high performance computing: Mac PRO or PlayStation 3?

[Peter Leopold]

The MAC Pro ships with two Intel quadcore processors for about $2800 (from Microcenter.) This is 7 times the price of a PlayStation 3, but you get one more core, and you don't have to jump through hoops to use them. Anyone here have thoughts on Pros and Cons?

[Theodore Omtzigt]

pros: a quad-core or oct-core machine running Mac OS or Vista is adding value to any development task you do. If you compile code all day, all the cores will be working and improving your development productivity.

To use all cores in other work is much harder. I have a quad core box and most of the time I can only get one core going when I am just doing email or web research.

With the Cell processor you will need to create that value-add with your software. The SPEs are not good general purpose cores due to their SIMD focus but they appear easier to use than a GPU given the fact that they have a normal thread/compilation abstraction. Clearly 25GFlop/sec SP per SPE is the attraction.

Secondly, if you can add that value through software, reselling the PS3 will leave you with much more margin than a standard PC or Mac. Mmm, if you can find an application abstraction that can be leveraged between the oct-core platforms and Cell then you can add value to existing systems, and you can resell with additional value.

[Peter Leopold]

FYI, fftw.org has announced Version 3.2 alpha, with Cell support and MPI. Interestinger and interestinger.