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Playstation 2 Linux Cluster at NCSA
Mr. Spock writes "The National Center for Supercomputing Applications is looking at scientific computing on the Sony Playstation 2. They've set up a cluster with 65 compute nodes. They're running Linux for Playstation 2. What will they think of next?"
More info on the processing power of the PS2 as applied to computational chemistry.
Basically, this study shows the PS2 has roughly the computational linear algebra power of a PIII-600 (the then fastest processor on the market).
http://www.us.playstation.com/hardware/more/SCP
~$200
-= Why can't I add 'Anonymous Coward' to my list of Foes? =-
320 MFlops on matrix ops. Not great, but they say it's capable of 900 if they can feed the VPU fast enough. They think they can use additional existing hardware in the CPU to increase memory performance.
2. Why would you bother when you could use current commodity hardware for much less? I mean, a P3-600 is interesting, but you could probably drop some Duron 1.4s with a basic mobo and 256MB RAM for less out the door than a PS2.
Maybe. Wal-Mart sells Durons (with Lindows) for $199 complete, sans monitor.
But, apparently PS2's are under $100 according to another poster.
ISTM that they may be spending a lot of time figuring out how to optimize code for the PS2 though.
Nothing to see here; Move along.
The big problem with using PC graphics cards is that the memory bandwidth on the AGP bus leading back to the system is abysmal. I know several groups looked into this when the Geforce 3 came out and suddenly we had a high speed low cost programmable vector processor, the result was that unless your application could return relativly small datasets you weren't going to get much performance out of them. I think a PS2 would be similarly hampered by the small amount of ram available, not many interesting datasets would fit in it.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
At least not on the internet.
Nein for google.
One EXTREMELY LAME hit from deja. Surprisingly, the sig is identical.
Until you show some credentials (as in a link to nintendo's site, with a page with AT LEAST your name on it), you don't exist.
In fact, it appears your department doesn't exist.
Heck, where's your thesis, at least?
I find it neat, though, that you went from being Head of New Technology Research at SEGA straight to being Head of New Technology Research at Nintendo. More amazing, though, is that both companies have exactly the same departments!
More interesting:
<sgupta@research.sega.jp>:
Sorry, I couldn't find any host named research.sega.jp. (#5.1.2)
Look, provide me a page at nintendo.co.jp with your name on it, and everything will be sorted out.
Otherwise, this is:
Bill Gates,
Microsoft Founder
Redmond
Signing off.
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
Some people might need to use SSL while connecting to the playstation2-linux site, or you'll get a blank page:
https://playstation2-linux.com