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US Air Force to purchase 2200 more PS3s

by Andrew Yoon on Nov 24th 2009 12:30PM

You may laugh at the "It Only Does Everything" ads but those of us with a cot in the Joystiq Bunker understand that they're a sign that the end is nigh. Why? Because the US military is looking to make a super computer made up of 2500 interconnected PS3 systems -- wait, isn't that how Skynet is made?

The US Air Force already has over 300 launch PS3s in its arsenal, but an upcoming purchase of 2200 additional systems will greatly expand the number-crunching capabilities of its networked supercomputer. According to Information Week, the US Air Force will use Sony's Cell-powered hardware for radar imagery, HD video processing and "neuromorphic computing" or, to those of us without a PhD in Armageddon-ology, "building computers with brain-like properties."

Yeah, we told you the end was coming.

Source

Tags: cell, military, ps3, skynet, supercomputer, us-air-force, us-airforce

Reader Comments (31)

What about Xbox? I'm sure they could be strung together to make some type of kamikaze planning machine.

Them the pentagon would seem like a large prostitution house we all those red lights...

not without a gigabit ethernet port it wont

I think X360 is missing the "Install Other OS" option...

@hfm Slim PS3s are also missing that feature.

The 360 isn't nearly as good at parallel computation as the PS3. It's the same reason that the PS3 is capable of better graphics than the 360 (admit it, Killzone 2 and Uncharted 2, among others, completelly blow the 360 out of the water. They're no Crysis, but look amazing none-the-less) - the rendering and lighting computation tasks are shared between the GPU and the cores of the cell. Now, on their own they have a lot of parallel computing potential, but when that parallelism is parallelised...well you got a lot of power there. As hfm said I'm sure the ability to use linux (and therefore gain access to the hardware) has something to do with it as well.

Sorry if this is a double post, Joystiq seems to be eating my comments again.

The 360 isn't nearly as good at parallel computation as the PS3. It's the same reason that the PS3 is capable of better graphics than the 360 (admit it, Killzone 2 and Uncharted 2, among others, completelly blow the 360 out of the water. They're no Crysis, but look amazing none-the-less) - the rendering and lighting computation tasks are shared between the GPU and the cores of the cell. Now, on their own they have a lot of parallel computing potential, but when that parallelism is parallelised...well you got a lot of power there. As hfm said I'm sure the ability to use linux (and therefore gain access to the hardware) has something to do with it as well.

The PS3 CPU is capable of trillions of calculations the Xbox360 can only do billions. That's probably why. Not to mention the Xbox360 houses only the standard 256mb (haven't look at Xbox360 specs in a while, might be one step higher or lower) onboard L1, L2, L3 cpu memory where as the PS3 has over a gig of CPU memory processing speed 1256 or so, these are not to be confused with RAM.

PS3 CPU is literally 3x or more of the Xbox360 CPU, however it should be pointed out I think only 3SPU can be dedicated at a time however it can split the resources to accomplish more things up to 7 different things since one SPU (has 8) is dedicated to the PS3, where as the Xbox360 CPU is dedicated to single or dual tasks.

*que terminator theme*

2200 PS3s that will never ever get a game purchased for them...

So how much is Sony losing per console nowadays?

The government over pays for everything. This might be the one sale Sony makes a profit on a PS3

@Woz

I really hope that they over pay Sony,
because the government definitely isn't going to buy any games for the PS3,
which will make Sony loose a lot.
Sony loses money for selling PS3, especially the old models,
which I think the government is going to buy, since linux can't be installed on new PS3 models. And Sony gains profits for game software royalty.

The Government WILL pay more for each PS3 mainly because they will have tougher failure tolerances than the typical warranty covers. For Joe Consumer the warranty might be 1 year, for the govt that might be 10 years.

It's really because Airmen can't get enough of Uncharted 2.

Woot!Go air force!

Are these slims they are buying? How are they going to rig them up for supercomputing, since sony removed the "Install Other OS" option in the slim? I'm very curious here...

Im pretty sure that the techs in the Air Force could figure out how to hack a PS3. The Navy, now they might have a problem doing it.

They should be careful, at about 5000 PS3's the hive mind becomes self-aware lol

This just in: Mexico's military defense systems are now being powered by 7 N64's and a Dreamcast duct-taped to a Commodore 64..

Welcome to the Club US AIR FORCE, see ya in UC2 Multiplayer.... XD

I miss Summer Glau's presence on the Fox network. -_-

Stupid Dollhouse *grumble grumble*

They are bulding a Gudam robot

It only does everything.

the ps3 is so good even the us airforce uses it take this xbox

So this is what that commercial was about
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwk7O_4lN_I

haha i get it

I was thinking the same thing. Now we know.

if the US Air Force uses the PS3, the boy scouts must b wearing those xbox's out

The cell chip in PS# is being used for military and medical research due to its unique computing structure -- read about why and how here http://docinthemachine.com/2008/02/08/ps3cell/

2012...

If this is like anything else the military purchases they will pay for them now and if the program is still around they will get them in about 2 years.

Would be better if there where really purchased for overseas enlisted men! :)

Breaking News

US Air Force to purchase 2200 more PS3s

Reader Comments (31)

Posted: Nov 24th 2009 12:38PM carterk88 said

Posted: Nov 24th 2009 12:55PM R2D2586 said

Posted: Nov 24th 2009 1:01PM Chris DPSN AggieCEO XBLThe Aggi said

Posted: Nov 24th 2009 3:07PM hfm said

Posted: Nov 24th 2009 3:26PM Granger said

Posted: Nov 24th 2009 3:45PM Alphathon said

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Posted: Nov 24th 2009 1:35PM NuImage said

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Posted: Nov 24th 2009 2:04PM kentuckyfried said

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Posted: Nov 24th 2009 9:50PM RoberticoPSN said

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