IBM Uses PlayStation Chip For New Supercomputer

IBM is working in conjunction with Los Alamos National Labratories to create a new super computer that will utilize the Play Station 3 processor and run faster than any computer known; ultimately the computer will surpass the petaflop barrier. That's 1 quadrillon calculations per second.



Wow! It is simply amazing to me the leaps and bounds being made in computer technology. I remember when a 1 gigabyte processor seemed like sci-fi and now it is no problem to go out and find processors and hard drives in the terabyte range. Now comes news of this new super 'puter with over a petaflop of processor speed and that means that within a year or two we will be seeing home pc and lap top processors just as fast.

What's next, a processor that can run calculations eqivalent to the human brain?Not to even mention the incredible advances made in AI technology in the last decade. We are definitely living in the world of tomorrow, today.

Related News Links:
edition.cnn.com
www.itwire.com.au

Related AboveTopSecret.com Discussion Threads:
Japanese Supercomputer breaks Petaflop Barrier

[edit on 9/9/2006 by Stormrider]

PLAYSTATION FOR LIFE FOOL!!!!!!!!!!!!

All joking aside I knew it was strong but not that strong!!!! Sooooo cool.

[edit on 9-9-2006 by El Che]

I guess the cell chip is very fast. I doubt that we will see this in pc's for a long time. I dont even think 10 ghz would be completely necessary, though nice, not necessary. Thats kind of like having a terabyte of hardrive space..what do you need it for??

This is very amazing. It's almost scary to think about what the next generation gaming systems will be like.

The original playstation was capable of launching SAMS and even Patriot missiles. So, considering that even then they were restricted in distribution and places of sale, it should be of no surprise. Is it just me, or am I the only one who recalls the original PS being banned from Iraq because So-dam-insane wanted them?

Originally posted by truttseeker
I guess the cell chip is very fast. I doubt that we will see this in pc's for a long time. I dont even think 10 ghz would be completely necessary, though nice, not necessary. Thats kind of like having a terabyte of hardrive space..what do you need it for??

I don't know how long it will be before we see the jump to to the next generation of pc and laptop processors but I would guess it wouldn't be longer than 4-5 years.
After all, it didn't take very long at all to make the jump from mhz to ghz and with chip manufacturers finding revolutionary new ways of putting larger and larger amounts of info on smaller and smaller chips, nothing would surprise me. As to how much is necessary let me point out that there are very few people in the world who need more than 500 megs of hard disk space but that doesn't prevent computer makers putting 200 gig hard drives into the most basic of pc systems. If you build it, they will come.

Too bad Sony just downgraded theyre hardware Specs inthe PS3. The cell chip they got isn't going to be the one in the PS3 anymore. They downgraded the system all around the boardfor cost efficiency. So don't be thinking it will be launching cruise missiles or running skynet over there. It's just marginally better then the 360 now.

Oh, and the cruise missile things were an urban legend, not true.

making processors fast is not a problem, but if im not mistaken , processors produce more heat per square inch than anything else on earth (or at least in the household). Iv'e seen a regular 2.8 ghz become over a 10ghz just from supercooling the processor and overclocking it, which every chip can do. so the processors that we are using can be potentially much greater, but we havn't found a way to make them run cool and efficient at high speeds, cheap enough to fit in a desk top.

This is very amazing. It's almost scary to think about what the next generation gaming systems will be like.

i know what you mean, but they are always coming out with a next gereration gameing computer, like every year. a bit more than a year ago i bought a dell xps with the ati x850xt pe, i thought i was top dog, now a little over a year later im just another punk.

This is not surprising.

Do you know who created the Cell chip?

Sony, Toshiba and IBM.

So, they are using a processor created by them based on a processor created by them (POWER processors).

The Cell chip isn't one processor. It's essentially a mutli-core chip with a master processor controlling the rest, making several do the work efficently, distributing load. It's just a step up from the dual cores that are already in PC's (including mine).

And, I just want to point out to the original poster, chip clock speeds have never been measured in bytes, rather Hz, or multiples thereof.

I sense your a console gamer , so I wont be too harsh on you

Originally posted by stumason
The Cell chip isn't one processor. It's essentially a mutli-core chip with a master processor controlling the rest, making several do the work efficently, distributing load. It's just a step up from the dual cores that are already in PC's (including mine).

And, I just want to point out to the original poster, chip clock speeds have never been measured in bytes, rather Hz, or multiples thereof.

I sense your a console gamer

, so I wont be too harsh on you

Thanks, Stu, for being so tolerant . I'm also a pc gamer but not an expert in processor and chip technology. Thanks for the correction.

[edit on 9/10/2006 by Stormrider]

[edit on 9/10/2006 by Stormrider]

Originally posted by WolfofWar
Too bad Sony just downgraded theyre hardware Specs inthe PS3. The cell chip they got isn't going to be the one in the PS3 anymore. They downgraded the system all around the boardfor cost efficiency. So don't be thinking it will be launching cruise missiles or running skynet over there. It's just marginally better then the 360 now.

Oh, and the cruise missile things were an urban legend, not true.

they still have the cell chip in the ps3, one PPE and 8 SPE'S with 1 SPE redundant and its running at 2.8ghz, the GPU codenamed RSX was rumoured to be downgraded but has yet to be proven.

to use cell in computers would be no easy task as software would need to be rewritten as it runs on x86 and the cell not based on that i believe.

If you limit your definition of computer to IBM PC compatible, then you are right, but not all computers are IBM PC compatibles.

Does'nt surprise me, I remember how much the cell chip was toted
when the PS3 was first talked about.

I wonder, how long will it be before are computers have space in the
yattabytes range.

The RSX chip is suppsoed to be equivalent to a GeForce 7900, pretty much the highest specced graphics card available at the moment. I haven't heard about the CPU being downgraded but it's definitely a step up from the XBox 360. The only thing they changed from the original configuration in 2004 was the deletion of one HDMI port so it only has one now and the deletion of 2 Gigabit Ethernet ports, it only has one now as well. It IS higher specced than the 360 as it supports 1080p resolution whereas the XBox only does 1080i.

CPU
Cell Processor
PowerPC-base Core @3.2GHz
1 VMX vector unit per core
512KB L2 cache
7 x SPE @3.2GHz
7 x 128b 128 SIMD GPRs
7 x 256KB SRAM for SPE
* 1 of 8 SPEs reserved for redundancy
total floating point performance: 218 GFLOPS

RSX @550MHz
1.8 TFLOPS floating point performance
Full HD (up to 1080p) x 2 channels
Multi-way programmable parallel floating point shader pipelines

As you can see the graphics card itself has a higher floating point performance over the CPU and being it can support not one but TWO full high definition outputs I think it's safe to say it has the XBox 360 beat on that front.

compare to Xbox:
CPU
# 3 symmetrical cores running at 3.2 GHz each
# 2 hardware threads per core; 6 hardware threads total
# 1 VMX-128 vector unit per core; 3 total
# 128 VMX-128 registers per hardware thread
# 1 MB L2 cache

as you can see the PS3 has 8 system cores, the Xbox only has 3.

Unfortunately keen gamers like myself have to wait until March to see the new console due to delays in productions apparently related to the Blue-Ray drive.
Would be interesting to see if sanctions are put upon Iran if the Playstation 3 will come under that category...

Originally posted by simo
Would be interesting to see if sanctions are put upon Iran if the Playstation 3 will come under that category...

And people still wonder why do the Iranians don't like the US.

Isn't Iran under those importing restrictions already?

This smacks of disinformation. The Playstation 3 chip is no more powerful than my grandma's tennis swing. The Xbox 360 is only a 3 core 3.2ghz machine and already it's a better-performing system than the PS3 - look at F.E.A.R. screenshot comparisons for instance.

Then you look at both consoles and my 2-year old pc is already outperforming both by quite a significant margin. Prey on 360 for example, lacked all the detailed textures and shader effects and eye candy on the pc, and there was no AA - it was jaggy as hell. My pc on the other hand, ran Prey smoothly at 1600x1200 with 4xAA and all textures / effects maxed out. There was a huge difference, and yes, I play both my 360 and my pc through the same 24" Dell monitor so it's very easy to tell which platform is on top.

Now, the Playstation 3 is talking about Gran Turismo at 1080p, as if they seriously think 1080p is some kind of "holy grail" of high definition gaming! 1) this resolution mode will be limited to simple games that don't require complexity. and 2) the true holy grail of high definition gaming is 2560x1600 - on a PC! TWICE the resolution of 1080p (4.1 megapixels as opposed to 2.1 megapixels for 1080p). INCLUDING complex graphical routines. It's already been benchmarked with the latest games, check it out here: www.firingsquad.com... - now that really does make F.E.A.R. a joke on PS3 AND Xbox 360. I'm disgusted with X360 graphical quality as it is with first person shooters and PS3 would only render it at a max of 720p anyway. PC has the potential to render at 2560x1600 and if you look at the F.E.A.R. benches, a Crossfire setup gets over 50fps at that res. PS3 AND X360 are pathetic for supposed "next gen" power.

And then we get this so-called "news" that the CELL processor will be used in some IBM supercomputer? What a joke. If we believe Phil Schneider, he said that computer technology in the black realm is "off the scale" and advances 44-45 years for every calendar year in the real world, making computer tech somewhat 1200 years ahead of its time in late 1995. Who knows how far ahead they are now in the year 2006, but I doubt we will see it for at least another 50 years. Now that's the real story. I doubt IBM would be mucking about with a console chip that was outpaced by pc technology in the middle of last year. Heck, I'm getting my DirectX10 video card next year to run Crysis and that's going to be leaps and bounds ahead of what the PS3 could dream about. It also makes you wonder if PS3 will actually get to market. Massive Bill of Materials problems, problems with the blu-ray player, problem with CELL yields, decreasing list of exclusives, I think Sony are in big trouble. And this news story is nothing but propaganda.

[edit on 10-9-2006 by RiotComing]

Originally posted by tom goose
making processors fast is not a problem, but if im not mistaken , processors produce more heat per square inch than anything else on earth (or at least in the household). Iv'e seen a regular 2.8 ghz become over a 10ghz just from supercooling the processor and overclocking it, which every chip can do. so the processors that we are using can be potentially much greater, but we havn't found a way to make them run cool and efficient at high speeds, cheap enough to fit in a desk top.

This is very amazing. It's almost scary to think about what the next generation gaming systems will be like.

i know what you mean, but they are always coming out with a next gereration gameing computer, like every year. a bit more than a year ago i bought a dell xps with the ati x850xt pe, i thought i was top dog, now a little over a year later im just another punk.

Yeah I've heard that processors make more heat per square inch of surface area than a nuclear reactor does albeit they are much much smaller.

Maybe they should make a phase change cooling system come on the next generation of consoles.


Do some reading about the research being done into the area of turning synthetic diamonds and other gems into processors that can run extremely fast since they are basically impervious to heat

I just cant wait for the DX10 hardware to get released and the kinks out so I can try Crysis. After seeing some screen shots I wonder how long it will be until video games look just like your watching a high def dvd movie, but one you control? I say 5-10 years and probably even sooner it will be basically impossible for you to distigiush between the video game and a movie. Heck maybe even hollywood will fire all the actors and just use cgi generated ones, that arew much cheaper overall, never late, ask for more money, hungover, strungout on drugs, sick, have an attitude etc..

The Final Fantasy movie looked incredibly real. Games on the 360 are very lifelike as well. To date, I have never seen another full cgi movie that has so much life like characters.