The Cell Processor: Not Just for PS3 Anymore
There has a been a lot of bad news reported lately with regard to Sony's Playstation 3, but it seems the Cell processor that was jointly developed by IBM, Sony, and Toshiba for the PS3 is ready to go. So ready in fact, IBM just announced a new line of servers powered by two 9-Core 3.2GHz Cell processors...
"Today IBM announced a new line of high-powered QS20 Blade Servers intended for use in seismic research, encryption, digital image rendering and military surveillance applications. Each QS20 will include two nine-cored Cell Processors clocked at 3.2Ghz apiece, which were developed by IBM along with Sony and Toshiba for Sony's upcoming Playstation 3 console, among other things. Toshiba will use cell processors for HDTV applications, and it's clear what IBM's intentions are for the Cell. But as Playstation 3 isn't scheduled for release until November, the QS20 will mark the first application in which the highly-touted Cell will be available to consumers. The QS20s will run on Red Hat's Fedora Core 5 version of Linux."
It going to be very interesting to see how the Cell processor performs in these servers. We're sure there's going to be a deluge of news once the hardware actually hits the channel.
