Comments

GlennChan wrote on 10/30/2007, 2:25 PM
Neat... but companies tend to overhype their product by saying they are "supercomputers".

Whether the Cell/PS3 is a good/fast computer comes down to your application. In the case of Folding @ Home, there's some information here:
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070326-why-the-playstation-3-owns-the-pc-in-fh.html

In terms of raw # of FLOPs, the GPU is ahead. But at the end of the day, all three solutions (GPU, Cell, CPU) are useful for protein folding.
apit34356 wrote on 10/30/2007, 3:21 PM
There are only a few GPU chips that perform better that a PS3 and it deals with GPU extremes running 512M memories. But the Cell clearly defeats these chips when configured with same memory sizes, as demonstrated in the DOD contracts for supercomputing for top labs. But the 128bit standard math for the sub-cpus is a feature that makes it fast in complex computing.
TheHappyFriar wrote on 10/30/2007, 8:06 PM
it's like SGI's with RISC's all over again. they out-powered any PC but nobody wanted to pay the prices & you need all risc-compatible software. Yes, it was 64/128 bit but people wanted cheap & easy, that's why PC will always be around. :(
apit34356 wrote on 10/30/2007, 10:36 PM
"it's like SGI's with RISC's", except that non of these designs make it into a mass produced product, which the cell has, plus something these other designs failure to do, is win any major DOD projects and have major backers alliances. With the media center line blurring between PC and stand-alone for the average consumer, there is an opening for a next generation product/software/hardware.