Finally getting the street cred that its creators have so long desired, the multi-platform, distributed computing network known as
Folding@Home is to be recognized by Guinness World Records. According to the group, the network is now the most powerful distributed computing cluster in the world. The system, which utilizes the power of more than 670,000 PS3s, PCs, and lawnmower motors to crunch data, has overall computational capabilities greater than a petaflop (which is a ton of flops). The linked consoles tackle a number of tasks, and scientists harnessing the network's power are able to study complex medical problems -- such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's -- much more quickly. Vijay Pande, Associate Professor of Chemistry at Stanford University and head of the Folding@home project says, "Without them [the Folding@Home users] we would not be able to make the advancements we have made in our studies of several different diseases." Now that Guinness has recognized the system, it can proudly stand next to luminaries such as the man with the longest fingernails, and fastest land animal.
posted Oct 31st 2007 11:45PM
could someone detail exactly what the advances made are? While I'm sure folding@home has managed some impressive stuff, I haven't seen any data about what the system has accomplished
Well, the main question to me is if the cost of running Folding@Home would be better spent my focused organizations/academic institutions.
Using rough calculations of .106 kwH rate (final cost w/ distribution) here in NJ and the PS3 using 200W while folding, that puts the cost at ~.02 an hour and a total of $15.26 of electricity a month.
Is Folding worth $15 a month/$183 a year compared a similar sized contribution to a an effective medical organization (some are much better than others)?
Frozenrubber:
Thats is a great question and i had never considered that. I'd be interested to know too
As a biologist, I won't actually trust a computer model of anything, until it has been verified with more empirical means. I also haven't seen any citations using data from the project, but then I'm not a biochemist or structural biologist.
@John - Folding at home reports are available on their website where they list all the projects they are working on and how the results turned out
@Frozenrubber - You bring up the cost of running the programs by mentioning the price of electricity, what you are forgetting is that these academic institutions are not the ones running the programs, but instead it is your computer during its idle time (I have mine set up to run when my desktop is idle). The only cost to these academic institutions is a small group they have to maintain the program and the scientists that create the programs and process the data. These same projects would previously be done on dedicated supercomputers which do not have the same processing power as 670,000 desktops / PS3's working together and have a much, much higher purchase and maintenance cost.
@Frozenrubber: don't forget, the new 65nm chips cut the power consumption by almost a half -- the quoted figures are 125W instead of 200W. Your point still stands, though: would ~$100/yr donated to a research foundation do more to advance the cause than a year's worth of CPU cycles? I can't really answer that...
Do not feed the troll.
Always good to see folding@home doing well, the more research those guys get done the better for everyone - doesn't matter what systems they use to get there, PS3, XBOX, PC, whatever. It is nice to see that people are willing to allow others to use their hardware to achieve lofty goals.
Actually, Engadget is one of the few sites where the level of fanboys of various brands, is actually pretty balanced.
Actually, Engadget is one of the few sites where the level of fanboys of various brands, is actually pretty balanced.
Having played a ps3 I would like to make my record analogy of choice be "longest single nose hair"
Check the stat/facts. PS3s PWNS the TFLOPS!
http://fah-web.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/main.py?qtype=osstats
Really effing amazing:
OS Type TFLOP Active CPUs
Windows 170 179008
GPU 39 654
PLAYSTATION®3 897 36158
Do the math, you get an average of 0.94 GFLOPs per Windows box, 24 GFLOPs per PS3 (!!!), and almost 60 GFLOPs (!!!!!!) per GPU. I just got a Radeon X1950 GT, but it's only 256 MB (apparently their GPU folding algorithm really needs 512) or I'd contribute myself. I might try it anyway...
Think about it, though -- the average video-card processor in this race does almost 60 times the folds of the average CPU. That's simply staggering.
It's an impressive accomplishment, but the PS3 numbers wouldn't be nearly as high if there was something else to do with it.......like maybe play GAMES!!!
I sold my PS3 as soon as I learned I could get Devil May Cry 4 on 360 as well. Maybe I'll pick one back up in a few years to play Metal Gear Solid 4. It's the exclusive I see coming out on PS3 in the next year that's worth owning.
make that the only exclusive I see worth owning...
check out the new uncharted trailer, haze is looking quite good, GT5 is gonna be awesome, ratchet and clank i own and is the best game of the year...right behind halo 3. little big planet is gonna be awesome, warhawk is out and is one of the best games i've ever played and is more addicting than halo 3 in multiplayer(if there was good single player i think this would be my favorite) there are more coming that are looking quite good, do some looking around. i have a 360 and recently a ps3 and of course the game library for the 360 is way better right now, but things are about to change. i see a crap load of good games coming out for the ps3 while i look ahead at the 360 exclusives and really the only game that looks real good to me is mass effect, and one could play that on the PC. after i'm completely sick of halo 3 i'm considering selling my 360 unless i see something i like on the horizon also because i've rrod'd twice.
To be honest uncharted, Haze, and Warhawk don't interest me at all. They just aren't the types of games I usually enjoy (Halo is a rare exception for me). I absolutely hate Gran Turismo with a passion and have even since I played the first one on PSX. I like Project Gotham Better, but only slightly. Sega Rally Revo on the other hand...
Little Big Planet is an interesting concept, but not one I see myself getting caught up in. I will, however, fess up to the quality of Ratchet and Clank and wish 360 had it, too. It's not nearly enough to make me regret selling my PS3, though.
The only other big exclusive on the PS3 so far is GTA....and that game has overstayed its welcome. Vice City was the last time that GTA was fun.
What's funny is that my favorite genre of games is RPG's, a category PS systems usually excel at. FF XIII doesn't interest me, though. Hell, most of the series other then the first few and XII bore the hell out of me. Square has made some amazing RPG's, but most of the FF series doesn't qualify other than graphically (this is my own opinion only). My favorite RPG in recent years was Tales of Symphonia....a Gamecube title, no less!
For 360 I have Beautiful Katamari, Mass Effect if it comes out before the next consoles launch, N3, Fable 2, BioShock, and all the older games like Dead Rising. They may not be console sellers for everyone, but they snagged me.
This really went of topic...lol
Jotenks,
You pointed out really well why people should just get the system that suits them best. My taste runs more contrary to yours, and fps games like Halo, Gears of War and Bioshock makes me dizzy, whereas I can spend hours playing FF, GTA, God of War, MGS and other quirky Japanese games (for example Loco Roco), so for me there aren't any 360 exclusives that I care about.
that was my first reaction too.
RPI team 2740 FTW!
True story: That graphic came up on my computer screen just as Alec Guinness appeared on my TV screen in the role of Obi-Wan Kenobi.
Ooh. Spooky. It MUST be Halloween.
meh, they really gotta push on the Graphics processing on PCs
they only did the old and hard to find X1900s and they were easily able to go past PS3s
if they could give the effort to add that to current gen Radeon HD and GeForce 8 cards, PCs would really be on the move
The 2900XT requires a new graphic client, and the Nvidia cards aren't efficient enough to be used for folding. If you like more check out the high performance FAQ
http://folding.stanford.edu/English/FAQ-highperformance
hmm, looks liek some comments dissapeared and now my earlier comment is lonely and without context. I was just agreeing that us PC folders should be given credit too. article makes it seem like a PS3 only deal.
Not to mention that $15.26 is post-tax, but a cash contribution to a charity would be tax deductible, so you should consider $18 and change to charity vs $15 and change to the cloud. Ah, but then you have the overhead of the charity (they have power bills too and pay salaries), so it may be a wash there.
The best thing you could do? Not buy the PS3 and donate the cash. But where's the fun in that?
Hey, just a heads up, when you are in math, 15 is less than 18.
rickane, it sounds like you don't pay taxes yet, so here's a headsup. The $3 difference is the tax you don't have to pay, so the cost to you is the same either way.
[Ryan, I replied to the first post, but it showed up as unthreaded, though. Please fix your comment system.]
"The system, which utilizes the power of more than 670,000 PS3s, PCs, and lawnmower motors to crunch data"
PS3 processes the data, lawnmowers CRUNCH it.
I agree with earlier posters. I saw how much power this thing cosumed and turned it off right away. There are also many companies running this that could just make a cash donation and get a tax write off. I thought about putting it on my macmini cause it only consumes 55w of power but am also worried about wearing out the hard drive.
Hey Engadget, deleting a whole bunch of comments that pointed out how you fucked up the article initially doesn't erase the fact that we all know you fucked up the article.
Just thought I'd point that out.
wow, they actually deleted my comment. interesting...
I completely agree. I'm insulted that the editor/moderator disrespected our opinions. Engadget comments should be, and believe have the goal to be, a free and open forum for people to discuss their opinions without fear of dystopian censorship. I've emailed Ryan and hope he will remedy the situation.
Some comments were deleted accidentally -- others not. Sorry for those comments that were wrongly removed; advise some others cut out the coarse and inflammatory language. Also FYI: no one was banned.
P.S.
I understand that the information was corrected, but as the above commenter has said, deleting our comments doesn't make your mistake go away, and is a bad editorial practice. The solution is retraction, not redaction Mr. Topolsky.
While reading a Engadget post, I take 80% of the time reading the comments, because in 80% of the time they are more informative and reasonable than the article.
Please, do not remove the comments again.
Ryan,
Do you expect us to believe that the critical
As the man responsible for the post and actual deletions, I'd like to reiterate that some of the deletions were accidental, and not intended to "cover up" the errors in the original post. The comments that were meant to be deleted crossed the line into offensive language, and that's where the problem stems from -- I sincerely apologize for any comments that got caught in the crossfire. I (and Engadget) make a point of owning up to mistakes or oversights, and if you read the site regularly you know that.