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A comment on Playstation 3 Architecture. Parent comment

Re:Playstation 3 Architecture by jabl on Wednesday October 20, 2021 @04:36PM (#28936139)
> I wonder if that university still uses their PS3 based supercomputer cluster

Almost certainly not. A typical lifetime of a supercomputer is around 5 years, give or take. After that the electricity they consume makes it not worth continuing to run them vs. buying a new one.

See e.g. the Cell-based Roadrunner, in use 2008-2013: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roadrunner_(supercomputer)

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Re:Playstation 3 Architecture by dragontamer on Wednesday October 20, 2021 @05:15PM (#28936742)
5 is a bit young.

ORNL's Titan lasted about 7 years: 2012 through 2019. Its predecessor, Jaguar, was 2005 to 2012. Also 7 years.

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Re:Playstation 3 Architecture by jabl on Friday October 22, 2021 @07:20AM (#28955857)
AFAIK both Titan and Jaguar received significant mid-life upgrades. So in such a scenario 7 years sounds reasonable.

(At a previous job, we had a cluster that was about 15 years old. Of course, it had been expanded and upgraded over the years, so I'm not sure anything was left of the original. Maybe some racks and power cables.. :) )

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Re:Playstation 3 Architecture by freemint on Friday October 22, 2021 @05:04AM (#28955093)
Notice the N in National Labs, entirely different order of magnitude.
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