The Cell Powers World's Fastest Computer

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/09/technology/09petaflops.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&partner=rssnyt&pagewanted=print&oref=slogin

An American military supercomputer, assembled from components originally designed for video game machines, has reached a long-sought-after computing milestone by processing more than 1.026 quadrillion calculations per second.

The new machine is more than twice as fast as the previous fastest supercomputer, the I.B.M. BlueGene/L, which is based at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California.

The Roadrunner is based on a radical design that includes 12,960 chips that are an improved version of an I.B.M. Cell microprocessor, a parallel processing chip originally created for Sony's PlayStation 3 video-game machine. The Sony chips are used as accelerators, or turbochargers, for portions of calculations.

The high-performance computing goal, known as a petaflop - one thousand trillion calculations per second - has long been viewed as a crucial milestone by military, technical and scientific organizations in the United States, as well as a growing group including Japan, China and the European Union. All view supercomputing technology as a symbol of national economic competitiveness. ( This is just some key points )

Now how can the 360 fans sit up here and say the Cell is garbage when it's the game developers that can't use it right. This is not Sony's fault. Sony's job was to make the hardware, developers job is make the software. When developers see this article then they might get a idea of what the Cell can do.

its an improved version of the one in the PS3...and there are 12,960 of them. 12,960...thats alot more than 1.

the cell isnt garbage for games though...not at all. its just not the best thing ever in the history of gaming processors either, like alot of PS3 fans like to believe. it doesent single handedly put the 360 in the shade...its not THAT good. but it certainly isnt terrible either..not by a long stretch.

We've always known that the Cell is capable of a lot of flops. This was always true, and when you chain thousands of them together, and throw other processors on top of that, you'll get a lot of raw calculations. And IBM has accomplished quite a feat by making a machine that can do a petaflop. But did you read the part in that article where they needed three different programming tools for the three different CPU architectures in the machine? It's going to be difficult to create programs that can fully take advantage of the raw power of that supercomputer.

Sony's job isn't just to make a powerful machine. Sony's job is to create a gaming platform. They need to make a platform that developers can use, because without games made by those developers, they suffer. Sony can't just create a powerful platform that's impossible to program for, because developers aren't obligated to make games for Sony's machine if it's so difficult to use. They'll just make games on the 360 and Wii instead.

If Sony's machine is difficult to program for, it's Sony's fault.

We've always known that the Cell is capable of a lot of flops.

sonicmj1

We've always known that the Cell is capable of a lot of flops.

sonicmj1

the cell also powers the worlds most inferior multiplats.

ZING!

great... so what does that mean in terms of gaming?

nothing you say? ok then

Very old....IronBass

June 9th, 2008 is old?

Old news and who cares, the whole PS3 = supercomputer crap died after people figured out E3 2k5 was BS.MrGrimFandango

June 9th, 2008 is old?

great... so what does that mean in terms of gaming?

nothing you say? ok then

st1ka

Keep on beliving that.

[QUOTE="st1ka"]

great... so what does that mean in terms of gaming?

nothing you say? ok then

CubanBlunt

Keep on beliving that.

[QUOTE="st1ka"]

great... so what does that mean in terms of gaming?

nothing you say? ok then

CubanBlunt

Keep on beliving that.

prove me wrong then

it does prove cells power.killzowned24

Thank you, atlease someone can see pass what in there face.

[QUOTE="CubanBlunt"][QUOTE="st1ka"]

great... so what does that mean in terms of gaming?

nothing you say? ok then

st1ka

Keep on beliving that.

prove me wrong then

[QUOTE="CubanBlunt"][QUOTE="st1ka"]

great... so what does that mean in terms of gaming?

nothing you say? ok then

Fusible

Keep on beliving that.

for me its not about being more powerfull, its about "what exactly does this mean in terms of gaming"

its been almost 2 years and so far it means nothing

[QUOTE="killzowned24"]it does prove cells power.CubanBlunt

Thank you, atlease someone can see pass what in there face.

LMAO teh cell, at least we know how badly teh PS3 cell version got downgraded PLUS Sony installed a bloated OS who takes most of the cores, making a cheap and overclockable dual-core beats TEH CELL by a mile.

Very old....IronBass

Not only that, TC fails to realize that just because the cell performing super fast calcualtions does not equate to good games.

[QUOTE="CubanBlunt"]

[QUOTE="killzowned24"]it does prove cells power.Fusible

Thank you, atlease someone can see pass what in there face.

You that pissed at the 360 that you have to call me names, i seen butterfly come at me harder then that, go play in the dirt or summ'em lil boy.

1. That is NOT the same Cell thats in the PS3.

2. That specific computer has 12,960 chips in it.

3. I repeat, that is NOT the same Cell thats in the PS3, that Cell is the OoO version and on top of that, its far superior to the normal OoO version.

[QUOTE="Fusible"][QUOTE="CubanBlunt"]

[QUOTE="killzowned24"]it does prove cells power.CubanBlunt

Thank you, atlease someone can see pass what in there face.

You that pissed at the 360 that you have to call me names, i seen butterfly come at me harder then that, go play in the dirt or summ'em lil boy.

1. That is NOT the same Cell thats in the PS3.

2. That specific computer has 12,960 chips in it.

3. I repeat, that is NOT the same Cell thats in the PS3, that Cell is the OoO version and on top of that, its far superior to the normal OoO version.

Nagidar

360 fans just like to down play anything Sony has, its like fighting with kids, only kids down play facts. Military computer are way more advanced then the PS3, and they use the Cell. I proved what the Cell can do, until you can prove other wize keep on hatin'CubanBlunt

Kind of like how you and other cows downplay the 360 and MS? The height of irony in these threads in SW is when cows or lemmings bash the other group for what they do on a regular occasion. The cell may be powerful for calculations but it hasn't transferred over to gaming as of yet. 'Nuf said.

360 fans just like to down play anything Sony has, its like fighting with kids, only kids down play facts. Military computer are way more advanced then the PS3, and they use the Cell. I proved what the Cell can do, until you can prove other wize keep on hatin'CubanBlunt

[QUOTE="Nagidar"]

1. That is NOT the same Cell thats in the PS3.

2. That specific computer has 12,960 chips in it.

3. I repeat, that is NOT the same Cell thats in the PS3, that Cell is the OoO version and on top of that, its far superior to the normal OoO version.

Colonel_Cool

Not quite, those are not PS3 Cells, those are OoO Cells that are far superior to normal OoO Cell processors.

[QUOTE="Colonel_Cool"][QUOTE="Nagidar"]

1. That is NOT the same Cell thats in the PS3.

2. That specific computer has 12,960 chips in it.

3. I repeat, that is NOT the same Cell thats in the PS3, that Cell is the OoO version and on top of that, its far superior to the normal OoO version.

Nagidar

Not quite, those are not PS3 Cells, those are OoO Cells that are far superior to normal OoO Cell processors.

Teh Cell!!!! Wait it's not teh Cell it said improved version of the cell so what I meant to say originally was...

Improved version of Teh Cell!!!

360 fans just like to down play anything Sony has, its like fighting with kids, only kids down play facts. Military computer are way more advanced then the PS3, and they use the Cell. I proved what the Cell can do, until you can prove other wize keep on hatin'CubanBlunt

You haven't proved anything we haven't known for ages. We've almost always known that the Cell was a beast at mathematical calculations. Developer comments have confirmed it. But we've also known that turning that power into something that works for games is incredibly difficult. That hasn't changed, and it remains true, despite the existence of this supercomputer that even your article comments is incredibly difficult to program for.

The Cell is a great chip, but it's not that well-suited for playing videogames.

it does prove cells power.killzowned24

Non nessasarily, there are various factors to be taken into consideration when designing a supercomputer. IBM uses 700MHz PowerPC processors to power their Bluegene systems (close to what the Wii uses), in order to increase power efficiency, and reduce heat, allowing them to cram chips closer together. One of these systems (Bluegene/L) was the last record holder for most powerfull super computer.

[QUOTE="CubanBlunt"][QUOTE="Fusible"][QUOTE="CubanBlunt"]

[QUOTE="killzowned24"]it does prove cells power.Fusible

Thank you, atlease someone can see pass what in there face.

You that pissed at the 360 that you have to call me names, i seen butterfly come at me harder then that, go play in the dirt or summ'em lil boy.

The Roadrunner is based on a radical design that includes 12,960 chips that are an improved version of an I.B.M. Cell microprocessor, a parallel processing chip originally created for Sony's PlayStation 3 video-game machine. The Sony chips are used as accelerators, or turbochargers, for portions of calculations

Roadrunner, which consumes roughly three megawatts of power, or about the power required by a large suburban shopping center, requires three separate programming tools because it has three types of processors. Programmers have to figure out how to keep all of the 116,640 processor cores in the machine occupied simultaneously in order for it to run effectively.

Read the fine print fanboy, lem, or whatever people call you, I like clown myself, but I'll go with fanboy for this one. "My" Cell has to be upgraded to handel that kind of power.

[QUOTE="Nagidar"][QUOTE="Colonel_Cool"][QUOTE="Nagidar"]

1. That is NOT the same Cell thats in the PS3.

2. That specific computer has 12,960 chips in it.

3. I repeat, that is NOT the same Cell thats in the PS3, that Cell is the OoO version and on top of that, its far superior to the normal OoO version.

Fusible

Not quite, those are not PS3 Cells, those are OoO Cells that are far superior to normal OoO Cell processors.

This is from that article:

"The Roadrunner is based on a radical design that includes 12,960 chips that are an improved version of an I.B.M. Cell microprocessor,"

It says it right there, the PS3 version is an IO Processor, the normal Cell is an OoO Processor, this one is an improved version of the OoO processor.

EDIT: This is the Military we're talking about, you won't find much in-depth specifications on something like this.

[QUOTE="Fusible"][QUOTE="CubanBlunt"]

You that pissed at the 360 that you have to call me names, i seen butterfly come at me harder then that, go play in the dirt or summ'em lil boy.

CubanBlunt

The Roadrunner is based on a radical design that includes 12,960 chips that are an improved version of an I.B.M. Cell microprocessor, a parallel processing chip originally created for Sony's PlayStation 3 video-game machine. The Sony chips are used as accelerators, or turbochargers, for portions of calculations

Roadrunner, which consumes roughly three megawatts of power, or about the power required by a large suburban shopping center, requires three separate programming tools because it has three types of processors. Programmers have to figure out how to keep all of the 116,640 processor cores in the machine occupied simultaneously in order for it to run effectively.

Read the fine print fanboy, lem, or whatever people call you, I like clown myself, but I'll go with fanboy for this one. "My" Cell has to be upgraded to handel that kind of power.

Dude I have read this article dozens of times, SONY had nothing to do with this project. IBM did this all by themselves, Sony and Toshiba gave the concepts to IBM which made this processor a reality. Then why if it is the almighty powerful, and you still havent answered, why is it that they only used 10% of the alloted processors...PLEASE TELL ME. I doubt you know enough to tell me, tell me something I haven't read or heard since yesterday. If it was the almighty powerful don't you think that the whole thing would of been comprised of Cells.Fusible

you have too many quotes edit your post before the mods get you

also what i would like to know is what does this thread have to do with system wars? or gaming for that matter

[QUOTE="Fusible"][QUOTE="Nagidar"][QUOTE="Colonel_Cool"][QUOTE="Nagidar"]

1. That is NOT the same Cell thats in the PS3.

2. That specific computer has 12,960 chips in it.

3. I repeat, that is NOT the same Cell thats in the PS3, that Cell is the OoO version and on top of that, its far superior to the normal OoO version.

Nagidar

Not quite, those are not PS3 Cells, those are OoO Cells that are far superior to normal OoO Cell processors.

This is from that article:

"The Roadrunner is based on a radical design that includes 12,960 chips that are an improved version of an I.B.M. Cell microprocessor,"

It says it right there, the PS3 version is an IO Processor, the normal Cell is an OoO Processor, this one is an improved version of the OoO processor.

EDIT: This is the Military we're talking about, you won't find much in-depth specifications on something like this.

[QUOTE="CubanBlunt"][QUOTE="Fusible"][QUOTE="CubanBlunt"][QUOTE="Fusible"][QUOTE="CubanBlunt"]

[QUOTE="killzowned24"]it does prove cells power.Fusible

Thank you, atlease someone can see pass what in there face.

You that pissed at the 360 that you have to call me names, i seen butterfly come at me harder then that, go play in the dirt or summ'em lil boy.

The Roadrunner is based on a radical design that includes 12,960 chips that are an improved version of an I.B.M. Cell microprocessor, a parallel processing chip originally created for Sony's PlayStation 3 video-game machine. The Sony chips are used as accelerators, or turbochargers, for portions of calculations

Roadrunner, which consumes roughly three megawatts of power, or about the power required by a large suburban shopping center, requires three separate programming tools because it has three types of processors. Programmers have to figure out how to keep all of the 116,640 processor cores in the machine occupied simultaneously in order for it to run effectively.

Read the fine print fanboy, lem, or whatever people call you, I like clown myself, but I'll go with fanboy for this one. "My" Cell has to be upgraded to handel that kind of power.

Your asking me like I invented the cell. You act like I care that much about the cell to define it like its my kid. It works in the PS3, thats good enought for me, you go find your answers because homie, its not that serious to me. You're asking me question because your interested in the cell, but you're a 360 fanboy and you're letting that make you look like a fool.

What do "I" have to prove to you........yea I thought so!

[QUOTE="Nagidar"][QUOTE="Fusible"][QUOTE="Nagidar"][QUOTE="Colonel_Cool"]

Yes, it would be misinterpreting it to say that this is the power of the ps3. In actuality, it is the power of almost 13000 ps3 processors as well as several thousand Opterons. Fusible

Not quite, those are not PS3 Cells, those are OoO Cells that are far superior to normal OoO Cell processors.

This is from that article:

"The Roadrunner is based on a radical design that includes 12,960 chips that are an improved version of an I.B.M. Cell microprocessor,"

It says it right there, the PS3 version is an IO Processor, the normal Cell is an OoO Processor, this one is an improved version of the OoO processor.

EDIT: This is the Military we're talking about, you won't find much in-depth specifications on something like this.

"The IU fetches four instructions per cycle per thread into an instruction buffer and dispatches the instructions from this buffer. After decode and dependency checking, instructions are dual-issued to an execution unit. A 4-KB by 2-bit branch history table with 6 bits of global history per thread is used to predict the outcome of branches. The IU can issue up to two instructions per cycle. All dual-issue combinations are possible except for two instructions to the same unit and the following exceptions. Simple vector, complex vector, vector floating-point, and scalar floating-point arithmetic cannot be dual-issued with the same type of instructions (for example, a simple vector with a complex vector is not allowed). However, these instructions can be dual-issued with any other form of load/store, fixed-point branch, or vector-permute instruction. A VSU issue queue decouples the vector and floating-point pipelines from the remaining pipelines. This allows vector and floating-point instructions to be issued out of order with respect to other instructions."

Link

EDIT: Forgot to mention, the one in the article is the normal CBE, its not the stripped down version in the PS3.

We've always known that the Cell is capable of a lot of flops. This was always true, and when you chain thousands of them together, and throw other processors on top of that, you'll get a lot of raw calculations. And IBM has accomplished quite a feat by making a machine that can do a petaflop. But did you read the part in that article where they needed three different programming tools for the three different CPU architectures in the machine? It's going to be difficult to create programs that can fully take advantage of the raw power of that supercomputer.

Sony's job isn't just to make a powerful machine. Sony's job is to create a gaming platform. They need to make a platform that developers can use, because without games made by those developers, they suffer. Sony can't just create a powerful platform that's impossible to program for, because developers aren't obligated to make games for Sony's machine if it's so difficult to use. They'll just make games on the 360 and Wii instead.

If Sony's machine is difficult to program for, it's Sony's fault.

sonicmj1

"The Roadrunner is based on a radical design that includes 12,960 chips that are an improved version of an I.B.M. Cell microprocessor, a parallel processing chip originally created for Sony's PlayStation 3 video-game machine. The Sony chips are used as accelerators, or turbochargers, for portions of calculations."

Don't worry because the PS3 doesn't have 12,960 chips to improve it. lol . The PS3's cell can't even compare. It's wacko to even try and compare.