8 replies to this topic

[wonderfullygifted]

I was thinking like maybe someone could HELP me elaborate.
Like I'd like to build or KNOW how to build myself a super computer using a Ps3
it looks like it's going to be a fun little job, i'd love to hear someones opinion/ideas.
I myself have none, but I'd love to hear about it or how to do it.

[Nelson Blogs]

Well... I found this article for you: http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology...to/4263321.html

It says you can't run Windows or OS X legally, but you can run the Linux Operating system on it. You are pretty much dualbooting your ps3 to run the ps3 operating system or the Linux operating system. To tell you the truth, I have no idea how legal this is modifying a PS3 like this.

[wonderfullygifted]

haha thanks!
that's cool.
i still don't really know the 'definition' of a super computer like, i know it's way better and way expensive than a normal computer obviously, i'm going to research

thanks!

[evilsmiley25]

I have never heard of anything like this
but it doesn't sound legal if you are modding a PS3 in this manner

[Zagubadu·]

Yea I don't think its legal if you mod to cheat while playing Ps3 games. If you mod it to the point where its not even a Ps3 anymore it should be okay. Nonetheless it will definitely void your warranty. This seems possible due to the fact of the Ps3's big hard drive. I think you'll need more then just following someones instructions. Because it does not sound easy and you'll probably need a basic understanding of mobos, and a bunch of other technical stuff. I've never heard of anyone doing it before. So good luck.

[wonderfullygifted]

I found this from nelson haha:

Quote

The Cell processor inside Sony's PlayStation 3 is a powerhouse that lets the gaming console render highly detailed graphics at blistering speed. That same chip gives the PS3 all the processing muscle it needs to become a fully functional computer. When we first heard this was possible, we were sure the procedure had to be illegal, or that it would at least void the warranty. But as it turns out, this is that rarest of finds in consumer electronics: a perfectly legal, manufacturer-supported hack that adds significant functionality. With a little bit of effort and expense, we turned a PS3 into a Linux computer—without losing any of the machine's native gaming goodness.

the pics and more info : http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology...to/4263321.html

it's really interesting.

I won't do this, lol obviously.
I just like to learn, and I'd like to own a super computer one day, I guess.

So you can only use linux on it. and apparently is legal.

Edited by truefusion, 26 January 2010 - 07:49 AM.

[Nelson Blogs]

wonderfullygifted, on Jan 25 2010, 11:19 PM, said:

I found this from nelson haha:

the pics and more info : http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology...to/4263321.html

it's really interesting.

I won't do this, lol obviously.
I just like to learn, and I'd like to own a super computer one day, I guess.

So you can only use linux on it. and apparently is legal.

After thinking about it, I believe that a PS3 could make a good supercomputer.  You would need plenty though.  A PS3 contains a 64-bit core processing at a rate of 218 GFLOPS.  A skilled engineer could  probably build a cheap (as in few K's) supercomputer using PS3's.  Of course, the supercomputer would take up lots of electricity (250Watts x # of PS3's x Time) and it wouldn't process as fast as a real supercomputer (about 1 TFLOP?) but it is a neat idea.  Just imagine taking like 10 PS3's and building a supercomputer out of it that is capable of dualbooting Linux and PS3 OS.  You could be playing MW2 on a supercomputer.

[rayzoredge]

I was just reading about using a PS3 as a computer yesterday... George Hotz has done it again and hacked the final "next-gen" console.

Basically, now we can pirate games and open up its potential by quite a bit now.

Further reading suggests that it may be a less-than-fruitful endeavour to create a "super-computer" out of multiple PS3s, since the processor in it is a 8-cell microprocessor, with each cell dedicated to specific functions and tasks of the processor as a whole. Think of it as a multi-core CPU with each core doing something different.

Quote

The PS3 uses the Cell microprocessor, which is made up of one 3.2 GHz PowerPC-based "Power Processing Element" (PPE) and six accessible Synergistic Processing Elements (SPEs). A seventh runs in a special mode and is dedicated to aspects of the OS and security, and an eighth is a spare to improve production yields. PlayStation 3's Cell CPU achieves 204 GFLOPS single precision float and 15 GFLOPS double precision. The PS3 has 256MB of Rambus XDR DRAM, clocked at CPU die speed. As of firmware update 2.01, 32MB of the XDR memory is reserved by the PS3's XrossMediaBar user interface, more XDR memory is required for multiple XMB operations to function at one time .

In my opinion, since I'm not in full understanding with what the PS3 can and cannot do, my best guess is that the PS3, putting multiples of it to single use, would yield more of a super-computer applicable to advanced mathematical computation and not so much beneficial on the home user front, since just about every piece of software out there wouldn't know what to do with a Cell processor and thus not use it to its full potential. (The Cell processor's SPEs are the reason why it is difficult for developers to create games that take advantage of the PS3's hardware, which is also probably why it has a limited gaming library in comparison to the other next-gen consoles. And I'm not including shovelware.)

Quote

Cluster computing
Clusters of PlayStation 3 consoles are an attractive alternative to high-end systems based on Cell blades. Innovative Computing Laboratory, a group led by Jack Dongarra, in the Computer Science Department at the University of Tennessee, investigated such an application in depth.^[49] Terrasoft Solutions is selling 8-node and 32-node PS3 clusters with Yellow Dog Linux pre-installed, an implementation of Dongarra's research.

As reported by Wired Magazine on October 17, 2007, an interesting application of using PlayStation 3 in a cluster configuration was implemented by Astrophysicist Dr. Gaurav Khanna, from the Physics department of University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, who replaced time used on supercomputers with a cluster of eight PlayStation 3s.^[50] Subsequently, the next generation of this machine, now called the PlayStation 3 Gravity Grid, uses a network of 16 machines, and exploits the Cell processor for the intended application which is binary black hole coalescence using perturbation theory.^[51][52] The Cell processor version used by the Playstation 3 has a main CPU and 6 floating-point vector processors, giving the Gravity Grid machine a net of 16 general-purpose processors and 96 vector processors. The machine has a one-time cost of over $9,000 to build and is adequate for black-hole simulations which would otherwise cost $6,000 per run on a conventional supercomputer. The black hole calculations are not memory-intensive and are highly localizable, and so are well-suited to this architecture.

The computational Biochemistry and Biophysics lab at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra, in Barcelona, deployed in 2007 a BOINC system called PS3GRID^[53] for collaborative computing based on the CellMD software, the first one designed specifically for the Cell processor.


[edit] Distributed computing
With the help of the computing power of over half a million PlayStation 3 consoles, the distributed computing project Folding@Home has been recognized by Guinness World Records as the most powerful distributed network in the world. The first record was achieved on September 16, 2007, as the project surpassed one petaFLOPS, which had never been reached before by a distributed computing network. Additionally, the collective efforts enabled PS3 alone to reach the petaFLOPS mark on September 23, 2007. In comparison, the world's second most powerful supercomputer at the time, IBM's BlueGene/L, performed at around 478.2 teraFLOPS. This means Folding@Home's computing power is approximately twice BlueGene/L's (although the CPU interconnect in BlueGene/L is more than one million times faster than the mean network speed in Folding@Home.). In late 2008, A cluster of 200 PlayStation 3 consoles was used to generate a rogue SSL certificate, effectively cracking its encryption.^[54]

Basically, if you decide to create a super-computer in your home, it would only be beneficial to you if you had the software to take advantage of it. Aside from bragging rights, at the moment it would be as useful as a regular 3.2GHz, 256MB RAM computer running Linux... but that's more useful than a PS3 that can only play Blu-Ray titles and play PS3 games, right?

[wonderfullygifted]

haha yes, I was just wondering cause it sounds pretty interesting how technology is just growing and expanding and we have to get used to it.