[Dan @ Sep 23rd 2007 12:21AM]

Just imagine how much work would be done if people actually bought PS3s ;)

[Zeus the God @ Sep 23rd 2007 12:23AM]

Imagine how much work they would be doing if they used actual computers. I know, its risky, but I'm willing to bet if they had moderately powerful computers, they would get more work done.

[Silverfrog @ Sep 23rd 2007 12:26AM]

You mean besides the 4.5 Million + people who already bought one right?

[h0mi @ Sep 23rd 2007 1:01AM]

Think of all the electricity wasted by people leaving their ps3's on running folding at home. All that money spent on electric bills... that could be used by the folding @ home people far more effectively.

[JohnTitor @ Sep 23rd 2007 1:02AM]

they have plenty of computers on the job Zeus, but the problem is, the only way to get it going faster than the PS3 is if they use an ATi X1900 or X1950 card and with the vast number of cards out you can bet that it only amounts to a small group

[Zeus the God @ Sep 23rd 2007 1:14AM]

Uh... Ok?

[Andir3.0 @ Sep 23rd 2007 1:25AM]

@h0mi:

Yeah, so the Folding@Home people can buy PS3s and run them there and use your money to pay the bills.

How the hell is a team dedicated to mass computing supposed to use your money in a better way?

[Twitchy @ Sep 23rd 2007 3:17AM]

@ h0mi:
Our juice is produced mainly (soon exclusively) from renewable resources. So get back in your 2 mile/gallon SUV and drive off a cliff.

[Elliot @ Sep 23rd 2007 12:15PM]

Current GPU's are only capable of single floating point calculations, therefore rendering them highly ineffective for a large number of scientific applications.
The Cell processor, although not as capable as an intel compatible chip, can take on much more general purpose tasks, asynchronously,
In contrast, GPUs must take on all tasks synchronously (which is where their price/performance excels) and can only handle a limited instruction set.

As such a PS3 far outstrips modern radeon cards in terms of folding power

[h0mi @ Sep 24th 2007 1:38AM]

Wow, low ranked? SDF must've assembled and swooped in on anyone who dare criticize something that makes people actually use their ps3. Meanwhile some imbecile tells me to drive off a cliff and is highest ranked? What a load of crap.

Supposedly IGN determined that a ps3 running folding@home would cost a user $6.88 to $27.76 to run folding@home 24hours a day for a week. (That's 168 hours)

http://www.connectedinternet.co.uk/2007/03/30/how-much-electricity-does-foldinghome-consume/

It's unlikely most ps3 owners are leaving it on all the time just to do folding at home, so lets say a ps3 owner does something a bit more reasonable- leaves it idle 168 hours in a month, not a week. That averages out to about 5 hours 20 mins a day. With an electric bill going up on average of at least $7 a month, and 600,000 ps3 owners doing this, now ps3 owners are spending at least $4.2 million each month in order to let their ps3s run folding@home. And these costs do not calculate how this impacts on energy demand on an energy grid at capacity during the summertime, not to mention he environmental impacts of all of those kilowatt hours of electricity produced.