7000 PS3 Outfolding 160,000 Windows PCs

[Butter Bandit]

Folding@home OS Statistics (http://fah-web.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/main.py?qtype=osstats)

There are currently around 7000 PS3s running the folding@home client, and they're outperforming the approximately 160,000 Windows PCs that are also folding.

That means that each PS3 can fold as well as around 25 Windows PCs. That's pretty impressive if you ask me.

z0mg!?!?! t3h c311 is curing cancer d00d!!!

[Rakeesh]

That isn't an apples to apples comparison, namely it doesn't account for older/slower PC's being part of that sample.

[Butter Bandit]

Even if it doesn't take into account slower CPUs, it doesn't change the fact that 7000 PS3s are beating 160,000 computers :p

Obviously there are huge performance differences out there, but my PS3 folds MUCH faster than my current computer.

I've got an Athlon 64 X2 4200+ running at 2.65 ghz and my PS3 easily folds ten times faster. I'll post average frame times later as evidence.

[Badboy_12345]

my pc also folds as 25 of 486/33 pcs :rolleyes:

[Butter Bandit]

my pc also folds as 25 of 486/33 pcs :rolleyes:

PS3 does something well and all we can do is bash it, go play with your Wii60 while t3h c3ll pwnz0rz alzeheimers d00d

[Butter Bandit]

Alright, I've got some numbers. Keep in mind that some frames are more complex than others, requiring more CPU time, but these are the averages from my current work units.

PS3 : 0.786 Seconds per Frame
PC : 19 Seconds per Frame

My PS3 is currently folding about 20 times faster than my computer, equipped with an Athlon 64 X2 4200+ @ 2.65 ghz (though keep in mind that the folding@home client is only capable of using one core at a time).

So even if I were to run 2 clients on my PC, my PS3 is still folding 10 times faster.

How's that for apples to apples? :cool:

[marqmajere]

Well holy crap in a hat!! I should run right out and buy 2 of them.

[Butter Bandit]

Well holy crap in a hat!! I should run right out and buy 2 of them.

I don't think anyone buys a PS3 solely for folding...unless they're obsessed with that sort of thing. The main point of the thread was just that I was impressed with how well the Cell is able to process stuff like folding@home.

Obviously no one shares my enthusiasm on the subject.

[marqmajere]

I don't think anyone buys a PS3 solely for folding...unless they're obsessed with that sort of thing. The main point of the thread was just that I was impressed with how well the Cell is able to process stuff like folding@home.

Obviously no one shares my enthusiasm on the subject.

In that case, I agree with you. It is rather impressive.

[Badboy_12345]

I don't think anyone buys a PS3 solely for folding...unless they're obsessed with that sort of thing. The main point of the thread was just that I was impressed with how well the Cell is able to process stuff like folding@home.

Obviously no one shares my enthusiasm on the subject.

Im just wonder why there arent any big news about it anywhere...
If it was like that we would see news about it on every console site on the internet... and especially sony would come out and said LOOK OUR PS3 OWNZ!! T3H C3LL!!!

Im waiting for news from sites before I jump the gun
Numbers can be easily decieving

[Buenamos]

pretty impressive.

[PeterJensen]

i will be folding later today :)

[jolle]

Not very suprising concidering the parallell nature of the Cell.
I would GUESS that GPU folding might catch up to that rather soon.

[brady]

10,000,000 Xbox 360's outgaming all PS3's! :D


Sorry, it was just too easy.

[PeterJensen]

Anny one with a PS3 here please add me to friends :)

"Refsgaard" :)

just got my ps3 hooked up. Damn im impressed. Just played Motorstorm and OMG is that game nice....

[Badboy_12345]

Anny one with a PS3 here please add me to friends :)

"Refsgaard" :)

just got my ps3 hooked up. Damn im impressed. Just played Motorstorm and OMG is that game nice....

Ill add you when I get home as we are neighboors, Im from sweden :)

[PeterJensen]

Ill add you when I get home as we are neighboors, Im from sweden :)

Nice :)

And i'm folding for Nvnews now :)

[Namrok]

I believe it. Honestly the cell was designed to do things like folding a lot more than it was designed to do gaming.

[Subtestube]

As a note guys - take note of the "GPUs" number. There are, (currently) less than 700 of them, and they're doing 41 TFlops. Add that number up to the number of PS3s, and multiply it out. The same number of GPUs would (on average) be better than twice as good as the PS3... this leads me to question something - does anyone know if the PS3's folding client utilises the RSX, or just uses the CPU? If not, it should. Irrespective, this kind of performance is a real plus from a next gen console. I'd love to see similar clients released on all of them! Let's remember - with folding, it's not a competition - it's about curing cancer! :P

[hazindu]

I'm in the understanding that the PS3 is good for 900ppd? That's really good for a single machine, as you'd need a core2 running a smp client to beat that. Also, future clients may run even faster on the PS3. This IMO is very good for science, I just hope the PS3 is physically built up enough to handle this task long term.

[|MaguS|]

Anny one with a PS3 here please add me to friends :)

"Refsgaard" :)

just got my ps3 hooked up. Damn im impressed. Just played Motorstorm and OMG is that game nice....

Liar! No one is impressed with the systems games or reliablitiy. BTW We should all be able to play smoothly online together since most PS3 games are lag free even when playing on servers around the world.

[PeterJensen]

Liar! No one is impressed with the systems games or reliablitiy. BTW We should all be able to play smoothly online together since most PS3 games are lag free even when playing on servers around the world.

I added you to friend :)

[|MaguS|]

I'll add you when I get home...

[sytaylor]

See, if the PS3 was supposed to be a supercomputer that could run applications like folding far quicker than most machines out there, then sure... Well worth the money. But its not. Its memory bottleneck still makes it a strange console design.

[Butter Bandit]

As a note guys - take note of the "GPUs" number. There are, (currently) less than 700 of them, and they're doing 41 TFlops. Add that number up to the number of PS3s, and multiply it out. The same number of GPUs would (on average) be better than twice as good as the PS3... this leads me to question something - does anyone know if the PS3's folding client utilises the RSX, or just uses the CPU? If not, it should. Irrespective, this kind of performance is a real plus from a next gen console. I'd love to see similar clients released on all of them! Let's remember - with folding, it's not a competition - it's about curing cancer! :P

There was actually a post by one of the Pande group members from folding@home about that.

He claimed that because the GPUs lacked certain instruction sets they needed (since it wasn't really designed to do calculations of this nature) the TFLOP number given byt he GPUs was a bit misleading.

This was because calculations would sometimes have to be done twice. Let em find a link....

Folding@home Forum Thread (http://forum.folding-community.org/ftopic18543.html)
Just counting FLOPS can be deceptive. The GPU does a lot of FLOPS, but is less efficient with them. For example, the GPU doesn't allow a scatter (random access write) so we are forced to do some calculations twice: the force on i & j is related to the force on j & i, but saving that data requires a scatter, so we just recalc.

That's the faster way to go on the GPU, so it's the right thing to do there. It also brings the FLOPS *way* up, but it means it *requires* 2x the FLOPS just to do the same calculation.