Scientists launched a new guide today, available to the public for the first time, on how to build a supercomputer with the Playstation 3.
Funded by the National Science Foundation the guide has been written by Gaurav Khanna and Chris Poulin and is available in full from PS3 Cluster.org.
The official press release reads:
Last year, Khanna’s construction of a small supercomputer using eight Sony-donated Playstation 3 gaming consoles made headlines nationwide in the scientific community. On the consoles, he is solving complex equations designed to predict the properties of gravitational waves generated by the black holes located at the center of the galaxies.
“Science budgets have been significantly dropping over the last decade,” Khanna said. “Here’s a way that people can do science projects less expensively. This new web site will show people how to move forward.”
Typically, scientists rent supercomputer time by the hour. A single simulation can cost more than 5,000 hours at $1 per hour on the National Science Foundation’s TeraGrid computing infrastructure. “For the same cost, you can build your own supercomputer and it works just as well if not better,” Khanna said. “Plus, you can use it over and over again, indefinitely.” The cost for his initial Playstation grid was $4,000.
Any wannabe scientists read PSU? Let us know if you decide to attempt this. We’ll be sticking to playing the games.