Title :
Early Experiences with Algorithm Optimizations on Clusters of Playstation 3´s
Author :
Linderman, Richard
Author_Institution :
Inf. Directorate, US Air Force Res. Lab., Rome, NY
Abstract :
A 50 TeraFLOPS cluster of Playstation 3sreg (PS3) is being built at the Air Force Research Laboratory, Information Directorate (AFRL/RI) in Rome, NY as an High Performance Computing Modernization Program (HPCMP) effort to provide early access to the IBM Cell Broadband engine chip technology included in the low priced commodity gaming consoles. A heterogeneous cluster with powerful subcluster headnodes is used to balance the architecture in light of PS3 memory and input/output constraints. Several cases studies have shown that 30-70% of the 153 GFLOPS peak performance of these nodes can be sustained on problems of Department of Defense (DoD) interest. Notable power efficiency approaching 1 GFLOPS/Watt has also been observed.
Keywords :
computer games; optimisation; remote consoles; workstation clusters; Department of Defense; High Performance Computing Modernization Program; IBM Cell Broadband engine chip technology; Playstation 3; TeraFLOPS cluster; algorithm optimizations; gaming consoles; Bandwidth; Clustering algorithms; Computer architecture; Costs; Engines; Ethernet networks; High performance computing; Laboratories; Multicore processing; Throughput;
Conference_Titel :
DoD HPCMP Users Group Conference, 2008. DOD HPCMP UGC
Conference_Location :
Seattle, WA
Print_ISBN :
978-1-4244-3323-0
DOI :
10.1109/DoD.HPCMP.UGC.2008.59
