PS3 Client

[SiriusB]

Okay, I have just spent the last half hour looking for info on Stanford about the PS3 client but there isn't much about...

Basically I wanna know if the PS3 client will be using all or just part of the Cell processor? If all of the processor then how to Stanford plan to manage the points, as Stanford leads me to believe that the PS3 would have the output of a supercomputer :|

SiriusB

 

[rich99million]

nobody knows anything for sure yet

other than the FAQ here and the brief discussion on the forums here there's no real information available at the moment

It still wouldn't surprise me if the utilisation of the Cell was severely restricted to keep the chance of the the PS3 failing within its warranty period to a minimum

 

[SiriusB]

Not a great deal of info there, but thanks anyway

I am just curious you see as they have made out it will have the power of a super computer... meaning points-wise they would have to keep it in the same ballpark as the rest of the clients.

A supercomputer in a 400 quid box... will take a bit of thought to make it fair!

SiriusB

 

[sculptor]

Perhaps it would be a case for a seperate league for PS3 folding, after all it will be a different client working on different WUs (as is the case with GPU folding). If its performance is far in excess of a PC or a Mac it wouldnt be realistic to have it in the current points league.
Atleast with GPU folding, the GPU needs a CPU to gain its maximum performance and its all achieved in the boundry of a PC or Mac.
Just my tupence worth but I think it would be fair that way.
Tom

 

[SiriusB]

Yeah I was thinking about a different league, but the problem with that is for the vast majority of PS3 crunchers the points difference is only down to how long you have been folding.

I mean how many people are likely to buy PS3 farms? At least a PC is useful even if you only originally bought it as a dedicated cruncher. Not much you can do with 10 PS3s that you can't do with just the one

SiriusB

 

[Stan_Lite]

Not much you can do with 10 PS3s that you can't do with just the one

SiriusB

Same could be said for PC farms.

I have 10 PCs and 2 laptops folding at the moment but I only use 2 PCs regularly (1 for gaming and 1 for general work/surfing) and 2 occasionally (bedroom equivalents of the 2 mentioned) and 1 laptop regularly - the other 6 PCs and the other laptop are run for no other reason than Folding@Home. Not much point to them - but I enjoy it (most of them are high end rigs too ).

Stan

 

[joeyjojo]

Stan your 24 hour average is amazing. 3rd in the team, not far behind Mr Sculptor, who I expect has many more pcs. Quality over quantity

 

[SiriusB]

Same could be said for PC farms.

I have 10 PCs and 2 laptops folding at the moment but I only use 2 PCs regularly (1 for gaming and 1 for general work/surfing) and 2 occasionally (bedroom equivalents of the 2 mentioned) and 1 laptop regularly - the other 6 PCs and the other laptop are run for no other reason than Folding@Home. Not much point to them - but I enjoy it (most of them are high end rigs too ).

Stan

ahh yes, but if you wanted you could use those same PCs for a rendering farm [if you ever got into that lol] or perhaps you could set some up as Internet or email servers etc etc etc...

Basically what I am saying is a PC has many uses while it folding.... and you can also sell it quite easily and probably get a good return. PS3 will be worth half its value in less than a year of being released!

SiriusB

 

[KE1HA]

To get the output they are speaking of, they would have to be using multiple cores within the Cell, unless the code is extrememly effecient, much more so than the GPU core code.

The PS3' are due for launch, at least from what I remember, in November here in the states. At $450 - $500 per unit, I would stop building High-End rigs for folding. My last Rig was about 3K all in. I could have bought 6 PS3's for that. I will definately be getting a PS3 when they deploy jsut to get F@H running on it. I have a High-End Gamming Rig and an XBOX 360, so I'm not short of game hardware. That puts the PS3 on the shelf strictly for F@H.

I wonder when the Cell processor will hit the market for PC's? I read an article from IBM, that they are building a Hybrid cluster, 16,000 Cell cores and 16000 PC processors. The 32,000 cluster will, without a doubt, will surpass BuleGene with 131,072 processors in, which is the worlds most power supercomputer.

Cray better get onboard or get out of the business
.