processors

Overheard: It’s official — IBM Roadrunner is world’s fastest computer

Perhaps surprisingly, more than 5 million PlayStation 3 owners in the U.S. have first-hand knowledge of at least one of the processors that carried the Roadrunner to victory. Walaika Haskins, IBM Roadrunner Meep-Meeps to Top of Supercomputer Rankings

The IBM supercomputer is powered by 12,240 IBM PowerXCell 8i Cell chips similar to those found in the gaming console. The system’s 6,562 AMD Opteron dual-core processors handle the basic compute functions, leaving the Cell chips available to deal with the heavy lifting necessary for the math-intensive calculations in which the processors specialize.