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I've read where there is a beta client of dnetc to be used on the PS3, but when I look for it under pre-release clients I don't see it.
Anyone in the know? I'd like to try it on my new PS3 ;)
http://www.nabble.com/-Announcement-...-t4229039.html
http://lists.distributed.net/piperma...st/041346.html
Look under Linux for Cell:
http://distributed.net/download/clients.php#linux
yoyo
Thanks!
So is the ps3 client just running the cpu, or is it a really bona-fide SPE etc., client?
The PS3 client uses the PPE and SPEs. Comment out of the Readme:Quote:
Originally Posted by Brucifer
yoyoQuote:
The PlayStation 3's processor, Cell, was designed by the STI
(Sony/Toshiba/IBM) joint venture. It is composed of a PowerPC main
processor (PPE) and up to 8 co-processors, called Synergistic Processing
Elements or SPEs, all clocked at 3.2 GHz. As shipped in the
PlayStation 3, Cell has one of its SPEs disabled, so that only 7 SPEs
are accessible to most games. Moreover, when running an alternative
operating system such as Linux, the hypervisor reserves one of the SPEs,
so only 6 SPEs are accessible to applications running under Linux. Note
that this issue is specific to the PlayStation 3; blade servers using
Cell processors should have all 8 SPEs available.
Note that although Linux reports 2 CPUs per Cell, this is due to the PPE
being a 2-way simultaneous multi-threading (SMT) design, roughly similar
to the Hyperthreading technology used in Intel's Pentium 4 CPUs. This
means the operating system sees each CPU as 2 distinct CPUs, but
physically these CPUs share the majority of execution resources and
generally cannot perform at twice the rate of a single CPU. Moreover,
since our cores already exploit all available PPE execution resources in
a single cruncher, while relying on precise instruction scheduling, it
has been observed that running multiple PPE crunchers simultaneously on
the same physical PPE has a negative effect on performance. Therefore
running multiple PPE crunchers in a single Cell is disabled in this client.
Thank you yoyo. Is there any performance documentation out there?
On PS3 6 SPE + 1 PPE is used, each has 3.2 GHz. They http://www.ps3grid.net/ compared the performance. There is also a Linux version which can be booted from a USB stick.Quote:
Originally Posted by Brucifer
On my project yoyo@home PS3 is 3 times faster than a core duo with 3 GHz.
yoyo
168,318,973 keys/sec = 3,386 blocks per day. :smoking:
@ 200 watts, I may have to run out and get another one.
Wonder how it does on OGR? Anyone...
I read 230+ Mnodes/s !
200 watts? A quick google search indicated it might be closer to 380Watts, a serious difference :confused:
I'd read that the PS3 was a serious power hog :(
I stand corrected. I think it uses 200 watts to watch a movie or play a game.
I'll hook it up to my kill-a-watt device to get an exact reading under full DC load, eventually. :)
But still, at 380 Watts, in RC5, the output is more than the combined output of what my brother and I had in total, which was very close to 100GHz at one point. It was costing us both over $500 each per month to run all those computers.
You can look at each run we made close to ~3,000, not counting the two ~6,000 'two day dumps' and see this one 380watt device beats all of it. ;)
Next will be OGR in a day or three, to see what it can do there.
Just interesting comparisons.
With 2, 3 or even 1/2 dozen of the PS3s, in very limited projects, you could make a significant impact in stats and contributions. :D
168Mkey/s is absolutely crazy! I'd love to see what sort of number you can manage for OGR. On my QuadCore 6600 (4 cores @ 2.4Ghz each) I'm getting about 140Mnodes/sec, for comparison purposes.
I found this
Quote:
The build 502 client (again two week limited beta) is out for the Playstation 3's "Cell Broandband Engine" CPU and introduces an optimized OGR core which reaches an awesome 230 Mnodes/s using all cores.
For comparison, that's around 30% faster than a 3 GHz Intel Core 2 Quad (using all 4 cores), which is clock for clock probably the fastest general purpose CPU around at the moment.
If you have a PS3 and run Linux on it, dnet needs to be on there :)
Awesome IB! If only they harnessed this power earlier in the project, we could've stomped this thing sooner. :thumbs:
PS3's are turning out to be awesome crunchers, just as IB has already said.
My Kill-a-watt shows 133 Watts working on RC5.
:thumbs:
Each PS3 running dnet will cost you about what a 100 watt light bulb would cost you, if you never turned it off. ;)
Consider the use of one 100 W light bulb (0.1 kW) used for 10 hours per day.
This will consume 1 kilowatt-hour per day (0.1 kW × 10 h).
If a power company charges $0.10/kW·h, then this light bulb will cost $0.10 a day and $0.70 a week to operate (0.1 kW × 10 h × $0.10/kW·h × 7 d/week.)
So let's just round all that up and say about $2 per week per PS3 for 24/7 crunching.
:smoking: