Can some one better explain what this means? Interested but I do not understand the information above.

Does this mean you can write off the PS3 as a charitable donation?

Wow. The PS3 is finally usfull for something... unfortunatly its not games.

Hm. Rather misleading since it is not the OS that determines the processing power of any given computer. Windows = varying speeds of processors, PS3 = fixed processing power. That chart really means nothing.

MarkHawk Folding at home is a program that allows people to spare there CPU power to fold proteins, So thing of many computers doing super computer jobs. Anyway the PS3 is able to provide its processing power to the organization. And because the Cell Processor is a very powerful processor it is contributing alot to Folding@home.

This essentially shows that 829 PS3s provide the same computing power as 26314 PCs or 1 PS3 to 30 PCs.

Also, I though it was strange that the GPUs were more powerful than the PS3, until I looked up on the Folding@Home site http://folding.stanford.edu/FAQ-PS3.html and found that the folding is done by the Cell and it does not utilise the PS3's GPU.

@nate4096:
Precisely. Which is also why Intel-based Macs are beating Windows PCs as well - they all have relatively new processors since they haven't been out too long.

Pretty dumb, since the range of processors on windows machines can easily range from <500Mhz up to several cores of multiple Ghz.

But still, nice to see that the PS3 is doing something useful for the time being until the games can catch up. The question is, how many PS3 owners will actually decide to run this (and simultaneously raise their power bills)?

Is the folding going to use 100% of the PS3's processing power at all times when in progress?

If so, you could count me WAY out, since I like my PS3s in the non-melted variety.

LOL

well, what about one of those new intel quad core 2s?? those would rock.

Yeah agreed with Chebwa, they gonna get some nasty grams after 100 or so PS3's melt...

Very impressive indeed.
I would like to point out the GPU result: 60 Gigaflops - twice as much!!! Computer users fight back!

They should give you money per process.. at least some incentive.

I think they need to explain how processing numbers (or folding proteins) are supposed to cure Alzheimer's. I can't make the connection, I need to see a FAQ or something. Also, who the hell picked Alzheimer's as the thing to cure, why not AIDs or cancer?

elliotness,

I was just about to point out the same...
Nearly 60 Gigaflops per GPU.
Probably the reason PS3 score good... Most PC's on earth do not have good GPU's... just enough to see 2D video and get applications going at work.

Is a GPU 60x more powerful at folding than a PC?

gunbu:
http://folding.stanford.edu/faq.html

aec007:
currently the only gpu's that can run F@H are ATI x19xx series

@gunbu Check out this portion of their page.

http://folding.stanford.edu/science.html

wow. powerPC macs are really bad at this.

gunbu, just look up folding@home. it's the first friggen hit on google.

I'd also mention that it's using idle CPU cycles. Once the PS3 owner is done playing Resistance there's not much else to do with the system just yet. :^) More idle time = more crunching.

So, how do I sign up for F@H for PS3? Is it automatic? The F@H site does not make it easy how PS3 owners may contribute.

DO they have one for Xbox360? didn't Microsoft they are the same as a Ps3?

Well, considering that (as you say) the Intel Macs all have quite new processors it is still very impressive.
You need 377 Intel Macs for one TFLOP, while you only need 33 PS3s to get one TFLOP.
11.5 Intel Macs to every PS3 then...

But hey, I don't really know much about measuring computing power in TFLOPS and I sure as heck don't know much about this "folding"-project, but to me, it does sound like the PS3 could actually be capable of something good.

I think the trouble with the xbox360 *might* be that the system is more locked down than the PS3 in terms of running things that aren't games.

Anybody know for sure on this? Isn't home-brew code very easy to get working on a PS3 and near impossible on the 360? And ought this apply to running folding on a 360?

Also, given that the 360 has 3 PPC cores while the PS3 has 1PPC core plus 7 working SPE's, I think the PS3 is supposed to be better at maths and physics and such. The SPE's are very mathy-specific cores...while the PPC cores are very general, so much of the silicon is wasted/unuses/used inefficiently if you're only doing mathy stuff. In terms of gaming, though, which involves more than just math, Microsoft could be correct that their processor has similar capabilities to the Cell. Anybody with more knowledge than me on this topic want to weigh in?

The reason the PS3 and the (bleeding edge) GPUs do so well is that they are essentially vector processors. The are great at doing concurrent operations on large chunks of data.

EQC, this is actually very good for games, primarily the graphics and increasingly physics that takes up the bulk of game processing. Not very useful for game logic, but that's pretty minor. Just consider: Both the PS3 and GPUs were _made_ for games; they just happen to be good at these scietific number crunching too.

Hmmm, so the PS3 is as powerful as 30 computers, or half of a video card in one computer...

It's simple, floating point match isn't a CPU's strong point. However, a GPU can do it in it's sleep.

If they really wanted to make the PS3 look good on this, they would kick in the PS3's GPU into the load.

I wouldn't want to see the electric bills though :-P

Cool, thanks for the link guys. I think I get it now. I didn't know there was such a large group of underground computer wielding science pioneers. I'll probably install this on my PS3 when it comes out since I'm not playing any games on it. Watching those molecules move around looks pretty cool.

EQC, Stanford worked with Sony to create the PS3 folding application; it has nothing to do with any platform being more open, just Sony being more enthusiastic about helping out the folding cause. There was rumor of this as of a few months ago, and I've been eagerly awaiting it since my PS3 will be blowing away the hyperthreaded 3.0GHz P4 in my desktop and the 1.6GHz core duo in my laptop (with 4 cores folding in total).

I think that Gamestop or some place that PS3 on display can donate the CPU cycles to this project. with there being 4000+ Gamestops, that will be a 10+ fold increase in PS3 supplied CPU.

Gamestop can probably write off some of their power bill that way...

How is 25/261 = 1/6?

PS3 is less than 1/10th the total processing

Sujin: a tenth of the TOTAL processing, but they are 1/6th of the PC processing. Considering that there are 180-190 PC's per PS3 the numbers are quite daunting.

gunbu:

Who the hell are you to question why Folding@Home is doing Alzheimers research vs. that for AIDS or cancer? Do you think Alzheimers is a trivial disease?

Instead of whacking off in front of your workstation reading Gizmodo, take 30 seconds to go to Folding@Home's website and you'd see cancer is one of the diseases they're studying. Then take another 30 seconds to visit a website with information about Alzheimers before you shoot your mouth off, you insensitive nitwit.

A researcher I spoke to said that the basis for the 30x folding power, a very math intense process, is a $1000 PC you'd buy today.

I'm having a hard time reconciling this with the "Which is also why Intel-based Macs are beating Windows PCs as well - they all have relatively new processors since they haven't been out too long." comments.

Agreed the chart is worthless. F@H has been around since 2000. There are a lot of OLD computers still working for this project.

Comparing the processing power of the PS3 and PCs on this basis is practically meaningless given that it's based on the usage of idle CPU cycles. F@H on PS3 is unlikely to be competing for CPU time with anti-virus software, screensavers and the dozens of other processes that go on when the CPU isn't otherwise engaged.

It means that there are that many more idle PS3s out there since they do nothing but sit there on a desk and don't play many of the PS2 games. So they've got tons of time to dedicate the full processor power to the folding @ home application.

;)

Yeah, but I'm like 50 hours into FF XII - and I don't even NEED a PS3.