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PS3s already pwning Folding@Home leaderboard; tonight's Foldathon to bring total dominance


Well we knew that the Cell processor -- which makes the PS3 a pretty cheap supercomputer, along with its myriad other roles -- was well suited to the task of crunching numbers for Stanford's Folding@Home project, but there's no way we could have expected the unbelievable impact made by 35,000 some gamers in only a few days. In what can only be described as a total hijacking of the leaderboard, PS3s are currently accounting for 734 of the 990 teraflops Folding processes at peak capacity; in other words, Cell processors have more than tripled the project's power even though they only account for around 13% of the total machines grinding away at any given time. Now keep in mind that Sony's boxes have only been pitching in since midweek, and with tonight's Sunday Night Foldathon -- an event which encourages PS3 owners to simultaneously run the app while they sleep -- we should see even more impressive performance as the slumbering masses donate record numbers of cycles. This would also probably be a good time to direct you towards instructions for joining Team Engadget, as well as to suggest that even though this is primarily PS3-centric, that shouldn't stop other PC-equipped team members and owners of even bigger supercomputers (we're looking at you, IBM) from participating.

Read - Folding leaderboard [via blog you like a hurricane]
Read - Foldathon thread [via PS3 Fanboy]