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，与传统的Beowulf计算集群相比，这种方法将产生更高的成本效益（以每美元的性能来衡量）。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。项目的一部分专门用于确定需要针对PS3/Cell体系结构进行调优的特定代码和库，以便更好地运行。作为这项研究的结果，任何在公开源代码中实现的Cell处理器特定优化都将通过网站免费提供。这个项目将探索一种新的可行性，将具有成本效益的Beowulf集群方法扩展到超级计算，使用非常低成本的特殊用途硬件，如索尼PS3。如果成功，这种方法表明，每美元的性能可能比通过传统手段所能达到的性能高出一个数量级。因此，这个项目显然会对集群计算和科学计算产生重大影响。特别是，如果PS3集群能够产生这些好处，那么LIGO数据的搜索和引力波源的模拟就可以进入现在不可能实现的计算机密集型系统。

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.