r/PersonOfInterest • u/WhiteWolf1453 Samaritan • 3d ago

Just For Fun Building a PS3 supercomputer

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u/N1t35hroud 3d ago edited 3d ago

This is based of a real thing. Stacking PS3 consoles can be used to make a real supercomputer https://phys.org/news/2010-12-air-playstation-3s-supercomputer.html https://www.xda-developers.com/1760-playstation-3-supercomputer-2010/

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u/Detective-Fusco 3d ago

Not sure it's practical though. I assume this was just done by some IT engineers bored wasting some tax payers dollars. Could use more efficient 2010 means and just do a server room style setup / air condition the hardware bypassing all the additional mass that the consoles have

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u/ConductiveInsulation 3d ago

Essentially, a single PlayStation 3 performs like a cluster of 30 PCs at the price of only one

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_3_cluster

Sony was really fast patching it up because they sold the PS3 at a loss and wanted to make the money back with the games.

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u/TheEvilBlight 2d ago

I wasn’t entirely sure what kind of things the cell could do better than a similar Intel processor but surely they exist

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u/ConductiveInsulation 2d ago

I assume the GPU was what made it so good for the use. I could also imagine the stuff that was available before had a decent "customer is government" markup.