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Registered Member #96
Joined: Thu Feb 09 2006, 05:37PM
Location: CI, Earth
Posts: 4061
Hi all.
I just purchased a partially working (Bluray laser is low emission) PS3 for £120.
I did read somewhere that it is possible to use its Cell processor to do calculations that would make a quad core PC CPU look like a doorstop. Has anyone else tried this? BTW yes the old Blu-ray module is getting used for various projects, as soon as the new one is here and installed.
Registered Member #260
Joined: Sun Feb 26 2006, 09:51PM
Location:
Posts: 17
I know you can install Linux on them pretty easily. From there, the possibilities are virtually endless. A quick google search should come up with some pretty useful information. I would find the PS3 Linux site for you were I not on my iPhone.
Registered Member #27
Joined: Fri Feb 03 2006, 02:20AM
Location: Hyperborea
Posts: 2058
I did read somewhere that it is possible to use its Cell processor to do calculations that would make a quad core PC CPU look like a doorstop.
The speed difference is not always significant, it all depends on the algorithm and on the skill of the person that wrote the code.
If we look at it realistically we got 6 cell cores at 3.2 GHz, each doing 4 floating point operations every cycle. Compared to 4 cores on a PC doing exactly the same thing. On real work like FFT there are plenty of cases where a dual core PC CPU beats the PS3 cell. And there are cases where the Cell is 3 times faster.
Registered Member #1320
Joined: Sat Feb 16 2008, 01:31AM
Location:
Posts: 67
Bjørn Bæverfjord wrote ...
I did read somewhere that it is possible to use its Cell processor to do calculations that would make a quad core PC CPU look like a doorstop.
The speed difference is not always significant, it all depends on the algorithm and on the skill of the person that wrote the code.
If we look at it realistically we got 6 cell cores at 3.2 GHz, each doing 4 floating point operations every cycle. Compared to 4 cores on a PC doing exactly the same thing. On real work like FFT there are plenty of cases where a dual core PC CPU beats the PS3 cell. And there are cases where the Cell is 3 times faster.
there are actually 10 cores. 1 is locked in manufacturing to reduce the amount of boards that must be discarded and one is locked to the ps3 OS. Linux has use of 8 off SPU's each at 3.2ghz. The thing that makes it such a processing power house is that the $400 system is able to preform as well as a couple grand PC at raw processing power. The best distro I've had is the PS3 version of Yellow Dog because it supports all of the hardware perifials (wifi, blutooth, and flash card slots) and it gives access to using the RSX GPU as well.
Registered Member #902
Joined: Sun Jul 15 2007, 08:17PM
Location: North Texas
Posts: 1040
[quote]
Bjørn Bæverfjord wrote ...
I did read somewhere that it is possible to use its Cell processor to do calculations that would make a quad core PC CPU look like a doorstop.
The speed difference is not always significant, it all depends on the algorithm and on the skill of the person that wrote the code.
If we look at it realistically we got 6 cell cores at 3.2 GHz, each doing 4 floating point operations every cycle. Compared to 4 cores on a PC doing exactly the same thing. On real work like FFT there are plenty of cases where a dual core PC CPU beats the PS3 cell. And there are cases where the Cell is 3 times faster.
there are actually 10 cores. 1 is locked in manufacturing to reduce the amount of boards that must be discarded and one is locked to the ps3 OS. Linux has use of 8 off SPU's each at 3.2ghz. The thing that makes it such a processing power house is that the $400 system is able to preform as well as a couple grand PC at raw processing power. The best distro I've had is the PS3 version of Yellow Dog because it supports all of the hardware perifials (wifi, blutooth, and flash card slots) and it gives access to using the RSX GPU as well. [/quote1213744406]
but the main thing is, since none of the programs for computers (with small exceptions) are made to run using more than two cores (four becoming more common), will there be a gain in performance at all due to the fact that using the extra cores requires new code (at least from my experience... but I doubt things have changed for attempting to use eight cores)
Registered Member #27
Joined: Fri Feb 03 2006, 02:20AM
Location: Hyperborea
Posts: 2058
There are 8 SPE (Synergistic Processor Elements) cores in the PS3, 6 of which is free to use. Then there is a PowerPC core and some other stuff but ony 6 cores are free for symmetrical parallel processing.
The peak performance of one SPE core is the same as for one PC CPU core, that is 8 floating point operations every clock cycle. So at peak performance the PS3 will win by 6 to 4. On real code the peak performance will go out the window and the winner will depend on the algorithm and the people writing the code.
So a modern PC is never going to be a complete doorstop compared to a PS3 unless it is set up to be by marketing people.
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PS3 hackage?
