World's fastest supercomputer is a "souped-up" PS3

Take 13,000 tweaked Cell processors—yep, the same chip that powers the PlayStation 3—add 7,000 dual-core AMD processors, mix in 80TB of memory, and you get Roadrunner, the new supercomputer capable of cranking out a quadrillion calculations a second.

The AP reports that the newly unveiled Roadrunner, developed by researchers from IBM and the Los Alamos National Laboratory and designed to simulate the effects of nuclear explosions, owes no small part of its jaw-dropping processing power to the PS3's Cell processor.

Indeed, one of IBM engineers who helped develop Roadrunner called it a "souped-up PS3." Uh, no kidding.

The mammoth, $100 million supercomputer weighs 500,000 pounds, uses 57 miles of fiber optics and can match the computing power of 100,000 fully loaded laptops, the AP notes.

Researchers zeroed in on the PS3's Cell processor early on for its ability to process multiple problems at once, according to Popular Mechanics—an ability that helped Roadrunner achieve a staggering 1.026 quadrillion calculations a second, twice as many as the former champ, IBM's Blue Gene.

So for you PS3 gamers out there, consider that the next time an Xbox 360 fanboy tries to kick sand in your face.

Related:
Scientists develop fastest computer [AP, via Yahoo! News]