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squee666 · 28/02/2008 04:54 AM

Quote:When most of us arrived home with our recently purchased PS3, wee couldn't wait to start annihilating aliens in Resistance: Fall of Man or kicking butt kung fudge you-style in Virtua Fighter 5. Not astrophysicist Gaurav Khanna - he used his to build a supercomputer.

Khanna now owns a total of 16 PS3 consoles, all linked together to provide the same computing power as a 400-node supercomputer. His set up, which he calls a 'gravity grid', is used to simulate the activity of very large black holes for the Physics Department at the University of Massachusetts.

[Image: rack_mounted_ps3_supercomputer.jpg]

Stacked Sonies: the 'gravity grid' set up

Quote:The project is an attempt to estimate the properties of gravity waves generated by the collision 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.

In order to run his simulation data on the consoles, Khanna had to load the PS3s with Linux. What makes the gaming console more effective than high-end computers for complex research algorithms is the Cell chip built by IBM to process high-end gaming functions.

Linux powered

Quote:"Linux can turn any system into a general-purpose computer, but for it to work for me I have to run my own code on it for astrophysics applications. The hard part of the job was to make sure my own calculations could run fast on the platform, which meant I had to optimise the written code so it could utilise the new features of the system."
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The 16 PS3s haven't been physically modified. They're networked together using an inexpensive Gigabit Ethernet switch.

"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," Khanna noted.

More details from Khanna's project site here.

lol ps3 supercomputers smart idea

boogschd · 28/02/2008 05:09 AM

wow... 16 .. before he only had 8 ps3's :D

NIGathan · 28/02/2008 05:10 AM

damn that's crazy, who would have thought someone could use PS3's to study black holes??

hibbyware · 28/02/2008 05:13 AM

Results from ℋiЬЬyℬot™ - "better than Google"

That's cool as fudge,

It would take 116+ PS3's to be able to study this void AKA EP,

Ge64 · 28/02/2008 05:39 AM

Ive seen something like this ages ago. It's an awesome idea heh, Ill have to do something similar some time with normal pcs :P meh.

Ge64 · 28/02/2008 05:40 AM

Now crackers can get supercomputer power for relatively cheap too :D

PSPkiller · 28/02/2008 08:47 AM

people who think the ps3 is expensive should have thier arms torn out and then be beaten around the head with the bloody ends. because, when you look at the specs, it's faster than the average computer, way faster. so when you think about it, this guy's getting an insane amount of processing power super-cheap!

hibbyware · 28/02/2008 08:55 AM

Results from ℋiЬЬyℬot™ - "better than Google"

Is it just me or is it 8 PS3's and not 16 ?

-edit-

I guess that's an old photo,

beaner2k6 · 28/02/2008 09:50 AM

Ge64 Wrote:Ive seen something like this ages ago. It's an awesome idea heh, Ill have to do something similar some time with normal pcs :P meh.

yeah me too, you got to give it to this guy though thas an awesome setup, i want to know how it goes studying them black holes

ZiNgA BuRgA · 28/02/2008 06:44 PM

Ge64 Wrote:Now crackers can get supercomputer power for relatively cheap too :D

Hahaha, but it's still unlikely to be enough power to crack current 128bit encryption standards :P

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