[quote]
No doubt the Air Force purchasing department gets some odd requests from time to time, but we'd love to have seen the grin on the face of the officer tasked with procuring some 1,700 [URL="http://videogames.yahoo.com/ps3/"]Playstation 3[/URL]s for a USAF facility in Rome, NY.
Before you complain about your tax dollars being spent on toys, the machines aren't for gaming. Instead, the facility -- an Air Force research lab -- will join them into a parallel-computing cluster that, when complete, will number well over 2,000 PS3s.
The supercomputer -- snappily monikered "500 TeraFLOPS Heterogeneous Cluster" -- will be put to work playing 2,000 simultaneous games of [URL="http://videogames.yahoo.com/ps3/god-of-war-iii/"]God of War III[/URL]. Wait, no. Among other things, they'll be attempting to simulate the way the human brain processes information and how it pulls off the remarkably difficult task of recognizing the content of images.
"Humans can routinely do these things, but a computer struggles to do it," the facility's computing director Mark Barnell told [URL="http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=140&article=67550"]Stars and Stripes[/URL]. "In a general sense, we are interested in making it autonomous."
The cluster won't be as powerful as a regular supercomputing rig, but it will be cheaper and more environmentally friendly: it'll consume as much as 95% less electrical power and shut down unused machines when the cluster isn't running at full capacity.[/quote]
Source: [URL]http://videogames.yahoo.com/events/plugged-in/u-s-air-force-building-supercomputer-from-ps3s/1387199[/URL]
Leave it to the Air Force to do something like this.
[img]http://l.yimg.com/a/i/us/ga/buzz/feature/vg25/usaf-ps3_300.jpg[/img]
Playstation 3: It really does everything.
The have been making clusters from PS3's for a while now. This is nothing new.
Shit man, I remember when they were doing this with the original xboxs
[editline]12:22AM[/editline]
Also: content
[img]http://l.yimg.com/a/i/us/ga/buzz/feature/vg25/usaf-ps3_300.jpg[/img]
I guess it is a lot cheaper.
The air force is always doing cool shit with technology.
I remember reading this from WAAAAYYYY back.
I don't see how this is cheaper.
You could probably build a simple PC with similar specs for cheaper than a ps3.
[QUOTE=hypno-toad;19970797]I don't see how this is cheaper.
You could probably build a simple PC with similar specs for cheaper than a ps3.[/QUOTE]
Hint. Cell Processor.
You couldn't.
[QUOTE=hypno-toad;19970797]I don't see how this is cheaper.
You could probably build a simple PC with similar specs for cheaper than a ps3.[/QUOTE]
Not quite. The Cell processor was originally designed for supercomputers, it's got a lot more task managing hardware than a PC. Economy of scale also comes into play: sure, you could build one computer that performs as well as a PS3 for less, but can you build several thousand?
Wasn't there a thread on this back in September?
Didn't IBM help with the cell processor? I'm sure the airforce of all institutions could get them.
It seems like there's a lot of unnessesary stuff in the PS3s for what they are doing. They are going to wind up spending a lot of extra money, most likely.
Why is the USAF spending their valuable time doing this pointless shit when they can bomb Iraq?
[QUOTE=Aaronn;19971018]Why is the USAF spending their valuable time doing this pointless shit when they can bomb Iraq?[/QUOTE]
because they have a sense of humor and a semi-legit reason and because bombing iraq doesn't do anything, idiot
you're implying that they're not allowed to do anything but literally focus all effort into an ineffective and costly american method of dealing with other countries, just so you can try to find something wrong to make a retarded joke
r8 l8 m8
still pretty unbelievable
Well, at least now it's useful.
Now that it's hacked, it can even be more super!
I found this kind of funny, in a way I can only adequately describe in playwright format.
Sony: "So we'll price the ps3 to suit a middle class family budget and lose money on the actual ps3 hardware, but we'll more than make up for it in games sales, right? Good."
Air Force: "Hi, I'll take all of them."
Sony: "FFFFFFFFFFFFFFF"
[QUOTE=hypno-toad;19970948]Didn't IBM help with the cell processor?[/QUOTE]
IBM designed the CBE (Cell Broadband Engine). The only thing they didn't fully design was the POWER based core inside the CBE, which was originally created by the AIM alliance.
[QUOTE=hypno-toad;19970948]
It seems like there's a lot of unnessesary stuff in the PS3s for what they are doing. They are going to wind up spending a lot of extra money, most likely.[/QUOTE]
Blazing Angels LAN party. Nothing is unnecessary.
[QUOTE=splitsticks;19971719]I found this kind of funny, in a way I can only adequately describe in playwright format.
Sony: "So we'll price the ps3 to suit a middle class family budget and lose money on the actual ps3 hardware, but we'll more than make up for it in games sales, right? Good."
Air Force: "Hi, I'll take all of them."
Sony: "FFFFFFFFFFFFFFF"[/QUOTE]
It doubt it. It's more likely to help than hurt.
O wow this thread back in then made me laugh a lot.
Did they make any progress since the last time?
[QUOTE=splitsticks;19971719]I found this kind of funny, in a way I can only adequately describe in playwright format.
Sony: "So we'll price the ps3 to suit a middle class family budget and lose money on the actual ps3 hardware, but we'll more than make up for it in games sales, right? Good."
Air Force: "Hi, I'll take all of them."
Sony: "FFFFFFFFFFFFFFF"[/QUOTE]
No, they've reduced production costs by a lot since they started making them. I'm guessing Sony made a pretty good profit off of the airforce.
[QUOTE=AwesomeDino;19970928]Wasn't there a thread on this back in September?[/QUOTE]
There was.
Well it's not like those PS3's were going to be used for video games.
[QUOTE=lemon_lover;19975234]That is beautiful.[/QUOTE]
Can you imagine all those beauties folding 24/7? :q:
[QUOTE=Pretiacruento;19975392]Can you imagine all those beauties folding 24/7? :q:[/QUOTE]
You'd be the top folder in a week
I have more clocks then the workshop of a clockmaker.
[QUOTE=lemon_lover;19975405]You'd be the top folder in a week[/QUOTE]
If I were rich I'd buy like [B]5,000 PS3s[/B] and I'd put them all in a room called "F@H"...
Ahhh one can only dream... :/
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