PS3 Triples Folding At Home's Computing Power to Over 500 TFLOPS

Dark Lord · Mar 23, 2007, 08:29 PM

Source: Gizmodo
__________
This is freaking amazing. I was checking out some message boards last night at the Folding Forums at Stanford, a group that tracks the Folding at Home application. You know, that's the software that runs on Sony PS3 or PS2 gaming consoles, all linking up over the Internet and using their spare cycles to help the university process vast amounts of Alzheimers research data? To my astonishment, I discovered that a small legion of 13,000 PS3s running the Folding at Home app account for most of the computing power in the project, amounting to about 56 percent (PS3s = 316 measured TFLOPS) of the total.

Zardon · Mar 25, 2007, 11:46 PM

incredible

swimtech · Mar 25, 2007, 11:53 PM

Yeah, that was quite a surprise, and (extrapolating from the given figures...) if that many of the latest high end ATI GPUs were used, the entire effort could be raised by another order of magnitude. The client and networking setup is like parallel processing parallel processors using the Cell and the ATI GPUs.

**kris23** · Mar 26, 2007, 03:28 AM

i wonder how much folding power the average joe's PC would give if presented in that high number of individual units... i bet it would die in comparison

zaim · Mar 26, 2007, 05:20 AM

so are they getting results from people folding at home?

Just Learnin' · Mar 26, 2007, 06:41 AM

[COLOR=#dc870e]Breaking: PS3 Folding@Home TFLOP Rating Demoted by 50%, PFLOPS Still Possible[/COLOR]

Just Friday we were [COLOR=#dc870e]gushing[/COLOR] that the Folding@Home project, with the help of a few Spartanesque PS3s, had topped 500 teraflops. Apparently, that was too good to be true. Just now, as approximately 30k PS3s were about to push Folding over a PFLOP (1000 TFLOPS), Folding staff at Stanford seem to have reestimated the PS3's power of calculation to be about 50% less than previously thought. No matter. We're not that far off from PFLOPing, according to the FAQ, if you all get off your asses and buy PS3s for Folding.

Mar 23, 2007, 08:29 PM	#1
Dark Lord HardwareHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: Jul 2004 Location: Grand Rapids, MI Posts: 5,945 Rep Power: 124 System Specs	PS3 Triples Folding At Home's Computing Power to Over 500 TFLOPS Source: Gizmodo __________ This is freaking amazing. I was checking out some message boards last night at the Folding Forums at Stanford, a group that tracks the Folding at Home application. You know, that's the software that runs on Sony PS3 or PS2 gaming consoles, all linking up over the Internet and using their spare cycles to help the university process vast amounts of Alzheimers research data? To my astonishment, I discovered that a small legion of 13,000 PS3s running the Folding at Home app account for most of the computing power in the project, amounting to about 56 percent (PS3s = 316 measured TFLOPS) of the total. __________________ Last edited by Iria; Mar 24, 2007 at 06:41 AM.

Mar 25, 2007, 11:53 PM	#3
swimtech HardwareHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: May 2002 Location: North Carolina Posts: 4,040 Rep Power: 122 System Specs	Yeah, that was quite a surprise, and (extrapolating from the given figures...) if that many of the latest high end ATI GPUs were used, the entire effort could be raised by another order of magnitude. The client and networking setup is like parallel processing parallel processors using the Cell and the ATI GPUs. __________________ It's not so much getting your way that matters or not - what matters is how you go about getting it.

Mar 26, 2007, 03:28 AM	#4
kris23 Going Insane..... Join Date: Dec 2006 Location: Los Angeles Posts: 5,990 Rep Power: 121 System Specs	i wonder how much folding power the average joe's PC would give if presented in that high number of individual units... i bet it would die in comparison __________________ Hardwareheaven Super-Moderator Building a new computer system and not sure where to start? Click Here! last updated (5/18/11) Rosewill FUTURE case replaces CM 690 II with its greater interior length. Building a PC: Step by Step Guide Written by Kristopher Pedemonte and Nathan Marks-Forder Edited by Allan Campbell Questions or Comments? feel free to post them in the forums!

Mar 26, 2007, 05:20 AM	#5
zaim HardwareHeaven Senior Member Join Date: Dec 2006 Location: Melbourne, AU Posts: 1,052 Rep Power: 40	so are they getting results from people folding at home? __________________ زعيم MAIN PC(1)(2)(3):•Q9550•GAP35DS3P• 4GBCrucialPC2-8500BallistixTracerLED•XFX9800GTX•3x146GB CheetahSAS15K.5 Raid0•2x 1TB Raid1•LianLiA10B•2x22"5ms@3360x1050• BEDROOM HTPC(1)(2)(3):E6600•MSI945GM3-F•2048DDR2667•1TB•Samsung26"HDTV•HybridHDTV•5.1• Laptop:•Centrino2 P8400 1066fsb•4GB-DDR2 800•320GBSATA•DVDDL•15.4"WXGA•802.11a/b/g/n• WHServer:•AM2 5200+•2GB DDR2 800•Lots of TB Storage•1GB TCP/IP• www.zaimc.com // myspace/zaimc // zaimm.deviantart BLOG BLOG BLOG BLOG BLOG 16 x 92mm fan + radiator experiment!

Mar 25, 2007, 11:46 PM	#2
Zardon DriverHeaven Founder Join Date: May 2002 Posts: 32,480 Rep Power: 177	incredible

Mar 26, 2007, 06:41 AM	#6
Just Learnin' HardwareHeaven Senior Member Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada Posts: 1,414 Rep Power: 55 System Specs	[COLOR=#dc870e]Breaking: PS3 Folding@Home TFLOP Rating Demoted by 50%, PFLOPS Still Possible[/COLOR] Just Friday we were [COLOR=#dc870e]gushing[/COLOR] that the Folding@Home project, with the help of a few Spartanesque PS3s, had topped 500 teraflops. Apparently, that was too good to be true. Just now, as approximately 30k PS3s were about to push Folding over a PFLOP (1000 TFLOPS), Folding staff at Stanford seem to have reestimated the PS3's power of calculation to be about 50% less than previously thought. No matter. We're not that far off from PFLOPing, according to the FAQ, if you all get off your asses and buy PS3s for Folding.