http://www.wired.com/techbiz/it/news/2007/10/ps3_supercomputer

Suffering from its exorbitant price point and a dearth of titles, Sony's PlayStation 3 isn't exactly the most popular gaming platform on the block. But while the console flounders in the commercial space, the PS3 may be finding a new calling in the realm of science and research.

Right now, a cluster of eight interlinked PS3s is busy solving a celestial mystery involving gravitational waves and what happens when a super-massive black hole, about a million times the mass of our own sun, swallows up a star.

As the architect of this research, Dr. Gaurav Khanna is employing his so-called "gravity grid" of PS3s to help measure these theoretical gravity waves -- ripples in space-time that travel at the speed of light -- that Einstein's Theory of Relativity predicted would emerge when such an event takes place.

It turns out that the PS3 is ideal for doing precisely the kind of heavy computational lifting Khanna requires for his project, and the fact that it's a relatively open platform makes programming scientific applications feasible.

"The interest in the PS3 really was for two main reasons," explains Khanna, an assistant professor at the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth who specializes in computational astrophysics. "One of those is that Sony did this remarkable thing of making the PS3 an open platform, so you can in fact run Linux on it and it doesn't control what you do."

He also says that the console's Cell processor, co-developed by Sony, IBM and Toshiba, can deliver massive amounts of power, comparable even to that of a supercomputer -- if you know how to optimize code and have a few extra consoles lying around that you can string together

Now if only he'd buy some games, Sony would be making some money.

So PS3 can get some hardware sales from those people, the way a lot of Wii's are bought to be used by hospitals.

I should note that since this took multiple consoles, and the fact that such calculations are long term compared to gaming, this isn't a sign the PS3 will be leaps and bounds over the other systems. That will still take a lot of work from developers.

I say its impressive since they actually replaced a "super computer" with ps3's.

Ps3 will be the reason machines inslave humanity, Cell powered AI wages war on earth. Wii60 try their best to counter it but fail within seconds of coming in contact with the Cells power.

lol. So, it is a better science computer than a gaming machine.

Old people who need activity and people who need physical therapy get Wii's.
Science community gets PS3's.

hmm. I wonder if this could drive PS3 to sell more than 360 quicker.

First of all, it's really the Cell, not the whole PS3. Second the Cell was the brainchild of the best minds of three of the top computer companies (Sony, IBM, and Toshiba), so I'm not that surprised they made something this good.

 If the Cell is really that smart, it will stay off the internet. One porn site, and only divine intervention will save it from all those viruses and spyware.

Pretty silly to use PS3's :) I doubt the GPU is used at all - all they are saying is they like a CPU with some SPU units.

Throw 4 CELL CPUs into a single motherboard...?

(guess off the shelf = cheaper)

I really would like if they would say what was the ''supercomputer'' they were using before this because it can't be in no way what I consider to be a real supercomputer. 8 PS3 to replace one thousand computers linked together? They probably replace a much smaller system.

But I'm not saying that this is not good, I think it's a nice thing to hear about, but I really doubt the real power of that ''Supercomputer'' ^^ The PS3 is a monster..................but not enough to replace real supercomputers^^