replace supercomputer for space research

Posted Oct 17, 2007 at 7:03AM EST by QJ Staff

Listed in: PS3 Tags: IBM, Linux, Sony

Moving beyond being a more-than-capable multimedia player, Sony's PlayStation 3 has proven itself to be very useful even in the field of science. Eight PS3s clustered together are helping scientist Dr. Gaurav Khanna investigate the gravity waves that are supposed to emerge once a massive black hole swallows up a star.

Khanna said that the PS3 was an ideal tool for his research due to the fact that it can run Linux, and that its powerful Cell processor - which is also used by IBM's fastest supercomputer Blue Gene/P - is more than capable of doing the computations needed to solve the mystery of the gravity waves.

Prior to getting eight PS3 units, Khanna was used supposed to get a supercomputer. But since a supercomputer cost US$ 5,000 in grant money, the scientist figured that he can save more by buying eight 60GB PS3 units (worth US$3,200) and clustering them together, calling them his "gravity grid".

Khanna was able to petition Sony to grant him the PS3 units, which were given to him free of charge. "Once I was able to get to the point that I had this kind of performance from a single PS3, I think that's when Sony started paying attention," Khanna said.

So how are the PS3 units - the gravity grid - faring in his research? "I don't have to use that supercomputer anymore, which is a good thing," he said. It tells a lot on how powerful the PS3 can get.

Via PS3 Gravity Grid

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This may account for the 180% increase in ps3 sales, lol. not really since they were free, but the actual article is quite neat. It states that the guy got just 1 ps3 to run better than the best desktops or 25 nodes of IBM's blue gene supercomputer (how many nodes is in the whole thing i wonder?) but now his 8 linked together are cutting the time down on the calculations by 5 to 6 times. Pretty neat, now if only devs could figure out how to cut load times by a factor of 5 to 6 :)

# awesome — Jasper1605 2007-10-17 09:36

# haha — gtauk 2007-10-17 10:43

lool

# I love my PS3 — TerrakaAiona 2007-10-17 11:35

yay, more uses for the PS3!! PS3's are simply amazing, and here again is the proof! =D

# LOL but... — .A.J. 2007-10-17 11:40

you're giving Sony too much credit. This is $ony we're talking about. They sent him 20 gig models not 60 gig models ( http://gravity.phy.umassd.edu/boxes.jpg ). They may be giving but not THAT giving.

# I'm telling ya.... — RexNox 2007-10-17 12:13

PSN is going to change its name to Skynet.

# that guy is a badass — spicyhamster 2007-10-17 13:19

@.A.J.--they gave him what he needed. the extra hdd space has no effect on how well the thing runs

anyway, that guy is pretty freakin awesome. hes like SOOPACOMPYOOTA? NO MAN I GOTSTA GET SOM PSTRIPLES! lmao

# haha — spicyhamster 2007-10-17 13:21

you realize that SkyNet is the name of the antagonist in Terminator, right? or was that your intention? i just confused myself. damn.

# @ gtauk — TheRaiderNation 2007-10-17 14:07

No, maybe a couple 20gigs, but if you look, some have the silver lining, and only the 60gbs have the sliver lining.

# now do you see the... — weirdpeople 2007-10-17 17:07

now do you see the xbox 360 doing this this shows how much better the ps3 is than the xbox 360 or shall we call it the Fartbox 360

# Please... — Unregistered Gamer 2007-10-17 22:45

The CPU of the PS3 (Cell) is capable of around twice the floating-point performance of the CPU (Xenon) in the 360, and just as important, under Linux you have access to Cell on the PS3 for such uses, whereas you have no access to the CPU on the 360 other than for games (it is a games console afterall ;)).

So enough of the fanboy comments please. :)

# Lie — HitDyl 2007-10-18 02:24

Its def a lie

PS3 cant ever replace a Super PC

# it's on Wired. — Jx1 2007-10-18 03:01

Check the Wired website.

it's no lie. ¬¬

http://feeds.wired.com/~r/wired/topheadlines/~3/170958988/ps3_supercomputer

# heh who cares — Kingofdaberbz 2007-10-18 06:35

this means nothing when Sony start coming out with sum games I'll b interested If i wanted a science lesson I'd go 2 the science center I just want my ps3 4 games

# wtf? — fiberwire 2007-10-18 09:38

what linux distro lets you use all of the Cell's SPEs?

# lmao — Mr Toasty 2007-10-18 12:28

you just killed the joke, which ironically makes it funnier to me.

# i know that.. — Mr Toasty 2007-10-18 12:30

YDL lets you use 6 of the SPEs

# from the pic of boxes... — Shatterdome 2007-10-18 12:57

looks like they gave him a mix of 20's and 60's...

# Really... — Shatterdome 2007-10-18 13:03

it's because of linux AND that it is ridiculously cheap compared to PC's of the same performance....otherwise scientists would have no access to cell and would have to buy IBM's version of cell, or some other supercomputer.

Also any idiot has known that PS3 dominates 360 at in-order math calculations, which is why all these scientific simulation programs are using PS3....however GAMES are made up of maybe 10-20% straight in-order mathematical code....so what about the rest ? it's not so great as we can see by the problems devs have had and the fact the games are still nothing special...

# well, this isn't about that.... — TerrakaAiona 2007-10-18 17:17

No, this DOES mean alot.... it might not mean anything to you, but this contributes alot to the scientific community and, in whole, the world...

And I don't see a problem having your console being a worthy tool of science.... at least it has some use instead of giving you a friggin red-ring-of-death all the time...

# Please — KnowLedge 2007-10-18 18:43

"but this contributes alot to the scientific community and, in whole, the world..."

There's no need to exaggerate. :)

It's good it's being used this way, but it's a drop in an unimaginably large ocean.

# lol — TerrakaAiona 2007-10-19 01:24

ha, true maybe I did exaggerate a bit. XD But I truly still think its a good usage. lol. Besides, you can't have a pool without having those first couple of drops +P

# Since when did Sony make games? — na2rul 2007-10-19 05:09

Moan at the devs dammit.(sony are supportin them)

# best excuse. lucky guy — na2rul 2007-10-19 05:10

bet he start sneeking 1 out soon. (cant blame him)

# wow — Gzinc 2007-10-20 04:22

wow,who knew?

# RE: Eight PlayStation 3 units replace supercomputer for space research — Guest 2010-04-01 16:50

Looks Like this will stop working today!

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