PS3 article in the Guardian.

warren_1979 · 4 Aug 2006 at 09:28

http://technology.guardian.co.uk/weekly/story/0,,1835502,00.html

Not a bad read.

dirtydog · 4 Aug 2006 at 09:32

This point was made by star programmer John Carmack, co-creator of Doom, who famously called the Cell chip a "pain in my ass". According to a breathless Forbes magazine cover story, Holy Chip!, the Cell "runs at least ten times as fast as Intel's most powerful Pentium. More important, Cell boasts a staggering fiftyfold advantage in handling graphics-intensive applications that will define the next generation of visual entertainment (tinyurl.com/metvd). Odd, then, that it can't seem to drive the PS3's graphics - Sony eventually turned to nVidia for a PC-type graphics processor similar to the one used in the Xbox. The reality still seems to be a little short of the hype.

This quote suggests that the article's author has little or no understanding of computer or console technology. He seems to be criticising the Cell and the PS3 for needing to have a separate graphics chip!

warren_1979 · 4 Aug 2006 at 09:43

Yeah he seems like a bit of a noob this guy.

melchy · 4 Aug 2006 at 09:45

dirtydog said:
This quote suggests that the author's article has little or no understanding of computer or console technology. He seems to be criticising the Cell and the PS3 for needing to have a separate graphics chip!

Thats not the way i read it. Initially if im not mistaken, the Cell processor was indeed meant to handle all the PS3's graphics as well as processing. For whatever reason Sony decided to go to Nvidia, the article is hinting at the fact that Cell may not have been as good at producing the PS3 graphics as would have been hoped so they decided to go for a dedicated graphics solution instead.

dirtydog · 4 Aug 2006 at 09:48

Hmm well whatever, it is hardly unusual for a console or a PC to have a separate graphics chip. All PCs do it that way. The Dreamcast and Xbox did it that way, as does the Xbox360. It is hardly proof positive that the PS3 is overhyped as the Guardian seems to think.

NokkonWud · 4 Aug 2006 at 10:27

melchy said:
Thats not the way i read it. Initially if im not mistaken, the Cell processor was indeed meant to handle all the PS3's graphics as well as processing. For whatever reason Sony decided to go to Nvidia, the article is hinting at the fact that Cell may not have been as good at producing the PS3 graphics as would have been hoped so they decided to go for a dedicated graphics solution instead.

That is what he meant, I can't see how anyone else could see it any other way. Personally I don't blame Sony, nVidia specialise in graphics, why not get them to do it...

Psycho Sonny · 4 Aug 2006 at 11:12

lemme get this straight, the cell has 8 cores and is only 10 times more powerful than a pentium, doesnt this sound a bit crap to anyone else, if i had 8 cores i would be expecting a lot more than that, whats the power of the xbox 360? i know it has 3 cores but compared to a pentium do these 3 cores beat 10 pentiums

Wrathamon · 4 Aug 2006 at 11:18

Psycho Sonny said:
the cell has 8 cores

You have to understand the full architecture of the cell processor... don't think of it as eight cores compared to say the xbox360's three.

The cell chip has one full PowerPC core, and then eight small DSP (digital signal processor) cores (which IBM/Sony call "synergistic processing elements" (SPE)) with limited memory which are essentially number crunchers for processing intensive tasks, and only seven of the SPE's enabled in the PS3.

Whereas the xbox360 cpu has three full PowerPC cores.

benjo plz. · 4 Aug 2006 at 11:19

Psycho Sonny said:
lemme get this straight, the cell has 8 cores and is only 10 times more powerful than a pentium

No. If it was 8x as powerfull it would be a 1 to 1 ratio, so this is a better than 1 to 1 ratio, so according to the article, each core is more powerfull than a pentium...

Cronox · 4 Aug 2006 at 11:38

Phnom_Penh said:
No. If it was 8x as powerfull it would be a 1 to 1 ratio, so this is a better than 1 to 1 ratio, so according to the article, each core is more powerfull than a pentium...

The article seems to be saying Sony (or maybe IBM) said it would be 10 times more powerful but, they feel, it won't be.

benjo plz. · 4 Aug 2006 at 11:46

Cronox said:
The article seems to be saying Sony (or maybe IBM) said it would be 10 times more powerful but, they feel, it won't be.

Judging by the time they're taking to produce the PS3, intel will probaby be producing chips 10 times more powerfull than the Cell by the time it's released

.

Cronox · 4 Aug 2006 at 11:52

Phnom_Penh said:
Judging by the time they're taking to produce the PS3, intel will probaby be producing chips 10 times more powerfull than the Cell by the time it's released .

I agree, anybody who actually believed it was going to be 10 times more powerful than current CPUs clearly hasn't been in the console/PC market for long. Even products like the core duo are lucky to be twice as fast as the top end Pentiums they replace.

Manlove is my forte · 4 Aug 2006 at 11:57

dirtydog said:
This quote suggests that the article's author has little or no understanding of computer or console technology. He seems to be criticising the Cell and the PS3 for needing to have a separate graphics chip!

This quote suggests the author needs to practice his reading skills.

The author of the original article was merely providing examples of Sony backtracking on original press releases on the technical abilities of the PS3.

Kamakazie! · 4 Aug 2006 at 22:19

Kronologic said:
This quote suggests the author needs to practice his reading skills.

The author of the original article was merely providing examples of Sony backtracking on original press releases on the technical abilities of the PS3.

exactly. Sony were hyping up Cell and ended up with egg on their face. Yes, every other console currently on the market has a GPU as well as a CPU and so in theory you can't criticise sony for this, untill yo take into account that they never INTENDED for this. That is why nVidia is getting such a good price for their current gen chips (thats all they are, modified G71s or whatever the 7900 uses) in the PS3. Sony needed a solution at the last minute and nVidia were able to supply one.

Energize · 4 Aug 2006 at 23:51

The article sums up things well, I was a hardcore Sony gamer but after the less than satisfactory psp, overwhelming price of the ps3, technology problems, spec downgrades, delays and diminishing fan support. I wouldn't be surprised to see them take 3rd place in the console war. The problem is Sony dont learn from their mistakes.

Boogle · 4 Aug 2006 at 23:52

Phnom_Penh said:
Judging by the time they're taking to produce the PS3, intel will probaby be producing chips 10 times more powerfull than the Cell by the time it's released .

Cell has been out for a while in Servers, albeit fairly unpopular and rare.

Either way this has been done to death.

benjo plz. · 5 Aug 2006 at 00:57

Boogle said:
Cell has been out for a while in Servers, albeit fairly unpopular and rare.

Either way this has been done to death.

I was kinda refering to the one in the PS3...