PS3 doubles Folding@home power
250,000 registered in first month.
More than 250,000 of you have allowed your PlayStation 3 to contribute processing power to the Folding@home project, the PS3 version of which has been active for just one month.
Stanford University's research now enjoys a computing power of 700 teraflops in a single moment, 400 of which are delivered by PS3 owners. The console has also helped bring recognition to the scheme, boosting the number of PCs actively contributing by 20 per cent.
"The PS3 turnout has been amazing, greatly exceeding our expectations and allowing us to push our work dramatically forward," said Vijay Pande, associate professor of Chemistry at Stanford University and Folding@home program lead.
"Thanks to PS3, we have performed simulations in the first few weeks that would normally take us more than a year to calculate. We are now gearing up for new simulations that will continue our current studies of Alzheimer's and other diseases."
Those of you with a PS3 can also download a new update for the software. The 1.1 version improves visibility of donor locations on the globe, folding calculation speed and protein viewing. There's also additional language support, help screen hints, and improved donor-name length and character handling.
You can join the program by clicking on the Folding@home icon in the PS3 CrossMediaBar (XMB), or you can set the application to run whenever your console is idle.
The Folding@home project allows you to join the race to understand protein-folding, misfolding and related diseases like Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, cystic fibrosis and various cancers.
Head over to the Folding@home website for more information.
Be sure to pop over and see what's going on in the Eurogamers Folding@home group.
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Comments (61) Latest comment 5 years ago
Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!
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*claps*
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"the PS3 sits halfway between the GPU and the general-purpose CPU in terms of the flexibility vs. performance tradeoff. So the relative positions in the TFLOPS/CPU list given earlier are about what we'd expect, with the GPU being extremely good at the limited number of WU types that it can do, the PS3 being very good at a slightly larger number of types, and the general-purpose CPU offering a range of performance numbers on all the types of WUs that averages out to a result that puts it well at the bottom of the pack."
[link url=http://arstechnica.com /news.ars/post/20070326-why-the-playstation-3-owns-the-pc-in -fh.html
]http://ar stechnica.com/news.ars/post/200...[/link]
*edit* WU = work unit
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The amount of energy wasted per computer doing this, the amount of money people have to spend on it and so far there are questionable returns. Hundreds of thousands of CPUs working using 50-300W each is an awful lot of power, and I can't help but feel people are being tricked into thinking it's a worthwhile use of their money (and carbon emissions).
If my sums are correct (no guarantee), it's likely costing users tens of millions of pounds a day.
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I can't seem to find an option for this.
edit - Thanks zuljin. See the post below folks...
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I know you're joking, just wanted to say that this is only average at certain points in time. The addition of the PS3 nearly trippled it at one point, getting pretty close to the Holy grail of 1000 TFlops. So I think this is already the "dropped down" value, exclusive of people that have got bored of it.
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"PS3's left on folding around the world speed up Global warming by 7,500%, icecaps to melt in December '08"
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"If my sums are correct (no guarantee), it's likely costing users tens of millions of pounds a day."
I think you are correct (maybe a bit on the expensive side), and I don't really disagree with anything you're saying, but this is a way of personalising research. Running a supercomputer to do these calculations will also require vast amounts of power, but they cannot afford the cost of one nor the upkeep. Hence this "distributed project". If you feel like helping out, great! If not, so be it.
@Dr Strangelove
"Can you set this to run when the console is idle or do you have to select it on the menu/XMB thing?"
Press triangle on the option in networking (I think). Then it allows you to set an idle time after which to kick in.
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badum tish
/gets coat
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The amount of energy wasted per computer doing this, the amount of money people have to spend on it and so far there are questionable returns. Hundreds of thousands of CPUs working using 50-300W each is an awful lot of power, and I can't help but feel people are being tricked into thinking it's a worthwhile use of their money (and carbon emissions).
If my sums are correct (no guarantee), it's likely costing users tens of millions of pounds a day."
Trust me, your sums are nowhere near the mark...
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Yes and no. The PS3 uses far more power than a supercomputer would for the same TFLOPS. People probably even leave their TV/Plasma/LCD screens on to stare at it.
The whole idea of public distributed computing was to recycle idle cycles of work PCs NOT run fulltime PS3s. So NoQuarter is right... this is a very bad way of spending those TFLOPS, but it is free publicity for Sony and of course it makes people feel good. The only positive thing is that maybe this research would not have been done because they had no money for a supercomputer... but at what price?
>Just be thankful the Xbox 360 isn't doing it then.
Errr??? 360 uses less power.
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"The PS3 takes energy to run Folding@Home!!". Yeah, it takes energy when it's actually doing something useful. I don't hear anyone complaining about how much energy it (and the Xbox 360 and the Wii) draws whenever you're actually GAMING ON IT.
Apparently these people aren't concerned about using energy to play games (which is worthless) but loudly complain when the PS3's in the world doubles the computing power of the Folding@Home project.. it takes too much energy.
What the hell do you think? That you DON'T use power when you're gaming? That your gaming is somehow more important than helping solve protein based diseases? The PS3 draws a lot of energy whenever it is turned on. Isn't it better than it uses that energy for something useful then? Shouldn't you really be complaining about how every GAMER in the world adds to Global Warming instead?
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But it generates more heat causing the ice caps to melt quicker.
I can be petty to.
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"The PS3 uses far more power than a supercomputer would for the same TFLOPS. People probably even leave their TV/Plasma/LCD screens on to stare at it."
Disagree. Obviously if you leave your plasma on the whole time then that is a waste! But considering there are supercomputers using networks of PS3s, then this is no different.
"The whole idea of public distributed computing was to recycle idle cycles of work PCs NOT run fulltime PS3s."
Again, I disagree. If I go out to buy dinner and I leave my PS3 on, this kicks in. So it is recycling idle cycles. But the whole idea of distributed computing is NOT to recycle cpu cycles, it is to distribute workload over many pcs.
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If you have found a way to generate more heat with less power... please let us know. You might be in for a nobel price as well.
>Again, I disagree. If I go out to buy dinner and I leave my PS3 on, this kicks in
You should leave it on anyway. So in a way you are right... instead of wasting energy leaving it on, you at least do someting with it. I guess in a weird twisted way you are right. Definition of idle cycles is not walking out and going for a drink. Idle cycles are 97% of my CPU while I type this.
>But considering there are supercomputers using networks of PS3s, then this is no different.
There are none... but if there were you are correct. Sadly people do leave their screens on *and* the PS3 is by design not as efficient as a nicely packed supercomputer.
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"If you have find a way to generate more heat with less power"
Are you serious? 2 different systems, with different efficiencies? First system lower power could transfer all energy to heat, second could transfer all to light. Granted, its unlikely, but it is a silly statement.
Now gimme my nobel prize!
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How long is a moment?
...and is it an italian monent or a german one?
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I haven't seen a PS3 glow.
You are correct of course but since both machines transfer to heat I am
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The amount of energy wasted per computer doing this, the amount of money people have to spend on it and so far there are questionable returns. Hundreds of thousands of CPUs working using 50-300W each is an awful lot of power, and I can't help but feel people are being tricked into thinking it's a worthwhile use of their money (and carbon emissions).
If my sums are correct (no guarantee), it's likely costing users tens of millions of pounds a day."
The energy consumption during F@H is considerably lower than when in game mode, but even then what's most gratifying about this programme is the knowledge that regardless of that consumption you're is doing something that is worthwhile; beneficial to science and (lets not under play this ) the human race.
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Never mind that, what about all the pcs running so that people can add inane and asinine comments to forums and the like?
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Assuming you mean Cell processors rather than PS3s the first supercomputer using Cells should be ready next year. Note however it only uses the Cell "as an accelerator to a conventional (AMD Opteron) microprocessor-based server" and "we have no plans to build a giant cluster just out of Cell processors".
http://www.hpc wire.com/hpc/893353.html
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Theres two variations, theres the one you're describing, but then there was one an American university lecturer planned to use (cluster of about 100 PS3s). That was basically just going to the store and buying a shitload of PS3s. Don't know if he ended up going with it tho.
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Nice to see well-developed arguments being put forward here.
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Superroflmao adventure
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I remember somone linked seventy PS2s together to form a supercomputer of sorts. It sounded like it could do decent number-crunching for the price but they had problems with the limited memory.
Linking PS3s seems outlandish as they are expensive if you just want to do number-crunching, unless you somehow managed to tap into the processing power of the NVidia chip as well as the Cells (and even then you're forking out for a Blu-Ray drive you don't need on each machine).
Anyway he probably didn't go ahead and buy 100 PS3s based on this:
"PS3s and Xbox 360s were available in all 100 of the stores in this most recent survey" (so much for the spin about US PS3 supplies being limited by the European release)
[link url=http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php ?option=com_content&task=view&id=5343&Itemid=2
]http://ww w.next-gen.biz/index.php?option...[/link]
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It's 200 when folding...
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I don't think its that astronomical really. Yes you are paying for Blu-Ray, but if you can get your research working on a PS3, you are basically buying a fairly good number crunching PC for $600 - round about £300 here.
And you don't have to pay extortionate amounts (time and money) for Windows XP/Vista! Trying to find the original article, but googling PS3 networks only brings up Folding@Home now...
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No one claims gaming is useful.
Lots of people claim Folding@home is useful.
"The energy consumption during F@H is considerably lower than when in game mode, but even then what's most gratifying about this programme is the knowledge that regardless of that consumption you're is doing something that is worthwhile; beneficial to science and (lets not under play this ) the human race. "
If you're really trying to help the human race, you have to first weigh up whether your actions help it or hurt it more.
If folding@home does very little useful science but pumps out lots of potentially harmful greenhouse gases, then it might be that on balance this is doing more harm than good.
It might be better for the human race if people just switched their PS3s off when they aren't gaming.
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It might be better for the human race if people just switched their PS3s off when they aren't gaming.
Enough of this hypocritical rubbish.
And if you're that pedantic about the greenhouse effect, turn off your 360 as well, because 360s worldwide are contributing more to the greenhouse effect than PS3s, just from the sheer number of consoles - 1600 million Watt by XBox360s versus 1140 million Watt by PS3s.
In fact, it might be even better for the human race if nobody played video games at all.
If next week Stanford University announces that 360 users will also be able to contribute from their GPUs, I want to see how many people in EG are going to complain about the global warming. No, they'll be bragging about how much faster the GPU is than the Cell (a GPU faster than a CPU, what a surprise).
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Play games!?
As if.
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Currently, this is very very bad news with it contributing to global warming, terrorists, gay marriage etc.
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The lies, the bully tactics with companies like lik-sang, the arrogence, delays, etc etc.
i dont think it is hate, its good people are not letting sony walk all over them. although im sure most will eventually cave in and get one when a killer app arives & price cut.
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I presume that they will release a game next month then?
/coat
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Just look at all the gene-patenting shenagigans that have gone on since the Human Genome project.
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Finally a critical comment that actually makes sense.
You certainly have a point there.
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I sure hope not. If I ever do venture into online gaming, I hope to be spared from you morons.
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I think that the project's heart is in the right place, but I'm dropping out until I can contribute to the project efficiently. Hopefully AMD and NVidia will focus less on teraflops and more on power efficiency in their next generation of GPUs. Then maybe I'll be able to rationalize the power usage. As it is, the GPU client is sucking down somewhere around 250-300 watts (system total).
Both fossil fuels and the atmosphere are finite. I'm optimistic though that they'll scale back on power requirements as they shrink their GPU dies. Once they do, I'll look into running a client on a solar-powered rig.
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Unfortunately, any of the benefits that do accrue from this project are likely to be applied to some of the petty minded morons on this thread just as much as anyone else.
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Also, my grasp of the whole power generation/CO2 production argument is hazy, but surely the extra CO2 is only produced when greater amounts of fossil fuels are consumed, which would only happen if there was a significantly higher drain on the grid, and the proportion of people owning PS3s among all those drawing power from the grid at any one point isn't that huge.
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I thought it was a stupidly inexpensive box for what most people are going to use it for (watch Blu-Ray movies)