On 05/10/2013 12:04 AM, Lux, Jim (337C) wrote: > On 5/8/13 6:41 PM, "Prentice Bisbal" <[email protected]> wrote: > >> On 05/08/2013 09:41 AM, Lux, Jim (337C) wrote: >>> The game console business is a strange one, and I don't know that it has >>> much to bring to the HPC world (whoa, that will provoke some comment). >> Roadrunner's body isn't even cold yet, and everyone's already forgotten >> about it. :( >> >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Roadrunner >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cell_microprocessor >> >> > I think roadrunner is an example of a one-off stunt.. > In the long run, "easy programming" is probably a bigger cost driver. >
One man's "stunt" is another man's "experiment" or "proof-of-concept". I think that Roadrunner succeeded as a proof-of-concept for using accelerators. If it failed because of programming difficulty, that's a software/people issue. While still a significant problem that can't be ignored, I was thinking only about hardware, and your statement. The success of Roadrunner in breaking the petaflop barrier can't be ignored, and proves that the gaming console world has already brought something to the HPC world. Now it's success as a USABLE computer, is a different story, and a valid point. Roadrunner isn't the only example of game console technology in HPC. Google for "PS3 cluster", and you'll find a multiple cases of people using PS3s for HPC clusters. Yes, most were small experiments, but it can be argued that the reason PS3 clusters weren't widely adopted was a people issue more than a technical hardware capabilities problem - I'm sure there wasn't a large ecosystem of software available for the PS3, and while it wasn't hard to create a proof-of-concept cluster, I imagine the resources it would take to port all the libraries/utilities to the PS3 hardware scientist are used to having on an x86 system probably prohibited practical use and wide-spread adoption. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_3_cluster -- Prentice _______________________________________________ Beowulf mailing list, [email protected] sponsored by Penguin Computing To change your subscription (digest mode or unsubscribe) visit http://www.beowulf.org/mailman/listinfo/beowulf
