A new study by a University of Warwick researcher has demonstrated that researchers trying to model a range of processes could use the power and capabilities of a particular XBox chip as a much cheaper alternative to other forms of parallel processing hardware.
OK, why does everyone always assume that he could have even made use of the extra power of a nVidia card?
I have two options: one system that costs $200 (a) and one that is 40x as powerful but costs $1000(b).
The job will take 20 minutes on a.
Why would I buy b?
Why would I rent b?
This is what this article is saying. If you don't need the power, there is a cheaper way.
There is an easier way, and it doesn't involve spending hundreds of thousands of dollars t write on an obsolete platform. Heck $40 and you can get a card for his workstation that will beat the heck out of that Xbox.
Quote:
Originally Posted by BizzareRide
48 x 500MHz x 34,000,000 = 816,000,000,000 floating point operations per second
Developing a GPU client for distribution over Xbox Live would be cheaper and more productive than buying a thousand, 216 core nVidia GPUs.
Originally Posted by DuckieHo
A $50USD 9600GT is more 2-4 times more powerful than a $200 XBox GPU.
cheaper + more powerful = win.
Sort of. Depends on what you have. And this is what HE said. This paper was all about GPGPU computing! He even mentions CUDA. The point of the paper was that there are tons of GPUs to be had for very cheap, and you could use whatever was cost effective for you.
Quote:
However, if one can restate your problem in a form usable by the GPU you can still exploit this power. In fact Graphical Technology firm nVIDIA have recently released a framework for carrying out such general calculations on its hardware, with it's Compute Unified Device Architecture.
Before making claims about this, its helpful to read the whole paper as published. I have. Here is the link, full text in .PDF.
48 x 500MHz x 34,000,000 = 816,000,000,000 floating point operations per second
Developing a GPU client for distribution over Xbox Live would be cheaper and more productive than buying a thousand, 216 core nVidia GPUs.
Your logic doesn't work, you can't measure FLOPS without an actual calculation, linpack for example. Plus, I doubt that single chip is getting 800 gigaflops.
Sort of. Depends on what you have. And this is what HE said. This paper was all about GPGPU computing! He even mentions CUDA. The point of the paper was that there are tons of GPUs to be had for very cheap, and you could use whatever was cost effective for you.
Before making claims about this, its helpful to read the whole paper as published. I have. Here is the link, full text in .PDF.
Thanks, I just did a quick read-over... the research was done over a year ago... probably started 2-3 years ago. That means CUDA and GPGPU APIs were just being to become avaliable. Therefore at the time, his prior experience with XBox and lack of other tools were the reasons why he choose that platform.
Thanks, I just did a quick read-over... the research was done over a year ago... probably started 2-3 years ago. That means CUDA and GPGPU APIs were just being to become avaliable. Therefore at the time, his prior experience with XBox and lack of other tools were the reasons why he choose that platform.
Yup. Really its kind of cool to read this because its one of the early formal papers of research done with a GPGPU architecture. While not the start, definitely one of the pioneers of its practical use.
Your logic doesn't work, you can't measure FLOPS without an actual calculation, linpack for example. Plus, I doubt that single chip is getting 800 gigaflops.
No. My math is perfectly fine. You're confusing the ability to actually use a CPUs maximum theoretical performance under perfect, single precision conditions.(FLOPS) as apposed to whats realistically available.
You can say the same for any processor...
Quote:
Originally Posted by DuckieHo
Where does it say this is distributed system?
Creating a parallel distribution client over Xbox Live would be a huge positive for something like F@H as you could potentially have millions more people folding. (I think this was the point of even attempting this on an 360, not for bragging rights)
See: F@H on PS3. No doubt using high-end GPUs would be cheaper and more productive if they are making a personal HPC, but this could be something that could take advantage of the 34 million Xbox 360s sold.
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Related Threads
?
?
?
?
?
Ask a question
Ask a question
Overclock.net
27.8M posts
541.5K members
Since 2004
A forum community dedicated to overclocking enthusiasts and testing the limits of computing. Come join the discussion about computing, builds, collections, displays, models, styles, scales, specifications, reviews, accessories, classifieds, and more!