World's fastest computer PS3-powered

[Galactus]

IBM has revealed a new world record breaking supercomputer, which is twice as speedy as the machine it has overtaken.

Codenamed Roadrunner, it runs as petaflop speeds--one thousand trillion calculations per second, reports the BBC. The previous most powerful computer in the world, BlueGene/L currently runs at 478.2 teraflops (trillions of calculations per second) and uses 212,992 processors.

However, Roadrunner will only need 20,000 chips to achieve previously unheard of petaflop speed, as the design will use both conventional Opteron processors made by AMD and the PlayStation 3's Cell processor.

Almost 13,000 of the PS3's Cell processors are used in Roadrunner, and each of the 8-core chips runs at speeds of 4GHz. It was designed over several years by engineers from Sony, IBM, and Toshiba. The Cell chips are used as accelerators for portions of calculations, reports the New York Times.

Roadrunner will be used at America's Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico to monitor the country's nuclear stockpile. The massive machine will be housed in 288 fridge-sized cases, and will be linked together with 57 miles of fibre optic cable. It consumes around three megawatts of power, roughly the same amount needed to run a large shopping centre.

Speaking to The New York Times, Horst Simon, associate laboratory director for computer science at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, commented, "Roadrunner tells us about what will happen in the next decade. Technology is coming from the consumer electronics market and the innovation is happening first in terms of cell phones and embedded electronics."

According to Thomas P. D'Agostino, the administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration, if all six billion people on earth used hand calculators and performed calculations 24 hours a day and seven days a week, it would take them 46 years to do what Roadrunner can in one day.

[Mee]

In your face Bill Gates.

[PemLam]

In five years we'll be wearing that kind of processing power on our wrists.

[kainedamo]

Why are they using it for something lame like keeping check on nuclear stockpiles, instead of trying to make it into an AI!!!

[SuBe]

Originally Posted by kainedamo

Why are they using it for something lame like keeping check on nuclear stockpiles, instead of trying to make it into an AI!!!

[DorkyFresh]

Originally Posted by funeman_5

In five years we'll be wearing that kind of processing power on our wrists.

[Danalys]

Originally Posted by funeman_5

In five years we'll be wearing that kind of processing power on our wrists.

more like 35 going by moore's law.

[Kable24]

[Manic]

I don't think I could deal with the idea of a computer so fast I can't see the bouncing cards at the end of a game of Solitaire.

[Danalys]

meh just reprogram solitaire.

[Darkfly]

me wanty, I wonder if I can fit it in my room, I wonder what 3d Mark06 score I could get with one of those

[Philly Phanboy]

Originally Posted by Darkfly

me wanty, I wonder if I can fit it in my room, I wonder what 3d Mark06 score I could get with one of those

It still probably couldn't run Crysis with maxed out graphics.

[Darkfly]

Originally Posted by Philly Phanboy

It still probably couldn't run Crysis with maxed out graphics.

that's the first thing me & my friend talked about when I brought it up

[Darknightnomis]

It's just a matter of time now. the next step in what's coming....

H = I
A = B
L = M

[Darkfly]

Originally Posted by Darknightnomis

It's just a matter of time now. the next step in what's coming....

H = I
A = B
L = M

that's quite good what you've done with the letters

[Darknightnomis]

Originally Posted by Darkfly

that's quite good what you've done with the letters

I wish I could take credit Darkfly but it was Arthur Clarke's inspiration for caling him H.A.L..

From Wikepedia:

The scene in which HAL's consciousness degrades was inspired by Clarke's memory of a speech synthesis demonstration by physicist John Larry Kelly, Jr, who used an IBM 704 computer to synthesize speech.

[Clobberin' Time]

PS3 is hardly reknowned for being fast though???