What are the pros and cons in choosing PS3 as a platform for scientific computing in detriment of GPU's? Is It the better choice ?
+1
A:
There is no broad "better" choice, it is all dependent on the situation and what you're doing. Probably the biggest PRO to a PS3 is they're cheap by comparison. A computer can more easily scale bigger though (for a price) when looking into things like CUDA.
NebuSoft
2010-03-02 17:00:53
They don't have much ram, and how much heat do they generate ? Are they optimized to make good use of every cubic inch ? :D
Hassan Syed
2010-03-02 19:48:14
+2
A:
Stick with a PC, you will have a far easier life at the end of the day. I also wouldn't be surprised if you get more horsepower out of GPU's.
p.s., from what I know dispatching work to the cells is not an enjoyable task :D
Hassan Syed
2010-03-02 17:01:49
+1
A:
CUDA is pretty slick. I was shown a presentation recently demonstrating how easy it is to get at the power of the GPU's many cores using a C++ based syntax. If I was starting a parallel computing project now, I would probably take the PC/GPU-based route.
tehblanx
2010-03-02 17:16:20
+1
A:
A major objection to the PS3 (which is already quite a wacky choice unless you're under some pretty extreme price/performance constraints) has to be that Sony are dropping support for installation of other OS. In future, PS3s without the disabling firmware update may become harder and harder to get hold of.
timday
2010-04-18 22:33:38
+2
A:
I'd go for GPU, for three reasons:
(a) GPU code can be developed, tested, and run on pretty much any PC you may want to use, with the only dependency being a $150 video card, whereas CELL/PS3 is a much more custom development environment and won't run natively on your laptop, etc.;
(b) I'm willing to bet a lot that GPUs and Cuda will be alive and well in 5 years, but I wouldn't put money on PS3 being around that long -- what are you going to do if PS4 has a totally different architecture and CELL effectively dies?
(c) There's a more vibrant research and development community around GPU than there is around PS3/Cell (outside of strict game development), so you're likely to be in more good company, have example code and tools to work with, etc.
Larry Gritz
2010-04-18 22:49:46