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Engineer Creates First Academic Playstation 3 Computing Cluster

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Using eight Sony Playstation 3 units Dr. Frank Mueller built a supercomputing ... The Sony Playstation 3 Xbox and Nintendo Wii have captivated a ...

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Engineer Creates First Academic Playstation 3 Computing ClusterPage 1Engineer Creates First Academic Playstation3 Computing ClusterUsing eight Sony Playstation 3 units Dr. Frank Mueller built a supercomputingcluster capable of highperformance computing and running the latest in computergaming. Credit: NC State UniversityThe Sony Playstation 3 Xbox and Nintendo Wii have captivated a generation of computer gamerswith bold graphics and rapidfire animation. But these hightech toys can do a lot more than just playgames. At North Carolina State University Dr. Frank Mueller imagined using the power of the newPS3 to create a highpowered computing environment for a fraction of the cost of thesupercomputers on the market. Mueller an associate professor of computer science has built a supercomputing cluster capable of bothhighperformance computing and running the latest in computer gaming. His cluster of eight PS3 machines the first such academic cluster in the world packs the power of a small supercomputer but at a total costof about $5000 it costs less than some desktop computers that have only a fraction of the computingpower.Clusters are not new to the computing world Mueller says. Google the stock market automotive designcompanies and scientists use clusters but this is the first academic computing cluster built from Playstation3s.Scientific computing is just number crunching which the PS3s are very good at given the Cell processorand deploying them in a cluster Mueller says. Right now one limitation is the 512 megabyte RAMmemory constraint but it might be possible to retrofit more RAM. We just havent cracked the case andexplored that option yet. Another problem lies in limited speed for doubleprecision calculations requiredby scientific applications but announcements for the nextgeneration Cell processor address this issue.In the computing world there is a list of the top 500 fastest computers Mueller says. Currently the fastestis BlueGene/L a supercomputer with more t ...

Source: www.physorg.com

 

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