72-core/cpu desktop computer....(12-6 core chips)

[AAA]

http://www.engadget.com/2007/11/17/sicor...-for-1500/

[Filliam H. Muffman]

Something seems wrong with those specs. Is it a single node with 6 cores that uses 200 Watts, or the whole 72 processor cluster? Desktop RAM modules use about 8 Watts each, so a computer that has 24 2 GB modules would use 192 Watts just for the RAM.

[Craig]

I found this comment interesting


AnONeamus @ Nov 17th 2007 8:52AM

If you're running Linux on the PS3, you'll only get the CPU's GFlops, so 218GFlops for 400USD (or $1.83/GFlop). If you were going to be doing any serious number crunching, you'd be *much* better off using PS3s (apparently they play games too).

Or put another way, $15000 would buy you 8TFlops of PS3 power (37 PS3s) , or in other words a setup 110x more powerful than this! That would also put you at about 255 on the Top 500 supercomputer list.

The top place of the 500 is 360GFlops (BlueGene), which could be yours for $666,000 if you made it out of 1665 PS3s...


I have seen Prof. Mueller's cluster of eight http://moss.csc.ncsu.edu/~mueller/cluster/ps3/coe.html which seems to have promise, but right now the limitation is RAM. He has his grad students working on it. It would be cool if someone could build a real PS3 cluster like VT did with the Power Macs and later Xserves.


Craig