Andre Yoskowitz
1 Dec 2009 14:14
According to an official Justification Review Document, the U.S. Department of Defense has ordered 2200 PlayStation 3 consoles in an effort to expand their supercomputer.
The current supercomputer has 336 PS3s arrayed in a cluster, all running a Linux operating system. The consoles have Cell microprocessors, and offer the best value for devices that can be used in the supercomputer.
The systems purchased are 160GB "fat" PS3s because they can run alternate operating systems, unlike the slim PS3s which cannot.
BoingBoing adds: "In the document, it is pointed out that a 1U server with two 3.2GHz cell processors can cost $8,000, while two Sony PS3s cost about $600. This is justified even though the PS3-spec chips deliver 150GFLOPS of performance compared to 200GFLOPS of a standard 3.2GHz IBM Cell microprocessor."