PS3 Folding@Home Begins with Impressive Numbers

hansamurai writes "As we've previously discussed, the Folding@Home client is now available on the PS3, and already some early results are in. The total number of teraflops generated by PS3s has already exceeded all other OS contributions combined and the entire project is heading towards one petaflop of distributed computing power. Stanford notes that their teraflops calculation is conservatively calculated so the total power could be under-appreciated. With the PS3 European release complete and the Folding client already available to them, the number of users will continue to grow for the time being, let's hope that the project does not run out of work units to pass out. Kotaku has some numbers that are a few hours old since the Stanford server is getting hit pretty hard with the renewed interest in the project."

Comments

impressive

[mastershake_phd]

Impressive, but I wonder if this interest among PS3 owners will drop off. Especially when GTA IV comes out, or they get next months power bill.

power bill

[DogDude]

Somehow, I doubt that people buying a $600 game system will care if their power bill goes up $1 (or $10 or $20) a month. Power is one of those things that most people ignore and simply pay unless it's completely out of whack. My commercial power bill fluctuates by sometimes as much as a hundred bucks a month, but even that's not enough to make it worth my time to figure out what might be causing it.

Re:What about global warming?

[ScrewMaster]

True ... but "better" is relative for the supercomputer owner. Anyone with a conventional supercomputer pays for the power himself. In the PS3 Folding@Home project, not only the processing is highly distributed: the electric bill is as well.