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just out of interest. i know the two aren't directly comparable but how would they compare in floating point, integer calculations etc?
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how does the ps3 cell processor compare to modern desktop cpus?
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Both the Cell and 360's CPU are still fast in comparison to todays CPU, they were well ahead of their time back in 2005 when they were finalised designs..
Both are on par with a fast Quad Core in PC terms.
The only thing that would put them at a real disadvantage to todays CPU's are memory cache levels.
Infact, if you could just upgrade the Memory and GPU's in the PS3 and 360, i think you would have a console comparable to a £1000 gaming PC, so good were the original designs of the CPU's.
Not sure if there has ever been figures that are comparable to a PC CPU in terms of the parameters you asked about though, just 'guesstimates'...
Both are on par with a fast Quad Core in PC terms.
The only thing that would put them at a real disadvantage to todays CPU's are memory cache levels.
Infact, if you could just upgrade the Memory and GPU's in the PS3 and 360, i think you would have a console comparable to a £1000 gaming PC, so good were the original designs of the CPU's.
Not sure if there has ever been figures that are comparable to a PC CPU in terms of the parameters you asked about though, just 'guesstimates'...
Caporegime
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Another factor you need to consider is that the software is probably better optimised for the console hardware, and there are probably less overheads too.
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This is going from memory, and I'm sure a CPU expert can add much better details:
The PS3 and 360 have in-order CPU's with less cache so as you said hard to compare them to desktop CPU's. The Intel Atom for example is In-order and look how that performs against an out-of-order Athlon 64 for example at the same clock speeds. The Athlon 64 is MUCH faster and more efficient.
In-order is a big hit and step backwards compared to normal destop CPU's, so I'd say desktop CPU's are in general much more powerful for most uses - even older dual core ones.
360 Xenon has three general In-order cores, total of 6 hardware threads, while the PS3 has only one general core but several specialist SPU's I think totalling 10 threads in total. For very specific workloads (FLOPS) the PS3 CELL will shine due to it's specialist design and SPU's, posting numbers faster than many desktop CPU's, but in other more general workloads it will look worse than the three core Xenon.
In general, they are powerful enough for the games they run, executing parallel threads in-order, but would be poor running Windows and many applications in comparision to even a core2.
The PS3 and 360 have in-order CPU's with less cache so as you said hard to compare them to desktop CPU's. The Intel Atom for example is In-order and look how that performs against an out-of-order Athlon 64 for example at the same clock speeds. The Athlon 64 is MUCH faster and more efficient.
In-order is a big hit and step backwards compared to normal destop CPU's, so I'd say desktop CPU's are in general much more powerful for most uses - even older dual core ones.
360 Xenon has three general In-order cores, total of 6 hardware threads, while the PS3 has only one general core but several specialist SPU's I think totalling 10 threads in total. For very specific workloads (FLOPS) the PS3 CELL will shine due to it's specialist design and SPU's, posting numbers faster than many desktop CPU's, but in other more general workloads it will look worse than the three core Xenon.
In general, they are powerful enough for the games they run, executing parallel threads in-order, but would be poor running Windows and many applications in comparision to even a core2.
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i remember reading, but it could have been absolute rubbish, that when they cracked the 360 processor, they were getting similar scores to the Q6600 at stock speed - but i read this AGES ago, and it could very well be wrong
From what i read, an Athlon X2 (old cores) was said to be better at dealing with most code compared to both 360s and Ps3s CPUs.
The cell has an odd architecture, extremely fast for some things (e.g. floating point), but very average for others and hard to get the most out of. Its good at running games, but not so great for running a full blown multi-tasking OS e.g. Linux.
However console software is much better optimised than PC software as a) it doesn't have to tun on top of a big OS, and b) because all PS3s use the same hardware its easier to optimise for it rather than PCs which have billions of different hardware configs.
Oh and regarding graphics, DirectX and OpenGL create a huge amount of overhead. Console games can access the GPU directly which speeds things up a lot. Add in some other graphical tricks and even 6 year old consoles can still run extremely pretty games.
However console software is much better optimised than PC software as a) it doesn't have to tun on top of a big OS, and b) because all PS3s use the same hardware its easier to optimise for it rather than PCs which have billions of different hardware configs.
Oh and regarding graphics, DirectX and OpenGL create a huge amount of overhead. Console games can access the GPU directly which speeds things up a lot. Add in some other graphical tricks and even 6 year old consoles can still run extremely pretty games.
Just rumors, heres another one
http://www.technologyblogging.com/s...tion-4-in-favor-of-its-multi-core-counterpart
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If Sony did drop Cell, would it be fair to call IBM Cell processor a flop at the consumer level? It seemed there was a lot of buzz about the choice of CPU when it was announced but given that most game are cross platform it’s not exactly given Sony's PS3 a commanding performance edge in cross platform titles due to its complexity.
Also if they did abandon Cell wouldn't that cause backwards compatibility issues with PS3 games on the PS4? The only way around that would be to have a PS4 with a new CPU and a stripped down Cell which enabled you to play your old games on your new hardware which only means more £££'s on the price tag.
Also if they did abandon Cell wouldn't that cause backwards compatibility issues with PS3 games on the PS4? The only way around that would be to have a PS4 with a new CPU and a stripped down Cell which enabled you to play your old games on your new hardware which only means more £££'s on the price tag.
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The only thing that is hard to emulate are the SPUs. PS3 has 6 active SPUs for games so a worst case scenario is to include 6 of them in PS4. They are small and cool so i am guessing that it will not be too expensive (unlike including the whole PS2 chipset in ps3).
I think the Cell was a joint venture by Sony, Toshiba and IBM. Toshiba have abandoned it and IBM have not bothered with it either. Its only Sony keeping the Cell alive at them moment. I really can't think of anything that uses the Cell except PS3 and maybe a few tellys.
i could be wrong but I'm sure when the PS3 got cracked wipe open someone managed to install winXP on it and it took a few hours to boot and again hours to open notepad.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-Ecr8tWetI
Seems it was XP running through Linux but still very slow.
I guess this is the difference between a PC CPU that is versitile and a Console CPU that is very specific.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-Ecr8tWetI
Seems it was XP running through Linux but still very slow.
I guess this is the difference between a PC CPU that is versitile and a Console CPU that is very specific.
Some of the most powerful supercomputers in the world use Cell systems developed by IBM.
Pretty sure this website is making all their stories up to gain page hits. Development on the 32 SPE Cell was discontinued years ago so it was never really an option.
Caporegime
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They aren't fast cpu's, they are fast enough for what they are used for, and software is massively optimised for them, but gaming has never been all about the cpu. The consoles became gpu limited SO long ago, but the IQ level has increased, not absolutely massively, but a lot, and its 99% down to design rather than power.
Console with more memory like a £1000 gaming pc, lololololol, A console wiht 10 times the memory would only make them as good as a couple hundred quid gaming pc.
A £40 cpu and £50 gpu provides massively more power than consoles do.
From what I recall the Cell cpu was supposed to end up quite like an AMD/Nvidia gpu,
a group of guys design a top end new one, in this case the PS3 cpu, that costs a LOT, then they plan on releasing lots of scaled down versions over time in various other devices, this volume from lower end chips is supposed to massively offset design costs and hopefully also generate a decent profit which will fund the continued developement of a new gen.
Thats basically what happens with gpu's, AMD make a 1600 shader top end gpu, sales alone on a 5870 with the R&D costs would bankrupt AMD or Nvidia in a year. Its the scaling down and moving into different markets that make it profitable.
The problem with Cell was, it didn't scale well and no one wanted it basically, it didn't become the must have chip in all tv's and a bunch of other devices they wanted.
At this point Cell is 100% unsustainable just from console sales, so their options are sink more money into and make it FAR more accessible to other platforms to use(which likely means less of the SPU's and far easier software writing, simpler and better. Which basically negates all the to date architecture points of Cell. I can't see them bothering to sink more money into it.
Considering the AMD gpu's likely to be in all the consoles next gen, well with an Nvidia CPU you weren't going to get a great deal on a AMD cpu nor did Nvidia have anything to offer with theres. Sony can basically say to AMD< we'll go with you for GPU, if you give us good pricing on making the whole console AMD and get the CPU aswell.
If AMD gets three consoles with slightly modified APU's(because they'll want a gpu with more shaders than a "low end" part), then AMD will do insanely well out of the console sales.
Console with more memory like a £1000 gaming pc, lololololol, A console wiht 10 times the memory would only make them as good as a couple hundred quid gaming pc.
A £40 cpu and £50 gpu provides massively more power than consoles do.
From what I recall the Cell cpu was supposed to end up quite like an AMD/Nvidia gpu,
a group of guys design a top end new one, in this case the PS3 cpu, that costs a LOT, then they plan on releasing lots of scaled down versions over time in various other devices, this volume from lower end chips is supposed to massively offset design costs and hopefully also generate a decent profit which will fund the continued developement of a new gen.
Thats basically what happens with gpu's, AMD make a 1600 shader top end gpu, sales alone on a 5870 with the R&D costs would bankrupt AMD or Nvidia in a year. Its the scaling down and moving into different markets that make it profitable.
The problem with Cell was, it didn't scale well and no one wanted it basically, it didn't become the must have chip in all tv's and a bunch of other devices they wanted.
At this point Cell is 100% unsustainable just from console sales, so their options are sink more money into and make it FAR more accessible to other platforms to use(which likely means less of the SPU's and far easier software writing, simpler and better. Which basically negates all the to date architecture points of Cell. I can't see them bothering to sink more money into it.
Considering the AMD gpu's likely to be in all the consoles next gen, well with an Nvidia CPU you weren't going to get a great deal on a AMD cpu nor did Nvidia have anything to offer with theres. Sony can basically say to AMD< we'll go with you for GPU, if you give us good pricing on making the whole console AMD and get the CPU aswell.
If AMD gets three consoles with slightly modified APU's(because they'll want a gpu with more shaders than a "low end" part), then AMD will do insanely well out of the console sales.
Caporegime
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That doesn't mean a whole hell of a lot, there are situations in which thuban can spank a Sandybridge, they are rare, in supercomputer use you can write software to do whatever you want and of course some company somewhere in the world will have a workload ideal for a Cell, another company will be trying to run something that will run better on an Nvidia gpu, and another an AMD gpu, software and workloads are as varied as the hardware that can run them.
Likewise everyone who makes a CPU has a vested interest in having their hardware in such GPU's, all the big cpu makers fund at least a couple supercomputers with essentially free chips so they appear awesome and top end.