Sony: Consoles can aid medical research

By HIROKO TABUCHI, Associated Press Writer Tue Nov 21, 6:43 PM ET

TOKYO - The new PlayStation 3 isn't all about entertainment. That's the message Sony Corp (NYSE:SNE - news). is trying to convey in announcing that the new game consoles — as powerful as supercomputers — can help Stanford University researchers analyze complex human protein structures and perhaps find cures for cancer, Alzheimer's and other ailments.


Thousands of die-hard gamers and entrepreneurs lined up last week to buy the sleek PS3 machines when they went on sale in the United States on Friday. Police had to disperse rowdy crowds at some stores, and in Connecticut, authorities said two armed men tried to rob waiting customers and shot a man who refused to give up his money.

Sony Computer Entertainment says that when Cure(at)PLAYSTATION 3 is launched, PS3 owners can register their machines with Stanford, download specially designed software and leave their machines online to process data when they're not playing.

It's modeled after programs where personal computers process high-volume data for signs of extraterrestrial life and other tasks. PCs already contribute to the Stanford medical research program.

Sony said data processing time can be up to 20 times faster with a global network of PS3s, which are fitted with advanced Cell processors that can perform billions of calculations per second.

The program will kick off after the PS3 becomes available globally. PS3s already are on sale in Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan and the United States; the European launch was delayed until March because of production problems.

I know it had been suggested before the PS3 was released, but here is an actual news story confirming it's use in research. Get a hold of the BOINC people and the Rosetta developers and let's not let Stanford be the only ones to take advantage of it.

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Maybe its a good idea to have its own thread here.

Originally posted in Cafe Rosetta

Sony: Consoles can aid medical research

By HIROKO TABUCHI, Associated Press Writer Tue Nov 21, 6:43 PM ET

TOKYO - The new PlayStation 3 isn't all about entertainment. That's the message Sony Corp (NYSE:SNE - news). is trying to convey in announcing that the new game consoles — as powerful as supercomputers — can help Stanford University researchers analyze complex human protein structures and perhaps find cures for cancer, Alzheimer's and other ailments.


Thousands of die-hard gamers and entrepreneurs lined up last week to buy the sleek PS3 machines when they went on sale in the United States on Friday. Police had to disperse rowdy crowds at some stores, and in Connecticut, authorities said two armed men tried to rob waiting customers and shot a man who refused to give up his money.

Sony Computer Entertainment says that when Cure(at)PLAYSTATION 3 is launched, PS3 owners can register their machines with Stanford, download specially designed software and leave their machines online to process data when they're not playing.

It's modeled after programs where personal computers process high-volume data for signs of extraterrestrial life and other tasks. PCs already contribute to the Stanford medical research program.

Sony said data processing time can be up to 20 times faster with a global network of PS3s, which are fitted with advanced Cell processors that can perform billions of calculations per second.

The program will kick off after the PS3 becomes available globally. PS3s already are on sale in Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan and the United States; the European launch was delayed until March because of production problems.

I know it had been suggested before the PS3 was released, but here is an actual news story confirming it's use in research. Get a hold of the BOINC people and the Rosetta developers and let's not let Stanford be the only ones to take advantage of it.

It would definitely be great to have a BOINC for PS3 and eventually allow console owners to pick from a list of projects that have PS3 versions of their software.

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Hi all,

not sure if that has been mentioned anywhere else, but though: Sony describes an Other OS installer on its online help page.

And they also introduce the first PS3 capable Linux Kernel, see this page using which the Fedora Core 5 Linux distro for PPC can be installed on a PS3.

To the pros among us: what does that mean regarding applications that run on this platform? Are they comparable to what runs on other Linuxes or does the PS3 require e.g. a special version of BOINC?

"With the PlayStation 3, you are getting the performance of a supercomputer at the price of an entry-level PC,” said Andrew Rassweiler, teardown services manager and senior analyst for iSuppli.

"It’s common for video-game console makers to lose money on hardware, and make up for the loss via video game-title sales. Still, the size of Sony’s loss per unit is remarkable, even for the video-game console business."

"The Cell Broadband Engine from IBM, which serves as the central processing unit of the PlayStation 3, provides the equivalent computing power of eight individual microprocessors."

"The use of four Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. 512Mbit DRAMs that employ high-speed memory interface technology from Rambus Inc. This marks the first use of the advanced XDR DRAM technology that iSuppli has detected."

"While many fret over the high cost and price of the PlayStation 3 compared to the competition, iSuppli believes the console provides more processing power and capability than any consumer electronics device in history. Because of this, the PlayStation 3 is a great bargain, well worth its $599 price and $840.35 cost, iSuppli believes."

PlayStation 3 Offers Supercomputer Performance at PC Pricing, iSuppli’s Teardown Analysis Reveals

It would definitely be great to have a BOINC for PS3 and eventually allow console owners to pick from a list of projects that have PS3 versions of their software.

"The use of four Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. 512Mbit DRAMs that employ high-speed memory interface technology from Rambus Inc. This marks the first use of the advanced XDR DRAM technology that iSuppli has detected."

I presume this isn't the only memory it has? Is this memory mainly for the graphics?

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Table 1 states: "Noteworthy Memory - XDR DRAM (4 x 512 Mbit). Samsung. $48.00".

Table 3 states: "Samsung has significant DRAM content (~$30) which is integrated into Nvidia GPU..."

"The use of four Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. 512Mbit DRAMs that employ high-speed memory interface technology from Rambus Inc. This marks the first use of the advanced XDR DRAM technology that iSuppli has detected."

I presume this isn't the only memory it has? Is this memory mainly for the graphics?

Just had a look - it's:
256MB XDR Main RAM @3.2GHz -CPU
256MB GDDR3 VRAM @700MHz-GPU

I guess the GDDR3 would be the easier to access of the two for Rosetta (unless crunching on the GPU also?). The 360 has 512MB unified video/system RAM so from a layman's perspective (mine!) it would seem easier to access it all on the 360.

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Just had a look - it's:
256MB XDR Main RAM @3.2GHz -CPU
256MB GDDR3 VRAM @700MHz-GPU

I guess the GDDR3 would be the easier to access of the two for Rosetta (unless crunching on the GPU also?). The 360 has 512MB unified video/system RAM so from a layman's perspective (mine!) it would seem easier to access it all on the 360.

Surely you got that the other way around - if you're crunching on the CPU, then using the CPU's memory is most useful. Using the GPU memory may not be more difficult, but it's definitely slower, as it's got to talk THROUGH the graphics processor, which isn't quite as quick as just going through the memory controller...

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Mats

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Just had a look - it's:
256MB XDR Main RAM @3.2GHz -CPU
256MB GDDR3 VRAM @700MHz-GPU

I guess the GDDR3 would be the easier to access of the two for Rosetta (unless crunching on the GPU also?). The 360 has 512MB unified video/system RAM so from a layman's perspective (mine!) it would seem easier to access it all on the 360.

Surely you got that the other way around - if you're crunching on the CPU, then using the CPU's memory is most useful. Using the GPU memory may not be more difficult, but it's definitely slower, as it's got to talk THROUGH the graphics processor, which isn't quite as quick as just going through the memory controller...

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Mats

oops! Yeah - I was thinking the higher frequency RAM was the GPU RAM but it's not ;D

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ALSO CROSS-POSTED IN CAFE ROSETTA

Just some pure speculation here, but if there is any truth, it may really be worth the effort to port Boinc/Rosetta over to PS3.

As you all likely are aware, the PS3 currently uses the Cell Broadband Engine, which is clocking at around 3.2 GHz.

IBM is now talking about the next gen CBE, and it'll be pushing 6 GHz!

So, it seems that IF the PS3 will eventually make use of the second gen CBE, the 20-fold improvement may increase to nearly 40-fold.

Just a thought as to where to possibly direct the limited resources for code porting.

Just had a look - it's:
256MB XDR Main RAM @3.2GHz -CPU
256MB GDDR3 VRAM @700MHz-GPU

I guess the GDDR3 would be the easier to access of the two for Rosetta (unless crunching on the GPU also?). The 360 has 512MB unified video/system RAM so from a layman's perspective (mine!) it would seem easier to access it all on the 360.

Surely you got that the other way around - if you're crunching on the CPU, then using the CPU's memory is most useful. Using the GPU memory may not be more difficult, but it's definitely slower, as it's got to talk THROUGH the graphics processor, which isn't quite as quick as just going through the memory controller...

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Mats

oops! Yeah - I was thinking the higher frequency RAM was the GPU RAM but it's not ;D

It'd totally be worth it to make BOINC for either PS3s or GPUs. GPUs for F@H do about 30x the work of the benchmark CPU. PS3s would probably be similar...? It's just up to Sony as to whether they would support it. GPU folding can't work on all the complex problems that CPU folding can, but it still provides a huge boost to science.

Early results were that a Radeon x1950xtx (or x1900xtx, whatnot) could do 80-85 gigaflops! It was only when users started using less powerful cards, did their average get drug down. Currently 500 some motherboards with GPU clients are producing 35 or so teraflops.

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