US Air Force connected 1,760 PlayStation 3's to build a supercomputer

[Colilluminati]

Gamers might think Xbox is the best system for playing war games, but can it be transformed into a supercomputer for use by the U.S. military? Sony’s PlayStation 3 can.

In what might be called supercomputing-on-the-cheap, a U.S. Air Force research laboratory in upstate New York strung together more than 1,700 PlayStation 3 processors and created the fastest interactive computer currently utilized by the Department of Defense.

Nicknamed the Condor Cluster, the supercomputer allows the military to perform fast analysis of large high-resolution imagery captured by satellites. The PS3 cluster is capable of performing 500 trillion operations every second, which is about a third of the speed of the third fastest computer in the world–the IBM Roadrunner computer used by the Department of Energy.

But the Roadrunner cost about $120 million to build. The PS3 cluster only $2.3 million.

“It wasn’t something as simple as going to Best Buy or Wal-Mart,” Mark Barnell, the high-performance computing director at the Air Force Research Lab’s operation in Rome, New York, told the Cleveland Plain Dealer. Barnell said the Air Force purchased the PlayStations directly from Sony.

The Condor Cluster was the brainchild of Richard Linderman, a senior scientist in the advanced computing laboratory, who challenged his colleagues to see what they could do with video gaming consoles and microchips.

The PlayStation 3 processor was developed jointly by IBM, Sony and Toshiba.

 

[Bryan Danielson]

Damn we fukked then..... them future hacks gonna be our final downfall

 

[Neil Tyson]

 

[StatUS]

But can it do 1080p 60 fps

 

[#StarkSet]

its official ps3 sold more then the 360


@Leasy

 

[Leasy]

its official ps3 sold more then the 360


@Leasy

Why you tagging me don't give a fukk about this. I had a PS3 and use to leave my shyt on for that bullshyt study when I first got it.

 

[Teal.]

This shyt is old as Larry Holmes

 

[Maddmike]

Could have hooked up 2 360s rather then all that

 

[ExodusNirvana]

Yeah but does it have Backwards Compatibility?

 

[Jax]

Yeah but does it have Backwards Compatibility?

For ps2 games?

 

[ExodusNirvana]

For ps2 games?

I'm not paying for something I already bought

 

[Jax]

I'm not paying for something I already bought

You're a dumbass, I don't even know what you're talking about.

 

[ExodusNirvana]

You're a dumbass, I don't even know what you're talking about.

Neither do I...I was just trying to make a joke

 

[Rekkapryde]

Could have hooked up 2 360s rather then all that

360 didn't have the processing power the PS3 had. It had a better GPU, but not processor.

And this shyt is mad old.

 

[Jax]

Neither do I...I was just trying to make a joke

I know but I got you good, you thought it was PS4's