Sony’s PlayStation3 wasn’t the perfect choice for all the avid gamers around the globe due to its extreme high price. But on the other side, it became a perfect choice for making a new type of supercomputing machine
A professor at Massachusetts is utilizing his well-known ‘gravity-grid’ consisting of eight PS3 which replaced 200 supercomputing nodes which he used be relied upon before.
Buying a supercomputer would run in costing in $5000 in grant money whereas when you are out to buy eight 60 GB PS3s that would cost just $3,200. So it took him time convincing the NSF for the grant money and Sony for some free PS3s.
While the savings may just be one-third of existing costs, the idea is sure appealing.
Via: Wired
