Sony Playstation Supercomputing (from NYT)
NYT story From PlayStation to Supercomputer for $50,000
Mike Showerman, top, and Craig Steffen of the National Center for Supercomputing Applications,
with a computer made of PlayStation 2's.
excerpt :
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so it's not an XServe rack running Pooch or Wolf clustering software, but it's nice to see another attempt to supersize computing performance out of commercially available gear.
somehow I don't think we'll wait long to see an Xbox-cluster, but it'll probably cheaper to build, given MS is taking a $150 loss on every piece of hardware, and less robust, given MS OS. (note the Playstation Supercomputer is running Linux.)
duelling clusters, anyone?
and I really hope the front-end interface doesn't use PS controllers
Mike Showerman, top, and Craig Steffen of the National Center for Supercomputing Applications, with a computer made of PlayStation 2's.
excerpt :
Quote:
By JOHN MARKOFF
As perhaps the clearest evidence yet of the computing power of sophisticated but inexpensive video-game consoles, the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has assembled a supercomputer from an army of Sony PlayStation 2's.
The resulting system, with components purchased at retail prices, cost a little more than $50,000. The center's researchers believe the system may be capable of a half trillion operations a second, well within the definition of supercomputer, although it may not rank among the world's 500 fastest supercomputers.
Perhaps the most striking aspect of the project, which uses the open source Linux operating system, is that the only hardware engineering involved was placing 70 of the individual game machines in a rack and plugging them together with a high-speed Hewlett-Packard network switch. The center's scientists bought 100 machines, but are holding 30 in reserve, possibly for high-resolution display application.
By JOHN MARKOFF
As perhaps the clearest evidence yet of the computing power of sophisticated but inexpensive video-game consoles, the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has assembled a supercomputer from an army of Sony PlayStation 2's.
The resulting system, with components purchased at retail prices, cost a little more than $50,000. The center's researchers believe the system may be capable of a half trillion operations a second, well within the definition of supercomputer, although it may not rank among the world's 500 fastest supercomputers.
Perhaps the most striking aspect of the project, which uses the open source Linux operating system, is that the only hardware engineering involved was placing 70 of the individual game machines in a rack and plugging them together with a high-speed Hewlett-Packard network switch. The center's scientists bought 100 machines, but are holding 30 in reserve, possibly for high-resolution display application.
if registration required, use User: aimember Pass: aimember
so it's not an XServe rack running Pooch or Wolf clustering software, but it's nice to see another attempt to supersize computing performance out of commercially available gear.
somehow I don't think we'll wait long to see an Xbox-cluster, but it'll probably cheaper to build, given MS is taking a $150 loss on every piece of hardware, and less robust, given MS OS. (note the Playstation Supercomputer is running Linux.)
duelling clusters, anyone?
and I really hope the front-end interface doesn't use PS controllers
Comments
EDIT: Actually, I heard this before Sept. 11th, so it must have been 2000.
PS2 is a very specialized computer for video games. His chip his fast but very specialized. I doubt that this solution can beat real big computers. It looks for me, more like an experiment than a really good industrial product.
but in busting CRAY's chops a little further, it does support the distributed model of inexpensive, 'standard' gear ganged together, rather than a single monstrous costly 'supercomputer'
points for that, at least.
but i'd still rather see what an octo-970 could do in a single box
Originally posted by curiousuburb
it appears more a "proof of concept" than a practical cruncher (doesn't even make the top 500, although some XServe Clusters do.
but in busting CRAY's chops a little further, it does support the distributed model of inexpensive, 'standard' gear ganged together, rather than a single monstrous costly 'supercomputer'
points for that, at least.
but i'd still rather see what an octo-970 could do in a single box
The problem with the Gflop benchmarking is that, it does not show real performance with real applications (and not just with SETI or fractal demos).
If it was the case, nobody will buy anymore supercomuter, but just big cluster monsters.
-robo
now where did i put my redhat cd's