US Air Force Buys 2,000 PS3s To Build Supercomputer

[Dynasty]

Do we laugh or cry histerically with laughter?

The United States Air Force Research Laboratory has ordered 2,000 PlayStation 3s, with the intention of creating a supercomputer by harnessing the processing power of the collective group.

The $2 million project will also utilize an "off-the-shelf" graphics processor to create a supercomputer "nearly 100,000 times faster than high-end computer processors sold today," according to Stars and Stripes.

According to military news site Stars and Stripes, a U.S. Air Force research facility in Rome, N.Y. plans to link 2,000 of Sony's machines in order to form a bargain-bin supercomputer.

Called the 500 TeraFLOPS Heterogeneous Cluster, the massive collection of PS3s will be used to process everything from synthetic-aperture radar images to programs designed to mimic the human mind's ability to recognize pictures.

Dr. Richard Linderman, senior scientist for Advanced Computing Architectures at the Rome facility, explains: "With Neuromorphic Computing, as an example, we will broadcast an image to all PS3s and ask if it matches an image it has in its hard drive."

"Humans can routinely do these things, but a computer struggles to do it," added the lab's high performance computing director Mark Barnell. "In a general sense, we are interested in making it autonomous."

The Air Force researchers opted to use PS3s for their studies because of the console's low price-to-performance ratio, as well as the system's relatively small power consumption rate. The cell processor's ability to easily work in tandem with other cells also played an important part in the researchers' decision.

http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3177781

Should help Sony close the gap in the console sales war...

Wonder if they had to 'hack' the systems first, leaving Sony chomping at the bit to ban all those PSN IDs.

 

[ríomhaire]

Wow. If Sony make a loss on every PS3 sale how much did this cost them?

 

[Darkside55]

US military supercomputer has

Spoiler

no games

 

[Vegeta897]

Should help Sony close the gap in the console sales war....

Someone needs to do their research...

 

[No Limit]

Well that seems like a giant waste of tax payer money. How great is the processor in a PS3? Seems like putting together standard computer processors wouldn't have only been faster but also much cheaper.

 

[No Limit]

Someone needs to do their research...

Yes, someone does.

 

[Krynn72]

Wow. If Sony make a loss on every PS3 sale how much did this cost them?

Around $70,000. HA. And its even worse because the military wont be buying any games to make up for it.

Spoiler

Because PS3 has no games

 

[Vegeta897]

I was talking about Japan obviously.

Who else matters?

PS3 outsold 360 last christmas in US anyway. As far as I'm concerned, PS3 has already caught up to the 360, even if TOTAL SALES EVER aren't caught up.

Also you're not gonna get a pizza roll, got it?

 

[Warped]

this is retarded, the PS3 is all ready outdated imo. I'm sure there are much cheaper ways to do this

 

[No Limit]

I was talking about Japan obviously.

Ohhhhhhh ok.

 

[Vegeta897]

/sends No Limit a pizza roll.

GOOD BOY

Now buy more PS3s.

 

[Remus]

So I guess they couldn't just buy a ready made supercomputer made by professionals, they had to get a truckload of consoles, and have a makeshift "supercomputer".

 

[Raziaar]

US military supercomputer has

Spoiler

no games

Oh god lol I was waiting for this... glad it was you who posted it.

 

[Sulkdodds]

Isn't this the plot of Darwinia? Maybe inside these networked playstations an entire civilisaton of tiny green fractal men will organically develop, an artificial lifeform tenaciously thriving in a weird, collage landscape cobbled together from the bleeping fragments of ancient programs and the broken remnants of old games. Except that'll never happen, because the PS3 has

Spoiler

no games

 

[Vegeta897]

It was apparently cheaper, Remus.

Don't you think that's the first thing they would have considered?

"We need a super computer to do some testing"

"Ok, let's buy one"

"Ok here's the price. But wait, if we buy 2000 PS3s and make our own, the cost/power ratio is much better."

The Air Force researchers opted to use PS3s for their studies because of the console's low price-to-performance ratio, as well as the system's relatively small power consumption rate. The cell processor's ability to easily work in tandem with other cells also played an important part in the researchers' decision.

I seriously doubt they would have gone with this odd makeshift option if it wasn't a better choice, cost-wise.

 

[Darkside55]

I seriously doubt they would have gone with this odd makeshift option if it wasn't a better choice, cost-wise.

They've really just got 2,000 copies of Talladega Nights on blu-ray they want to watch simultaneously.

 

[Warped]

or they are going to watch 2,000 copies of Backdoor Sluts 9 to watch in tandem streaming in glorious HD

 

[Remus]

It was apparently cheaper, Remus.

Don't you think that's the first thing they would have considered?

"We need a super computer to do some testing"

"Ok, let's buy one"

"Ok here's the price. But wait, if we buy 2000 PS3s and make our own, the cost/power ratio is much better."

I seriously doubt they would have gone with this odd makeshift option if it wasn't a better choice, cost-wise.

The US military worried about cost...





...

 

[Raziaar]

In actuality, these PS3's were purchased as explosive ordnance, after a grave miscommunication that they seriously bombed.




/TERRIBLE joke.

 

[Dynasty]

Raz, I'll get your coat...

Didnt realise PS3s outsold the 360 at xmas. Slim doesnt make it surprising though.

Isnt the PS3 losing OVERALL though? I mean hell, we need to wait a few decades for the PS3 to overtake the Wii.

 

[Gunner]

I remember reading a long time ago that some consoles with certain processors were banned from being exported/sold to some countries like North Korea because of exactly this scenario, you can use them to create a supercomputer for whatever purposes, ballistics calculations and whatnot.

So I'm guessing the reason they're doing this, is to figure out exactly what you can do with the consoles and how far you can push them.

 

[Raziaar]

Raz, I'll get your coat...

Didnt realise PS3s outsold the 360 at xmas. Slim doesnt make it surprising though.

Isnt the PS3 losing OVERALL though? I mean hell, we need to wait a few decades for the PS3 to overtake the Wii.

I was slipping it on before I even clicked submit. :dork:

 

[Acepilotf14]

The hell does the Air Force need a supercomputer for? To power their chairs?

 

[Mellish]

Didn't Saddam Hussein do this with PS2's ages ago?

 

[ríomhaire]

Didn't Saddam Hussein do this with PS2's ages ago?

Yes I remember hearing this story from my brother actually.

 

[Dynasty]

Yes I remember hearing this story from my brother actually.

Connnnnnnfirmed?

Talk about spoiler alert.

 

[Vegeta897]

Isnt the PS3 losing OVERALL though? I mean hell, we need to wait a few decades for the PS3 to overtake the Wii.

If you look at the site No Limit posted, it's losing overall, but not in Japan.

 

[Emporius]

No doubt Sony payed them to do this.

 

[Shyam]

If you look at the site No Limit posted, it's losing overall, but not in Japan.

America is the only that matters. But it seems PS3 has caught up there too.

 

[No Limit]

It was apparently cheaper, Remus.

Don't you think that's the first thing they would have considered?

"We need a super computer to do some testing"

"Ok, let's buy one"

"Ok here's the price. But wait, if we buy 2000 PS3s and make our own, the cost/power ratio is much better."



I seriously doubt they would have gone with this odd makeshift option if it wasn't a better choice, cost-wise.

I just have a hard time believing this. Honestly I think a few researchers at the air force were sitting around with nothing to do and one of them said "hey bro! I got a great ****ing idea, lets put a bunch of playstations together because we have nothing better to do". From my fairly decent experiance with dealing with national funded research labs I am very serious when I say I think that's exactly how it happened.

If what they are saying is true, that the PS3 processor is great for these types of applications, then they wouldn't be the first ones to be doing it. These types of applications are found all around the world virtually in every single research lab. There are thousands of research labs. Each research lab can have thousands, or even hundreds of thousands, of computers to do this type of analysis. If PS3s were the way to go it would be going on everywhere.

 

[Maestro]

Have you seen the cost for a supercomputer equivalent to that many PS3s? I'd like to here a little more than just your postulations on whether or not it's cost-effective.

 

[Raziaar]

Just buy Pixar's render farms.

 

[Asus]

A lot of supercomputers do use off the shelf chips, like AMD's Opteron, because they are easily upgradable. The supercomputer 9th on the list is made up of 15,744 quad core chips. The got $59 million to build it. $2 million for 2000 PS3s seems like a good deal just on $/computer or per core. But the actual use of the Cell CPU is not as good as that $/computer figure makes it seem and more limiting considering the type of calculations it excels with.

$2 million is probably not enough to build something substantial. Wonder if they have enough thought put into it or will they have to replace the PS3s to expand. That supercomputer I mentioned above was able to upgrade to faster Opterons to go from 504 teraflops to 580.

 

[sinkoman]

Didn't Saddam Hussein do this with PS2's ages ago?

I read about this happening with PS2s in a PSM back when I was like 11 and religiously read EGM and PSM. Don't remember the country though.

 

[Bad^Hat]

Wow. If Sony make a loss on every PS3 sale how much did this cost them?

They're still selling them at a loss? I thought the cost of parts would've lowered by now.

Also you're not gonna get a pizza roll, got it?

Email me if you want a pizza roll.

Leave a comment if you want a pizza roll.

 

[Rico]

Air Force Researchers? Cost effective?

I bet they're going to be hugely disappointed when they find out the Cell processor has its own unique architecture. Someone at the Cost-effective-Air-Force-Researcher Taskforce probably forgot to account for the amount of money it costs to have people waste their time learning some new CPU's architecture, and then optimizing for it.

PS: When should I expect my pizza roll in the mail? Will it still be warm when it gets here?

 

[swan_song1973]

you gotta be shitting me.

 

[The Monkey]

Have you seen the cost for a supercomputer equivalent to that many PS3s? I'd like to here a little more than just your postulations on whether or not it's cost-effective.

Still, it has to be cheaper to get the part separately, rather than to buy the whole package.

 

[Sledgehammer]

If what they are saying is true, that the PS3 processor is great for these types of applications, then they wouldn't be the first ones to be doing it.

They aren't. First to do it on this large a scale though.