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IBM's Cell Processor — Not Just for PS3 Anymore

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the processor-before-the-games dept.

TechFreep writes to tell us that IBM has released a new line of QS20 Blade Servers based on the processor they developed for the Playstation 3. From the article: "Today IBM announced a new line of high-powered QS20 Blade Servers intended for use in seismic research, encryption, digital image rendering and military surveillance applications. Each QS20 will include two nine-cored Cell Processors clocked at 3.2Ghz apiece, which were developed along with Sony and Toshiba for Sony's upcoming Playstation 3 console. As Playstation 3 isn't scheduled for release until November, the QS20 will mark the first application in which the highly-touted Cell will be available to consumers."

5 of 184 comments (clear)

  1. I'm actually quite excited by HatchedEggs · · Score: 5, Informative

    Not necessarily about this announcement of course as most of us have seen it coming for some time. However, the concept of the core processor is quite strong and I think that it will play an important role in computing in the future.

    A little tid bit about all that: http://www.blachford.info/computer/Cell/Cell0_v2.h tml

    --
    Justin - Don't be afraid of my blog, it won't bite.
  2. Better info by marleyboy · · Score: 5, Informative

    Maybe take a peek at the Wiki entry about the cell processor for a good background of what it is capable of.

    --
    Neutiquam erro
  3. Re:Not for consumers... by Bryansix · · Score: 4, Informative

    I'm not a major corporation but I could order a server from Dell and they would ship it to me. That's consumer enough for me.

  4. Re:Does it run by LnxAddct · · Score: 4, Informative

    I think you were just being a dumbass, but in case you weren't... according to this article about the same announcement, IBM is recommending Fedora Core as the operating system to use. So yes, linux does run on it.
    Regards,
    Steve

  5. Using IBM's Cell Processors in scientific HPC by rlh100 · · Score: 4, Informative
    I am surprised that no one has mentioned the Slashdot article on the study at LBL on use of cell processors in High Performance Computing:
    The Potential of Science With the Cell Processor
    http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/05/2 8/047223/

    It reference a second article:
    Researchers Analyze HPC Potential of Cell Processor
    http://www.hpcwire.com/hpc/671376.html/

    This discusses research at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory on using the STI Cell processor for scientific computing. From the article quoting the LBL paper:
    "Overall results demonstrate the tremendous potential of the Cell architecture for scientific computations in terms of both raw performance and power efficiency,"
    and
    "We also conclude that Cell's heterogeneous multi-core implementation is inherently better suited to the HPC environment than homogeneous commodity multi-core processors."

    The paper went on to say that while the Cell processor was designed for single-precision 32-bit floating performance but with some simple changes to the design it could be optimized for double precision 64-bit floating performance.

    This makes a lot of sense if this is the same Cell processor that IBM is using in their blade servers.
    Really cheap, really fast 9 core processors!

    An interesting read.

    RLH