So, the Royal Navy gets UMD'd PSPs... and the US Air Force gets 2,200 PS3s. Seems about right.
Daily Tech reports that "The United States Air Force plans to utilize the power of 2,200 Sony PlayStation 3 game consoles – the branch is expected to network the consoles into a powerful cluster that can be used for research purposes."
Researchers at the Air Force Research Laboratory are looking to get delivery next Spring; although it strikes us that they really should have made the most of Black Friday.
The reason for the PS3s? Cost. The USAF requisition form says, "With respect to cell processors, a single 1U server configured with two 3.2GHz cell processors can cost up to $8K while two Sony PS3s cost approximately $600"
"Though a single 3.2 GHz cell processor can deliver over 200 gigaflops, whereas the Sony PS3 configuration delivers approximately 150 gigaflops, the approximately tenfold cost difference per gigaflops makes the Sony PS3 the only viable technology for [high performance computing] applications."
Daily Tech reports that "The United States Air Force plans to utilize the power of 2,200 Sony PlayStation 3 game consoles – the branch is expected to network the consoles into a powerful cluster that can be used for research purposes."
Researchers at the Air Force Research Laboratory are looking to get delivery next Spring; although it strikes us that they really should have made the most of Black Friday.
The reason for the PS3s? Cost. The USAF requisition form says, "With respect to cell processors, a single 1U server configured with two 3.2GHz cell processors can cost up to $8K while two Sony PS3s cost approximately $600"
"Though a single 3.2 GHz cell processor can deliver over 200 gigaflops, whereas the Sony PS3 configuration delivers approximately 150 gigaflops, the approximately tenfold cost difference per gigaflops makes the Sony PS3 the only viable technology for [high performance computing] applications."