PS3 Sets Guinness World Record November 05, 2007
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The under-selling PS3 has actually managed to set a world record – and not for the slowest console take-off either.
The Guinness Book of Records has officially named Folding@home project the world’s most powerful distributed computing network – thanks largely to help of 670,000 PS3s. The Stanford University project which has been using spare processing power from over 200,000 PCs to look at the causes of diseases like Alzheimer’s, has been greatly boosted by chip power from over 670,000 PS3 users that have signed up to allow some of their systems power to be used for calculations. The power output has been pushed over the one petaflops mark for the first time ever.
“To have Folding@home recognised by Guinness World Records as the most powerful distributed computing network ever is a reflection of the extraordinary worldwide participation by gamers and consumers around the world and for that we are very grateful,” said Vijay Pande, Associate Professor of Chemistry at Stanford University and Folding@home project lead.
“Without them we would not be able to make the advancements we have made in our studies of several different diseases. But it is clear that none of this would be even remotely possible without the power of PS3, it has increased our research capabilities by leaps and bounds.”
It’s worthy indeed but I bet Sony wished the PS3 was as big a retail star as it is in the scientific research community.-Martin Lynch
Editor and Contributor | Martin Lynch
Contributor | Tamlin Magee
Comments
Aren't those projects designed to run in idle time? If so, that's a lot of PS3's sitting around doing nothing... probably waiting for games or something interesting to happen.
(In case you missed it - I'm a 360 fanboy heh)
It's like that story of the scientist who replaced his supercomputer with a cluster of PS3s. This might almost be a case of where a technology is too good for its current market - the hardware is brilliant and games aren't the only things that need massive parallel processing. With the games market being sluggish as it is, people are finding alternative uses for them. I don't think it's a bad thing though - especially this one, for being for a good cause and all.
so it is possible to hook up a PS3 / xbox360 so i can boost the power of my PC?? sounds good, but hows it done then