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US Air Force builds supercomputer using PlayStation 3s

Matthew Hopson
03 February 2010 - 10:56
85 Comments
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A US Air Force research team has built a supercomputer using just over 2,000 PlayStation 3 game consoles, according to military news site Stars and Stripes. Dubbed the 500 TeraFLOPS Heterogeneous Cluster it is almost 100,000 times faster than existing high-end processors.

Using off-the-shelf components, including the metal shelves containing the cluster, and running Linux, the system will be used for purposes such as high definition video image processing and Neuromorphic computing, which mimics the human nervous system.

Dr. Richard Linderman, the senior scientist for Advanced Computing Architectures, said that the main reason for choosing the console for their supercomputer was it's low price-to-performance ratio. "Supercomputers used to be unique with unique processors," he said. "By taking advantage of a growing market, the gaming market, we are bringing the price performance to just $2 to $3 per gigaFLOPS."

He added that power consumption was also a factor, with the completed system using between 300 to 320 kilowatts at full power. Most supercomputers require 5 megawatts.

However, Mark Barnell, the high performance computing director at the laboratory, added that this does not make the PlayStation 3 "the Holy Grail of supercomputers." As the way the consoles connect with each other is relatively slow compared to regular supercomputers, the system is limited as to what kinds of programs it can run.

The research group, which was awarded a $2 million dollar grant for the cluster, has yet to take full advantage of the system's performance. Upon completion, the team expects it to be capable of 500 teraFLOPS.

Playstation 3 supercomputer

Image source: Stars and Stripes

Comments (85)

  1. iamwhoiam - 03 February 2010 - 11:05

    As the way the consoles connect with each other is relatively slow compared to regular supercomputers, the system is limited as to what kinds of programs it can run.
    Not very practical then, imo.

  2. Matt Hardwick - 03 February 2010 - 13:23

    iamwhoiam said,
    Not very practical then, imo.

    Of course it's practical if it does what they want it to do then it's practical. Also many more expensive supercomputers use Gbit lan to communicate between nodes... this system is of no disadvantage to many many other systems.

  3. OnTheSub - 03 February 2010 - 15:16

    Matt Hardwick said,

    Of course it's practical if it does what they want it to do then it's practical. Also many more expensive supercomputers use Gbit lan to communicate between nodes... this system is of no disadvantage to many many other systems.

    If it does what they want it to do, it functions. That doesn't mean that it couldn't be done better, differently. And if it takes less funds and (more than likely) less energy to create something else that does the same thing, it's not practical.

  4. +Shadrack - 03 February 2010 - 15:46

    iamwhoiam said,
    Not very practical then, imo.

    LOL! Wow... you really don't have a clue.

  5. vaximily - 03 February 2010 - 17:52

    Matt Hardwick said,
    Of course it's practical if it does what they want it to do then it's practical. Also many more expensive supercomputers use Gbit lan to communicate between nodes... this system is of no disadvantage to many many other systems.

    I agree that it's practical for certain applications (particularly using so much less power), but your statement that more expensive supercomputers use Gbit LAN is way off base. Even your standard virtualization servers don't use Gbit LAN to communicate, and they cost a whole hell of a lot less.

  6. ScottKin - 03 February 2010 - 21:20

    vaximily said,

    I agree that it's practical for certain applications (particularly using so much less power), but your statement that more expensive supercomputers use Gbit LAN is way off base. Even your standard virtualization servers don't use Gbit LAN to communicate, and they cost a whole hell of a lot less.

    For Cluster-scale systems, Gbit LAN or "Infiniband" networking *is* the norm, due the fine-grained communications needs of mutli-node compute clusters, like the ones built & created by the University of Kentucky's "Aggregate" organization at http://aggregate.org/.

    There is a huge difference between the work done on virtualization servers and Supercomputer-class systems.

  7. +Cupcakes - 03 February 2010 - 11:14

    Is there an emphasis on the "flop" here? ;)

  8. roadwarrior - 03 February 2010 - 11:19

    Cupcakes said,
    Is there an emphasis on the "flop" here? ;)

    No. That is how TeraFLOPS is supposed to be capitalized. FLOPS is an acronym for "floating point operations per second".

  9. Mike Chipshop - 03 February 2010 - 11:21

    Cupcakes said,
    Is there an emphasis on the "flop" here? ;)

    Haha yeah

  10. CheeseFart - 03 February 2010 - 11:22

    roadwarrior said,

    No. That is how TeraFLOPS is supposed to be capitalized. FLOPS is an acronym for "floating point operations per second".


    sarcasm?

  11. carmatic - 03 February 2010 - 12:43

    CheeseFart said,

    sarcasm?

    even better - double sarcasm!

  12. spenumatsa - 03 February 2010 - 14:03

    Cupcakes said,
    Is there an emphasis on the "flop" here? ;)

    That is an Acronym and has to be capitalized.

  13. vetneufuse - 03 February 2010 - 18:42

    spenumatsa said,

    That is an Acronym and has to be capitalized.

    I think you guys missed her joke

  14. Minimoose - 03 February 2010 - 22:52

    neufuse said,

    I think you guys missed her joke

    :D

  15. CheeseFart - 03 February 2010 - 11:14

    isn't the hardware access limited in the ps3 linux?

  16. xSuRgEx - 03 February 2010 - 12:15

    CheeseFart said,
    isn't the hardware access limited in the ps3 linux?

    not any more. an exploit has been found that allows access to the hardware of the ps3 under the (other os) function.

  17. markjensen - 03 February 2010 - 12:22

    CheeseFart said,
    isn't the hardware access limited in the ps3 linux?
    The graphics access is limited. No 3-D hardware acceleration, if I recall correctly.

    But that hardly affects its use as a clustered supercomputer. They aren't playing games on it.

  18. OnTheSub - 03 February 2010 - 15:18

    markjensen said,
    The graphics access is limited. No 3-D hardware acceleration, if I recall correctly.

    But that hardly affects its use as a clustered supercomputer. They aren't playing games on it.

    That could run Crysis at like, 912109381023910238981230 FPS

  19. +aniv - 03 February 2010 - 11:33

    What happens when the YLOD strikes?

  20. Xero - 04 February 2010 - 15:22

    aniv said,
    What happens when the YLOD strikes?
    The **** is that lol. I've never even heard of that term. Is that the mythical PS3 failure? :P

    And yay for Sony, 20,000 more sales! ...and your still in dead last lol

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