SGER: Evaluation of the Sony PS3 for projects in computational physics

该奖项资助探索使用索尼Playstation 3（PS3）游戏机进行引力波物理学的科学计算。如果成功，这种方法将产生比传统Beowulf计算集群更高的成本效益（以每美元的性能衡量）。该项目将重点研究PS3在数值相对论和LIGO数据分析项目中的性能。该项目的一部分致力于确定需要为PS3/Cell架构进行调优的特定代码和库，以便表现良好。任何细胞处理器的具体优化，是在公开的源代码中实现的，作为本研究的结果，将通过一个网站免费提供。这个项目将探讨一个新的扩展的成本效益的Beowulf集群方法对超级计算的可行性，使用非常低成本的专用硬件，如索尼PS3。如果成功的话，这一办法意味着有可能达到比传统手段高出一个数量级的每美元绩效。因此，这个项目显然将对集群计算和科学计算产生严重的影响。特别是，如果PS3星系团产生这些好处，那么LIGO数据的搜索和引力波源的模拟可能会进入现在不可能的计算机密集型领域。

This award funds exploring the use of the Sony Playstation 3 (PS3) gaming console for scientific computing in gravitational wave physics. If successful, this approach would yield a significantly higher cost effectiveness (measured as performance per dollar) compared with traditional Beowulf compute clusters. The project will focus on investigating the performance of the PS3 for projects in numerical relativity and LIGO data analysis. Part of the project is dedicated to identifying the specific codes and libraries that will need tuning for the PS3/Cell architecture in order to perform well. Any Cell processor specific optimizations that are implemented in publicly available source code as a result of this study, will be made freely available via a website.This project will explore the feasibility of a novel extension of the cost-effective Beowulf cluster approach towards supercomputing, using very low-cost special purpose hardware, such as the Sony PS3. If successful, this approach suggests that it may be possible to reach a performance per dollar that is over an order of magnitude higher than what can be achieved through traditional means. Thus, this project will clearly have serious implications for cluster computing and scientific computing, in general. In particular, if PS3 clusters yield these benefits, searches of LIGO data and simulations of gravitational wave sources could move into computer intensive regimes not now possible.