PS3 Helps Folding@Home Reach World Record Status

mytrip wrote with a note that the PlayStation 3 should be very proud of itself. Sony's monster-powerful console has lifted Stanford's very own distributed computing project (Folding@home) into the record books. "Guinness has apparently certified the project as the world's most powerful distributed computing system. According to a release from Sony, Folding@home topped 1 petaflop last month, meaning that it surpassed a thousand trillion floating point operations per second. By comparison, the well-known SETI@home project has topped out, according to Wikipedia, at around 265 teraflops, or 265 trillion floating point operations a second." There appears to be a team slashdot if you're looking for someone to support. Go fighting 006666!

Re:I don't think the numbers will go down much

[Aladrin]

No, but you could turn it off for the rest of the time and save energy instead. Not to mention your power bill.

I ran SETI for a while when I thought it was neat. I quit when they announced they'd been through all the records 3 times and found nothing. Sure, they're doing it again with more detailed information, but that's apparently just not how we're going to find the aliens.

This project is a little more down-to-earth, but in the end they're still asking us to use our money to fund their research, however indirectly. It's not just 'unused cycles', it's money spent.

Re:I don't think the numbers will go down much

[vux984]

It's not "their". Results are published in peer-review journals (see here). Benefits go to all mankind.

That's great, but its still our money. And its in the hundreds per year(*) its a fair bit of our money too. If you want to donate hundreds per year that's certainly your perogative, its a good cause. But I have finite resources and if I'm going to spend hundreds on a charity, there are other charities I'd rather donate to...and they give tax receipts too.

(*) Folding at Home runs between $100 and $500 per year.

The PS3 runs a sustained 200W running folding @ home. That's 140kWh per month assuming you leave it on 24x7. Assuming a $0.12 kWh rate, you'll be paying ~$200 per year in electricity for folding at home. And 12 cents isn't "high"; its much higher in some places (Alaska, California, New York, most of Europe...), and lower in others like most of Canada, Tenessee, Iowa, etc...)

Check your local rates. And be sure to consider to consider usage type, and steppings. Most utilities charge resential more than industrial, and most have steps where the first X kwH is one price, while the next Y kwH is another higher price. Adding a 140kWH per month to your bill can easily bump you up a step. Even your fridge uses a FRACTION of what the ps3 running folding@home will.

Re:I don't think the numbers will go down much

[Trogre]

Of course if you run it in winter then you're spending $0 on it. You've got yourself a heat transfer unit with a COP of 1. That's less power you need to otherwise spend to keep your living area warm.

(note that I'm assuming you don't use a Heat Pump with a COP above 1. If you do then you'd have to take into account that it could heat your place more efficiently than the PS3).

Re:I don't think the numbers will go down much

[vux984]

You also would need to factor in the cost of that heat. If you're regular heat comes from a gas furnace the cost of electricity vs gas is relevant.

On the flipside, in summer, that's just extra heat your airconditioning needs to remove.

Re:Neat

[grumbel]

The PS3 seems to be pretty solid when it comes to heat and ventilation (i.e. no RoD on every third console like on XBox360). I think the problem with folding@home is much more a matter of price. Electricity cost money and unlike a decade ago todays CPUs actually use less power when idle, so this isn't a free ride. According to a quick google search folding@home costs around ~$200 a year if you run it full time, thats quite a good chunk of money in relation to the price of the console itself.