This is Chris, good point. And yes the power/cooling requirements are non-trivial. And meanwhile, your right about the second assertion. the world's fastest computer (Roadrunner) already uses this same processor. See here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Roadrunner Thanks...

This is Chris, co-author of the guide. The MPI lib is utilizing each of the cores without Cell optimization required (This is a further step for the best performance gains). So yes you can go the PC route, and I have deployed this same MPI cluster setup on PC infrastructure without problems. But I assure you that for the best performance, and buying 'new', the PS3 route is cheaper hardware due to the battles over the game console market. Write me anytime if anyone needs help. Good luck everyone, and thank you for taking an interest. Thanks, Chris