Move over CELL - The GPU is the king of Folding @ Home.

[sieanr]

Geldorn said:

sieanr said:

MikeB said:

Top GPUs cost multiple times the amount of a Cell processor and are more power hungry, top graphics cards cost more than an entire PS3 system.

'The GPU client is still the fastest, but it is the least flexible and can only run a very, very limited set of WUs.' The Cell processor is much more flexible with regard to what kind of calculations can be performed, with additional effort the Cell can perform well for any kind of calculation an ordinary desktop CPU is suited for.

Unsurprisingly the RSX can perform more operations per second than the Cell as well, but the Cell is really what makes the PS3 interesting for Folding (or science in general) as well as a multi-media / gaming platform.

So what?

Even lower range GPUs will beat the Cell in this area. GPUs that cost a less than half the cost of a PS3.

Also, the Cell is far more limited than a desktop CPU. You're talking out of your ass once again.

He's not.

The Cell is much, much, much less limited than a GPU. It can infact do everything a desktop CPU can (like say, run Linux). GPU's don't even come close to that.

Besides - the real news in the whole Folding@Home stuff never was that GPU's would be faster (hint - they where already faster on day one) - it was how much faster the Cell code was than the non-Cell CPU code.

The cell is less limited than a GPU, but its more limited than a CPU. Thats why its faster than a desktop CPU in certain areas - its in-between a GPU and CPU. The things it can do well are the same things a GPU can do faster. 

Also, Folding at home is a dumb way to estimate speed since the assign different types of workloads to different processors. If you gave the Cell the same workloads as a general purpose CPU then it would do terrible.