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Do you know what is Sony Playstation 3 (PS3)? Did you believe that there’s a supercomputer has been built from Sony Playstation 3? If you still doesn’t know anything about it yet, here’s the story. From the lab of University of Massachusetts, there’s ongoing a research projects of their group that involve supercomputing in Physics. This project broadly deals with estimating properties of the gravity waves produced by the merger of two black holes. Gravitational waves are “ripples” in space-time that travel at the speed of light. These were theoretically predicted by Einstein’s general relativity, but have never been directly observed.
Do you know why Sony Playstation 3 has been part of the research? Actually, the Sony PlayStation 3 has a number of unique features that make it particularly suited for scientific computation. To start with, the Sony Playstation 3 (PS3) is an open platform, which essentially means that one can run a different system software on it, for example, PowerPC Linux. Next, it has a revolutionary processor called the Cell processor which was developed by Sony, IBM and Toshiba. This processor has a main CPU, called the PPU and several (six for the PS3) special compute engines, called SPUs available for raw computation. Moreover, each SPU performs vector operations, which implies that it can compute on multiple data, in a single step. Finally, its incredibly low cost makes it very attractive as a scientific computing node, that is part of a cluster. In fact, its highly plausible that the raw computing power per dollar that the Sony Playstation 3 (PS3) offers, is significantly higher than anything else on the market today!
Thanks to a very kind and generous, partial donation by Sony, they now have a sixteen PS3 cluster in their department, which they call PS3 Gravity Grid. Mr Khanna (astrophysicist) now owns 16 Sony Playstation 3 (PS3s), which spend their days simulating the activities of very large black holes in the universe for the physics department at the University of Massachusetts.
They are using “stock” PS3s for this cluster, with no hardware modifications. The Sony Playstation 3 (PS3s) are networked together using an inexpensive netgear gigabit switch. For Linux installation, there are several guides available on the internet. For YDL Linux, consider using the guide by Terrasoft Solutions
In Overall, a single PS3 performs better than the highest-end desktops available and compares to as many as 25 nodes of an IBM Blue Gene supercomputer. And there is still tremendous scope left for extracting more performance through further optimization.
Based on Einstein’s theory of relativity, Mr Khanna’s research on black holes is purely theoretical. In order to run his simulation data on the console he has to reprogram it so the algorithms will work on the new computing architecture. His next challenge will be to turn his data into graphical simulations using the high end graphics engine included in the Playstation 3 (PS3). So far this is the best technology news that involving gaming console with a great tech reseach.
via TheAge.com.au and gravity.phy.umassd.edu
February 28th, 2008 at 7:57 pm
[…] Broadband TV News wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerpt Do you know what is Sony Playstation 3 (PS3)? Did you believe that there’s a supercomputer has been built from Sony Playstation 3? If you still doesn’t know anything about it yet, here’s the story. From the lab of University of Massachusetts, there’s ongoing a research projects of their group that involve supercomputing in Physics. This project broadly deals with estimating properties of the gravity waves produced by the merger of two black holes. Gravitational waves are “ripples” in space-ti […]
February 29th, 2008 at 3:34 am
Wooa! what’s that? Playstation3 is truly amazing! now supercomputer, then what?
February 29th, 2008 at 12:30 pm
Now you amazed huh! Sony is a big company right? I hope they can donate one unit of Sony Playstation 3 for me too.
Anyway, Sony Playstation 3 has been choosen for this project because of its abilities too, but of course they(Sony company) want to gain reputation & publicity as the additional profit. By the way, Sony Playstation 3 is my all time fav gaming console & i’m going to buy it for real!
March 2nd, 2008 at 1:37 am
Wow, I never think that they will make a research based on something that everybody is having fun with.
Hey dude, your website layout is very cool and I think i will come again
March 2nd, 2008 at 2:21 am
Yeah, most of people think that Sony PS3 is just another gaming console for advance gamers. But the truth is it’s more than that huh! Good luck Sony PS3!!!
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March 2nd, 2008 at 4:56 pm
i want a PS3!!! But must wait till the price drops
March 2nd, 2008 at 9:07 pm
We all loves Playstation! Especially PS3. I just like you, will wait till the price going down!
Long live gamers!
It’s rare to see a female gamers though…like you, great!
March 9th, 2008 at 2:27 pm
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