Topic: A PS3-Based Supercomputer?

[sam]

...i bet this will be on time!

redherring.com

IBM is building high-performance computing systems using the same gaming chip as the console.
September 6, 2006

Gaming chips will migrate from Super Mario Bros to supercomputers after IBM announced Wednesday it will build high-performance computing systems out of these kinds of processors.

 

Specifically, a supercomputing machine?dubbed ?Roadrunner? and set to be fully installed by 2008 at the U.S. Department of Energy?s Los Alamos National Laboratory?will run on some 16,000 Cell Broadband Engine processors and a similar number of AMD Opteron processors. The Cell chip was originally built for Sony?s Playstation 3 console, which has been delayed until November for some markets and until 2007 in others (see Sony Delays PS3 in Europe).

 

IBM and AMD officials said in a press release that the new supercomputer will be capable of a peak performance of more than 1.6 petaflops, or 1.6 quadrillion floating calculations per second. That?s 1,600 times faster than the 100 teraflops, or 100 trillion calculations per second, that the average human brain processes. It?s even almost six times faster than the 280-teraflop capability of the world?s fastest computer, IBM?s Blue Gene L (see Sun, Bull Gain on BlueGene).

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The race for ever-higher speed poses a problem for current supercomputing architecture. Machines can only go so fast before the heat generated threatens self-destruction. And the next generation of supercomputers?if based on today?s architecture?could become too large to be practical, say experts (see Supercomputers Rebound). So this new design could launch the next wave of supercomputers.

 

?Moore
?s law has come to an end for most chips,? Bill Mannel, director of marketing product management for SGI servers and platforms, told Red Herring in an interview last December. ?You can?t crank more gigahertz out of a chip anymore.?

 

IBM and AMD executives seemed optimistic that Roadrunner could overcome these problems.

 

?This new supercomputer demonstrates a commitment to achieve a major advance in technological capability that will enable scientists and businesses to solve the most challenging problems,? Bill Zeitler, senior vice president of IBM systems and technology, said in the release.

 

?Compelling Benefits?

?This? demonstrates the compelling benefits from industry leaders innovating around an open platform,? Marty Seyer, senior vice president of AMD?s commercial segment, said in the release. Roadrunner will be built from commercially available hardware and based on the Linux operating system.

 

To be sure, IBM?s has in the past made lofty claims about its nontraditional use of gaming chips.

 

In July it announced the use of its Dual Stress processor in new server systems (see IBM Not Playing Games). The company claimed the chip, created for ultra-fast gaming systems, would enable its servers to be just as speedy.

 

Rivals said speed alone didn?t make IBM?s a better system. ?We?re much more powerful than IBM?s biggest box,? Brian Cox, director of worldwide server marketing for HP, told Red Herring at the time.

 

But IBM envisions Roadrunner?s mixed-technology system could some day be used to aid businesses of all sizes, ranging from life sciences to animated cinema to aerospace design. Game on.