PS3 passes FCC tests; Cell comfirmed to be 3.2ghz

News has just surfaced stating that the PlayStation 3 has passed FCC approval tests and that the final clock speed of the Cell processor is 3.2GHz.

[Anerythristic26]

I didn't know that stuff gets leaked. That's a good find Phoenix. Good news story those scans look authentic. People will try to call you on if this was a model that was tested before they downgraded the chip.

[NextGen24Gamer]

Good points. And the article is from PS3Land and hasn't been confirmed by Sony yet. Not to say its not true. Just pointing out some small tidbits for those who may not read the entire article. It seems this test would have been done a long time ago. Why wait till the last minute to find out if you are FCC compliant?

[zypher]

well i'm not sure if this goes according to your own special criteria for when things should be done, but if you look at the scans you'll notice that testing actually began on Aug 9th of this year, about round the time all those rumors started creeping up saying that the PS3 would be downgraded.

[ronin_oni]

I do believe that Sony would have had to have undergone another FCC test with their downgraded version, since it's not the same set of components that were tested by the FCC. Being that there are no other confirmation reports that people are aware of, I think the 3.2Ghz PS3 is the PS3 that we'll all be seeing on November 17th (in th U.S. at least, sorry Europe, I feel for you.).

[shotty]

Where does it say 3.2ghz for the cell, can't find it.

[ghostface]

Look where it says scan2.

[THE TRUTH]

The entire report can be found here:

https://gullfoss2.fcc.gov/p...

enjoy

[andy capps]

Nice, thanks for posting the full report. 3.2 is good news. I looked all through the report to see how much power it used, 100 watts, 200 watts, etc. but couldn't find it anywhere. Oh well. Confirmed at 3.2 Ghz is good news.

[calderra]

I looked over the paper just to find the wattage to post here, and I forgot. Ah-well.

Wasn't PS3 initially supposed to be running at 3.5 GHZ instead of 3.2? If I'm not mistaken, this news is already a downgrade anyway. And yes, this testing essentially began before the downgrade rumors started (they had to ship the unit), so that doesn't help either.

Regardless, just look at the games in development. It's virutally impossible to tell 360 apart from PS3. Total wash.

[Sphinx]

3.2? That's not bad, right? I think my computer goes fater though... man, I am brain dead today.

[andy capps]

To put in scope, the new Core 2 Duo chips by Intel are between 1.6 Ghz and 2.4 I believe, they may go slightly higher, but at most they are 2.8.

I can't go to PS3land links here at work so I can't see the scans, but if it's true it's not surprising, but good nonetheless for putting rumors to rest.

[lalaland]

You can't actually use GHz as a trustworthy guidance of CPU performance. The megahertz race stopped three-four years ago. I think it is safe to say that the Core Duo 2 chips are a lot faster at general purpose computing than Cell... But at the other hand Cell is probably a lot faster at specific vector-intensive calculations than the Core Duo 2 chips.

3.2GHz is good news though... Or actually a slight GHz downgrade would have been slightly bad news.

[andy capps]

I know there's a lot more involved in it than Ghz, I was just answering the question since Sphinx mentioned "3.2? That's not bad, right? I think my computer goes fater though..." I was just responding that 3.2 is very fast when you consider it's a Power PC core, and 8 SPE's (7 are functional). The new Core 2 Duo chips are great by the way, I was just mentioning the Ghz thing because that's what Sphinx mentioned. But yeah, multicore is the way of the future. Clock speeds are so last gen... :)

[Funky Town_TX]

Now lets get those sweet games coming. Killzone PS3 baby (e3 05 version).

[Sevir04]

In the Second Scan and also the the final clock speed is 3.2GHz which is fantastic and totally factual, we just need to wait for sony to verbalize this fact and they are probably going to do that next week at the TGS... also if you look on the first scan it gives the fact that retale PS3s have been manufactured already
with it's model Number CECHA01 and it also said manufactured in CHina and Japan... so at that time we can all conclude that Final PS3's were already being manufactured but not being Mass produced... these ones i think were just to see if the cell would pass it's test.. and in all three the scans show that it did... so i'm now having the feeling that retale ps3s will be seen at TGS this year.. and then i think sony will also launch there marketing push for the PS3's Japanese and NA markets this at or days after TGS06 has ended, because the mass public began becoming aware of the 360 just after TGS was finished i remeber seeing Billboards about the 360 last year in october so we'll see Nintendo and Sony doing something like that... very intresting and good find

[NextGen24Gamer]

And the 360 has 3 CPU's running at 3.2 ghz each. Interesting.

"Xbox 360 has three general purpose CPU cores. The Cell processor has only one."

"Xbox 360's CPUs has vector processing power on each CPU core. Each Xbox 360 core has 128 vector registers per hardware thread, with a dot product instruction, and a shared 1-MB L2 cache. The Cell processor's vector processing power is mostly on the seven DSPs."
http://xbox360.ign.com/arti...

[lalaland]

The X360 has one CPU just as the PS3. You are mixing cores up with CPUs.

The Cell has one PPU core which the X360 has three of... BUT the Cell has 8 (of which 7 are active -- one is disabled) SPU cores... Each running at 3.2 GHz. And the SPUs are not DSPs as MS would like you to believe.

Each PPU core in both the X360 and PS3 has a VMX unit. You are correct in that the VMX-128 unit in the X360 cores are more advanced than the VMX unit in the Cell....

BUT each SPU core can do a lot more vectorprocessing than each of the VMX-128 units in the X360 CPU, and not only that, they are more versatile as well for a lot of different purposes.

So to sum it up.
X360: 3 cores (3xPPU), 3xVMX-128 (1 per PPU), 6 threads (2 per PPU).
PS3: 8 cores (1xPPU, 7xSPU), 1xVMX (1 per PPU), 9 threads (2 per PPU, 1 per SPU).

And still you can't definitely say which one is the fastest -- it depends on the job at hand and the programmers skills and mindset.

[highps3]

Out of everyone here LALALAND was the only one to get the information about the CPU's right. Nice job!

Glad to see the Cell didnt get dropped to 2.8ghz like some horrible websites reported.

[Eternal E 808]

im sorry to bust your bubble but his info is realy off because if the cell did have 3.2ghz for each SPU then they would say "Cell processor,7 SPU's each at 3.2GHz" wich they dont and that just defines logic right there.

[NextGen24Gamer]

Thats interesting that you would know more than Microsofts "Official" statement about the 360 having 3 CPU's. Thats straight from MS's mouth...So who are you to know more about the 360 than Microsoft themselves? You are misinformed about the whole cpu/ppu/spu thng buddy. The 360 has 3 CPU's and the ps3 has ONE. PERIOD. Here is the link that "SONY" never rebutted when asked about it.
http://xbox360.ign.com/arti...

And Of course "DJ" will give you a link to PS3Land fan rantings. The link I gave is an OFFICIAL comparisson from Microsoft themselves. MS says 3 cpu's... The 7 spe's that the cell has all work off of the ONE CPU. So it just sounds big...9 cores. Lots and Lots of Laughs on that one. All running off of one CPU. Thank You Microsoft for clearing that up. Sony fanboys tend to look at the 9 core number and don't realize that the 360 has 3 times the general purpose processing power of the ps3. Read the link and get informed.

[dantesparda]

Wow! how ignorant are you Topgamer. You obviously know nothing about what you are talking about. The 360 has 3 "CORES" not CPUs. Dude learn a little technology and get your facts straight. And then for you to sit here and say "that microsoft said", like MS has no agenda, or bias or like companies, like governments dont put out propaganda. Wow! you got alot of learning to do

[USMChardcharger]

3.2 is good. the 360 does that as well. you guys mention that this will put rumors to rest about the downgrade...but wasn't the PS3 suppose to be faster than that?

[dantesparda]

No, it wasnt, it was suppose to be 3.2GHz and then came out rumors that it would be 2.8GHz because of low yields (which is actually very common with new chip architectures). But now they are trying to say that its not (running at 2.8) but rather at its original speed of 3.2GHz. But if you's ask me, this is still a mooth point as in fact both the 360 & PS3 but are in-order execution CPU's which are inferior to modern processors from AMD & Intel, which are "Out of Order" (OoOE)

[GRUNT]

Thanks for the full report THE TRUTH i couldnt see the pics that were posted :)

[lalaland]

It's nice to see on the diagram, that the powersupply is indeed internal as well... No need for a big brick on the floor.

I can't believe I'm apparently the first to notice...

[The great Me]

Besides of course that no separate socket or die is used. It seems like you are making a big deal out of a meaningless distinction. Especially meaningless since dual processor systems, which you call dual cpu systems seem to be slower than dual core systems, which have 2 cores (or CPUs you could say)on the same die. I think a better way of looking at these two systems is that the x360 has 3 general purpose CPUs (call them what you will) While the PS3 has one with 7 SPUs.

[pRo loGic II]

This is some much needed news if you're an PS3 fan. Hope it's true I still think the next-gen will be an repeat of last generation true power wise. WATCH!

[DJ]

It's sad that he thinks we're dumb enough to fall for it. Nice find Lalaland; i didn't notice the internal power supply until you said so. -thumbs up-

I'm glad the scans put the 'downgrade' rumors to rest.

To GreatMe: The terms are interchangeable, and I see both terms used. It's easier to just say that both Xenon and Cell are single chips with multiple cores.

Xenon has 3 cores, and Cell has 9 cores (8 cores used in the PS3). If you're wondering what the hell Vector Processing is good for, the rain/water effects in MGS2 are a good place to start.

If you want more information on Cell and the benefits of vector processing just go here:
http://www.ps3forums.com/sh...

[Eternal E 808]

but you got things mixed up bad because the 360 dose have 3 cpus also known as a core each runing at 3.2ghz and 2 threads per core,another thing you got mixed up bad with is that the cell dose not have 3.2ghz of speed for each SPU's in the cell it has to share the 3.2ghz of speed to all 7 SPU's in wich the 360 has 3 core that have 3.2ghz for each cpu witch you can say 3.2ghz x 3.

[DJ]

So, you're saying that each core in Cell is running at 400 Mhz? Where did you go to school? o_o

Each core in the Cell processor is independent and runs at 3.2 Ghz each. That's absolute fact. There's no such thing as 'sharing speed'. It's not even a computer term.

Official info on the Cell processor:
http://domino.research.ibm....

[Aflac]

"the cell dose not have 3.2ghz of speed for each SPU's in the cell it has to share the 3.2ghz of speed to all 7 SPU's in wich the 360 has 3 core that have 3.2ghz for each cpu witch you can say 3.2ghz x 3"

so THAT'S how it works eh? Seems to make sense to me seeing as how the SPU's are NOT cores and do not do wat cores do. Is there any tech page or anything to make that more official? cus if it's true, I'd like to be able t use an official source to back that.
Please lmk, thank you!

[Eternal E 808]

im just going to end this right now because the cell spu's dose not run at 3.2ghz each and heres my proff http://xbox360.ign.com/arti...
see were it says the Xbox 360's CPU has more general purpose processing power because it has three general purpose cores, and Cell has just one.so shhhhhhhhhhh

[Aflac]

omg, the cell is the only core the ps3 has, SPU's are just for floating point processing, not general purpose, every1 knows that, Einstein.

[Eternal E 808]

i see that you updated your post but the last time i checked the cell in the PS3 is 3.2ghz not 4ghz so i think that info is out dated or its a different chip.

umm but synlamont you are so blind can you read your self it even says in your link that you gave us " 1 Power Processor Element (PPE).
8 Synergistic Processor Elements (SPEs).
Element Interconnect Bus (EIB).
Direct Memory Access Controller (DMAC).
2 Rambus XDR memory controllers.
Rambus FlexIO (Input / Output) interface.
and all it says in the paragraphs is that the cell can do gflop and wich i just got done showing you that the cell is all floating points thats all and it dont run at 3.2ghz each so shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

[synLamont]

I am sorry my friend but you are mistaken. Each SPE is a core itself and each can run independantly at 3.2ghz

Each Cell contains 8 SPEs.

An SPE is a self contained vector processor which acts as an independent processor. They each contain 128 x 128 bit registers, there are also 4 (single precision) floating point units capable of 32 GigaFLOPS* and 4 Integer units capable of 32 GOPS (Billions of integer Operations per Second) at 4GHz. The SPEs also include a small 256 Kilobyte local store instead of a cache. According to IBM a single SPE (which is just 15 square millimetres and consumes less than 5 Watts at 4GHz) can perform as well as a top end (single core) desktop CPU given the right task.

*This is counting Multiply-Adds which count as 2 instructions, hence 4GHz x 4 x 2 = 32 GFLOPS.

32 X 8 SPEs = 256 GFLOPS
http://www.blachford.info/c...

I know this is from the the cell being 4ghz but the idea of each core running at the same speed sitll stands

[Aflac]

SPE's are NOT cores. there are 7 SPE's, not 8 they do not carry out the task of general purpose processing.

[synLamont]

Dude the facts are in your face if you choose not to read them Sir Nathaniel then i guess in your mind you will be right. *7 SPE* i know what the cell will have in the PS3 but i am talking about the cell it self and where does it say that something has to do general processing to be considered a core before you get back to me come with fact pls. SPE=core

[Watapata]

SPU's are NOT cores, because they don't run independently of the PPU. However, to say that the "speed is being shared" or something to that effect is pure ignorance. The SPU's are part of the Cell processor just the same as the PPU is. The Cell processor's global clock operates at 3.2 GHz. This in turn means that each SPU runs at 3.2 GHz. They DO NOT have an independent clock from the PPU. If they did, it would be impossible for any of the instructions to be performed syncronously with the PPU. Since this is required for the Cell to work at all, it has to be abundantly obvious that the SPU's run at the same EXACT clock speed as the PPU...

[NextGen24Gamer]

What do you think of the PS3's Cell architecture? How much harder is it for developers to write asymmetric multiprocessing code that will run on the PPE and the SPE's? How difficult will it be to port code that is tuned for the Cell over to the 360 while maintaining good performance? Do you think Sony made the architecture complex deliberately to make porting that way harder, or were they just trying to get maximum performance out of their system?

I don't think the Cell is as well designed for game development as Sony would have you believe. Some aspects of the SPEs, such as the lack of branch prediction, make them particularly unsuited to running most game code, which contains a lot of branches. They appear to be designed more for serialized streaming math code, more common in video codecs and audio processing, the traditional domain of digital signal processing chips. The memory architecture of the SPEs, specifically their lack of automatic cache coherency in favor of DMA transactions, seems like a lot of overhead is needed to feed work units to the SPEs and copy the results back to system memory.

The PPE appears to be essentially identical to one of the Xbox 360 cores, except without the VMX128 enhancements and with half the cache. However, a much greater assortment of work has to be crammed into this single core—all of the game loop, all of the rendering commands, and the system allegedly takes over some time as well. Only the second and third cores on Xbox 360 use a small timeslice to provide cool stuff like the Guide, music playback, Dolby Digital encoding, and more things that we can add in the future to all games, past and present.

I think porting from Xbox 360 to PS3 will be reasonably difficult, since the Xbox 360 has a lot more general purpose processing power that can be flexibly reallocated, and all of the Xbox 360 CPU cores have equal access to all memory. The asymmetric nature of the Cell could easily lead to situations where the game has too little of one type of processing power and too much of another. And the content might suffer as well, since you'll never see a PS3 title with more than 256MB of textures at any given time, due to the split graphics and system memory banks. When we announced 512MB of unified memory on Xbox 360, I think all of our game developers (and the artists too) did a little happy dance. It's easier to use and gives developers much more flexibility in how they allocate memory for various resources.

In terms of performance, I think that the PS3 and the Xbox 360 will essentially be a wash. We ran the numbers a while back and the two systems come up surprisingly close in theoretical peak performance, despite the one year difference in release dates. However, I know for a fact that we have a great advantage in software and services—our development environment and tools are years ahead of the competition, and this will ensure that Xbox 360 game developers can easily realize all of this performance and make superior games. Xbox 360 is a great system to develop on, a real pleasure—and I believe our developers agree.

http://arstechnica.com/arti...

[Eternal E 808]

even this is out dated because last time i checked is that the ps3 graphics card is only 500mhz now.

[PS3n360]

Who cares, just show me the games. I want power to be measured in fun-o-hertz and giga-frags. Getting tired of all the nerd-bots talking specs. so I PPonU and your thread counts. Im gonna go play a game on a real life working console that i got a year ago.

[shotty]

There both the same system powerwise but one is a little harder to get the power. The games would look pretty much identical.

This gen it's all about the exclusive games, if you want RPGs like Final Fantasy then go with PS3, if you want shooting games like Halo 3/GOW and sports games go with the xbox 360.
If your not a serious gamer and don't have a care for big budget games then go with the wii.

[Watapata]

Each machine is actually vastly different. As I've mentioned before, the Cell easilly trumps the 360 in terms of parallel processing, while the 360 trumps the PS3 in terms of general processing. Depending on which a game is more optimized for, one platform could be vastly superior to the other. In general, I tend to feel that there is more parallel processing in media applications than general processing, but some games are designed exactly the opposite to that.

[PS3 Ultimate]

This is great news for The PLAYSTATION 3! X Box 360 maybe a pleasure to develope games for. But it does'nt come close to developing it for the one and only The PLAYSTATION 3! And what makes The PLAYSTATION 3 a much better platform to develop the games for is the Blu Ray discs! More capacity so developers can fit MORE of their imaginations in there!

[Donkey Slayer]

I like my 360, but I would have much rather invested another $100 to have a HD-DVD or blu-ray player in the machine from the beginning. MS in their quest for world domination however rushed the console to try to one up Sony.
I know what version of The Darkness I'll be buying,hing it won't be the xbox360 version. Which is sad for xbox360 only owners, because they made the kickass Riddick on the xbox.

I really wish MS wasn't so short-sided. Which is odd, because last gen they didn't seem to be at all, but I guess that was just to get a foot-hold in the market. Xbox was a good system. HDD, standard, 5.1, HD graphics on some games.

[jiggajayp]

The cell has 1 general purpose core running at 3.2 ghz! The rest of the spe`s are not running at 3.2 ghz each! Furthermore, the XBOX 360 has 3 general purpose cores running at 3.2 ghz per core with 2 threads per core(like having six processors)! Also, DJ doesn`t have the correct ammount of cores either! The cell has 8 cores! NOT 9! 8 cores being 1 general purpose Power Pc core identical to the XBOX 360, then 7 spe`s! Which in all reality it has only 6 spe`s because 1 spe is held over for redundancy!(Meaning It Doesn`t Work!) So Mr. DJ, if you`re gonna state something, STATE YOUR FACTS CORRECTLY!

[Watapata]

As i stated earlier its idiotic to think that the SPU's aren't running at the same clock speed as the PPU. Simply put, if they didn't have the exact same clock speed, the entire architecture would failure spectacularly as nothing would be syncronous within the chip. Since all processors rely on this, this line of thinking is pure idiocy. In addition, having 3 cores running 2 threads each is not at all like having 6 processors. For all practical purposes, all this allows you to do is run parallel applications at the same time as long as they aren't using the same components. At any given moment you can only have one instruction being run on any given component within each core. A quick example, if each thread simultaneously has demand for the ALU (Arithmetic Logic Unit in case you were wondering) only one can actually access it at a given time. According to what you are saying jiggajayp both would be able to...that simply is not the case.

[4me2]

if you talking about XBOX 360 having 2 hardware threads per core it means that 2 threads are sharing full speed of core which is 3.2Ghz so if 1 thread is running at 2.0 then 2nd is running at 1.2 . Total must be 3.2

[DJ]

Developers have long talked about the 'stupid bottlenecks' in the 360 architecture, of which there are many, but I'll tell you the most important one today.

Get out a diagram of the Xenon processor and you'll see that it's just 3 G5 processors, stripped of out-of-order functionality, on one chip. The only way these cores/processors can communicate with each other is through the L2 cache, of which there's not actually that much. With 6 threads in the CPU, that leaves 133 Kb of working memory per thread. Tiny, compared to the 256 Kb of working memory for the 8 SPE processors in Cell. (and half a megabyte dedicated to its single G5 processor).

Something that Microsoft doesn't like to tell anyone is that while the 3 cores in Xenon run at 3.2 Ghz, its L2 cache only runs at 1.6 Ghz.

YEAH!

The only form of communication between the cores runs at half the speed they do. Worse yet, it's also the CPU's working memory. If you're wondering why 360 titles don't look 3 times more powerful than your high-end PC games (despite having 3 cores instead of just one), this is the main reason why.

Microsoft wanted to emphasize multi-threading, but it came at a price. Yes, 360 titles will show superiority over current PC games, but that superiority won't last very long, especially with dual-core processors readily available on the market and Intel quad-cores not very far off.

SIMD power is going to make all the difference; it's literally the reason why Sony had the balls to say that PS3 is twice as powerful as the 360. What's worse is that they may have been a little too conservative with their estimates. The 360 is a good piece of hardware and a great improvement over the original Xbox, but unfortunately the PS3 just walks all over it in terms of power. Doesn't mean that it's bad, it's just not the most powerful system. And while superior power doesn't guarentee success, it does allow for technologically superior games. And in the end, games are what matters most.

[Donkey Slayer]

xbox/MS rabid fannatics who had the most powerful console last gen (they damn well should have, it came out 2 years later) and now they are bitter that their system is the mid tier system..?

True gamers are happy that the PS3 is more powerful. It's not like it makes the xbox360 any less good.. Only if your a fanbody I guess.

Solution, if you want the latest and greatest just buy a PS3. Nothing wrong with owning both ;) I had both last gen, it was great :)

[jiggajayp]

Also, if you look at the scan correctly, you`ll see that the power supply isn`t inside the ps3! It`s a square box calledAC adapter!

[4me2]

Actually AC adopter (F) is connected to (E) which is IBM ThinkPad X40 notebook (most likely used to record measurements) with Logitech Mouse (G).
And ThinkPad X40 is connected directly to (H) which is Mitsubishi LCD Monitor

[bilal]

plz stop posting idiotic comments. and that ign microsoft analysis, it is complete bs. ps3 is more powerful than 360. but powerful means nothing without great games and good services. and for atleast 1-2 years from now you would not see any consistent difference in graphics between the two systems.
--ps3 more powerful..
-- 360 better online (as of now)..

in the end it would be about games (and not the launch games) but games coming 1-2 years from now on both systems....

posting microsoft "analysis" of ps3 vs 360 hardware is like asking Sony about ps2 online vs xbox live....
both are extremely biased and incorrect...

[jiggajayp]

Ps3 has a more powerful cpu! NOT GPU! NEXT?!

[bilal]

i think ps3 gpu vs 360 gpu are incomparble just based on the specs, there is no clear cut winner among them as of now, but it would become clear in 1-2 years which one does have an edge if any, i think they would be quite close...

but remember what you see on the screen does not entirely depend on gpu it is dependent heavily on cpu as well so as an overall hardware package ps3 is better than 360 (and not talking about blue-ray, hdmi and blabla)

[Donkey Slayer]

it being about gamers. I'd hate to live in the cave those types live in. I get to experience the hole world of gaming not just some small sector of it due to my close-minded fanboyism. keep disagreeing, but it is truly sad and you are the ones who lose in the end.

[Marty8370]

Official PS3 Specs

Here are the official technical specifications for the PS3, taken directly from Sony:

CPU
Cell Processor
PowerPC-base Core @3.2GHz
1 VMX vector unit per core
512KB L2 cache
7 x SPE @3.2GHz
7 x 128b 128 SIMD GPRs
7 x 256KB SRAM for SPE
* 1 of 8 SPEs reserved for redundancy
total floating point performance: 218 GFLOPS

GPU
RSX @550MHz
1.8 TFLOPS floating point performance
Full HD (up to 1080p) x 2 channels
Multi-way programmable parallel floating point shader pipelines

Sound
Dolby 5.1ch, DTS, LPCM, etc. (Cell- base processing)
Memory
256MB XDR Main RAM @3.2GHz 256MB GDDR3 VRAM @700MHz

System Bandwidth
Main RAM 25.6GB/s
VRAM 22.4GB/s
RSX 20GB/s (write) + 15GB/s (read)
SB< 2.5GB/s (write) + 2.5GB/s (read)

System Floating Point Performance
2 TFLOPS

Storage
Detachable 2.5" HDD slot x 1

I/O
USB Front x 4, Rear x 2 (USB2.0)
Memory Stick standard/Duo, PRO x 1
SD standard/mini x 1
CompactFlash (Type I, II) x 1

Communication
Ethernet (10BASE-T, 100BASE-TX, 1000BASE-T) x 3 (input x 1 + output x 2)
Wi-Fi IEEE 802.11 b/g
Bluetooth 2.0 (EDR)

Controller
Bluetooth (up to 7)
USB 2.0 (wired)
Wi-Fi (PSP)
Network (over IP)

AV Output
Screen size: 480i, 480p, 720p, 1080i, 1080p
HDMI: HDMI out x 2
Analog: AV MULTI OUT x 1
Digital audio: DIGITAL OUT (OPTICAL) x 1

Disc Media
CD PlayStation CD-ROM, PlayStation 2 CD-ROM, CD-DA, CD-DA (ROM), CD-R, CD-RW, SACD, SACD Hybrid (CD layer), SACD HD, DualDisc, DualDisc (audio side), DualDisc (DVD side)
DVD: PlayStation 2 DVD-ROM, PlayStation 3 DVD-ROM, DVD-Video, DVD-ROM, DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD+R, DVD+RW
Blu-ray Disc: PlayStation 3 BD-ROM, BD-Video, BD-ROM, BD-R, BD-RE

[jiggajayp]

www.dj.justgotowned.com

[jiggajayp]

http://www.dj.justgotowned....

[kmis87]

What was the point of doing that?

[Marty8370]

29 - lame.

[mephixto]

You can't compare the Cell agaist the Xbox360 procesors they use different architecture. The Xbox360 cores are General Pourpose (similar to a PC) thath can run windows word, etc. And the cell use 1 PPE an 7 SPE (Cores for more coplicated codes and task than a Geneneral Pourpose)

[Marty8370]

Synergistic Processing Elements (SPE) - Each SPE is composed of a "Synergistic Processing Unit" ("SPU"), and an SMF unit (DMA, MMU, and bus interface). [5] An SPE is a RISC processor with 128-bit SIMD organization [6] for single and double precision instructions. Each SPE contains a 256 KiB instruction and data local memory area (called "local store") which is visible to the PPE and can be addressed directly by software. The local store does not operate like a conventional CPU cache since it is neither transparent to software nor does it contain hardware structures that predict what data to load. The SPEs contain a 128 × 128 register file and measure 14.5 mm² on a 90 nm process. An SPE can operate on 16 8-bit integers, 8 16-bit integers, 4 32-bit integers, or 4 single precision floating-point numbers in a single clock cycle.

In one typical usage scenario, the system will load the SPEs with small programs (similar to threads), chaining the SPEs together to handle each step in a complex operation. For instance, a set-top box might load programs for reading a DVD, video and audio decoding, and display, and the data would be passed off from SPE to SPE until finally ending up on the TV. Another possibility is to partition the input data set and have several SPEs performing the same kind of operation in parallel. At 3.2 GHz, each SPE gives a theoretical 25.6 GFLOPS of performance. Performance of the PPE's VMX unit is unclear, but should be around 12 GFLOPS in addition to the SPEs.

In comparison to a modern personal computer, the comparatively high overall floating point performance of the Cell processor seemingly dwarfs the capabilities of the SIMD unit in desktop CPUs like the Pentium 4 and the Athlon 64. However, it should be noted that comparing only the floating point capabilities of the system is a single-dimensional and application-specific metric. Unlike the Cell processor, the aforementioned desktop CPUs are more suited to the general purpose software one might run on a personal computer. Furthermore, Cell is optimized for single-precision calculations; for double-precision, as used on personal computers, the performance drops by an order of magnitude to levels similar to desktops.

According to recent testing by IBM [7], SPEs can be expected to reach 75.9% of their theoretical performance.

[THE TRUTH]

The same raving fanboys who laid siege on Sony/Ps3 after hearing "rumors" of PS3 downgrade are the same ones saying that the FACT it isn't downgraded doesn't matter now!!! You hypocrites need to OWN UP to what you said!! Be accountable for the things you had said because of a SIMPLE "RUMOR" and console/company alligence.

I dont need some site to tell me exactly how powerful the cell is. Why dont you do the research and find out exactly what other technology the cell is being used in!!

Any fanboy that tells me the 360 Cpu is more powerful, faster or has a higher potential in terms of given developers the tools to make great games is just plain ignorant. It doesn't matter what "FACTS", "LINKS", "EXPERT ANALYST VEIWS" ECT. ECT. ECT. that are given to you!! You will always "think" the way you do. Which is fine but really the loss is all yours because of your hate for Sony YOU WILL MISS OUT ON GREAT GAMES not me. Some of you need to open your eyes and GROW UP!! Stop bashing everything about the PS3 just because you hate Sony!! These developers who are making great games don't deserve to be unfairly bashed just because you hate Sony!!

When will gamers stop being biased and just give honest opinions of games without being swayed by "console/company alligence". It's sad that you will miss out in the end while some of us reap the benifits of what all 3 consoles/companies have to offer us!!

[Watapata]

While for the most part I agree with you statement here, you need to recognize and admit that there are some things the 360 can simply do better than the PS3 can. In terms of general processing power, every 360 fan that has told you the 360 is better than the PS3, was right. And for a company that optimizes their games for this, they can achieve amazing results. At the same time you are right about the PS3 being more powerful...but only when it comes to parallel processing. The fact of the matter is that a clever developer can pull amazing material out of each console because they both have very specific strengths and weaknesses versus the other. While I tend to believe that the PS3 has more stengths than the 360 does for multimedia applications, I can't claim to know this for a fact (Neither can anyone else, whether a developer for Sony or Microsoft)

[THE TRUTH]

I agree with every word you have stated thus far throughout this entire forum man. (I also vote on your let him speak bubble) You get big respect from me because you are being fair an honest which is something that is rare on this site as of late!

This statement by you is absolute gold!!

The fact of the matter is that a clever developer can pull amazing material out of each console because they both have very specific strengths and weaknesses versus the other"

I think that is what will determine who wins this Generation of consoles!!

I do own a 360 and I expect/expected great things from it, but I think the fact that it was the only Next Gen console avalible made developers somewhat lazy in thier approach to make AAA titles in the year 360 had to itself. Hopefully the PS3 and Wii launches will push these developers to make epic games that really live up to the "sky high" hype this Generation of console is getting!

It's a great time to be a gamer, on the same note it's just sad that some fanboys will miss out due to thier immature and ignorant fanboy views/opinions!!

[Marty8370]

IBM to build fastest supercomputer using PS3 chips
By Stan Beer
Thursday, 07 September 2006
Computing giant IBM plans to build the most powerful supercomputer to date using a combination of AMD Opteron processors and Sony's new Cell chip to be used in PlayStation 3 games consoles.

The new supercomputer, codenamed Roadrunner, is expected to be able to execute at four times the speed of the no.1 supercomputer listed in the Top 500, the IBM BlueGene/L at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, which has been clocked at more than 280 teraflops (280 trillion floating point operations per second).

If it achieves its expected performance, Roadrunner will be the first computer in history to enter the petaflop (quadrillion operations per second) class.

IBM is crediting the performance boost of Roadrunner to the new Cell chip, of which there will be more than 16,000 running alongside 16000 Opteron processors.

The new supercomputer will be housed at Department of Energy's Los Alamos National Laboratory and used in simulations concerning the aging of nuclear materials.

The power of the eight processor cell chip, which was jointly designed by IBM, Toshiba and Sony, has been recognized by researchers as a potential aid in solving high performance computing applications.

Last month a project started by US biological scientists, called folding@home, announced its intention to enlist at least 10,000 PS3 consoles owned by gamers in a network to achieve supercomputing performance in determining how protein performance can cause diseases such as Alzheimer's and Cancer.

According to the researchers a network of 10,000 PS3 consoles can also achieve petaflop performance and they eventually want to be the network to 100,000 consoles or more.

[Watapata]

While, yes, you are right that that is a statement made by Microsoft's PR group, that doesn't make the information reliable. Companies routinely attack competitor's in such a way. Unfortunately, I know that no matter what anyone here says, you aren't going to believe it. LALALAND told you the truth, the 360 has 3 CORES, NOT 3 CPU's. Just a cursory examination of the definition of a CPU will show you that. If you don't believe me, I challenge you to find a single website that confirms what was posted at IGN two years ago without referencing the same exact information distributed then. The SPU's on the PS3 are not DSP's take it from someone that codes for and works with DSP's on a regular basis. In addition, they are part of the Cell CPU. Comparing the Cell with the CPU inside the 360 is pointless, they were each designed to target different computations, its a typical apples to oranges comparison. When it comes to general purpose processing power, the 360 beats the PS3 hands down. But at the same time, when it comes to any type of parallel processing, the PS3 wallops the 360. There's trade off's and benefits with each design, but PLEASE don't be naive enough to bring up that same tired old IGN post again. IGN even goes through the trouble of stating that the aren't endorsing this information because of its heavy slant. If you still insist on supporting this information, look at the fact that it was compiled by the PR department at Microsoft, typically a PR department really has little practical knowledge of how the inner workings of a complex piece of hardware could ever stack up against competition. They don't have the technical experience, knowledge, or training to understand it. Trust me, what they said is full of lies and half-truths. Just because Sony didn't respond does not mean that what Microsoft's PR department spat out is true.

[FeralPhoenix]

Wow, why are "GAMERS" still arguing over specs, didn't we already have this debate about a year ago? The fact is that most un-biased developers have said that while both consoles have different archetecture their performance will be very close. I think most rational people would agree that PS3 has the higher overall raw power, but that doesn't neccessarily translate to a "better" console than 360.....and vice versa. In other words both console specs are set-up differently, each will have its strengths, which makes a apples to apples comparison impossible, but in the end it comes down to how the developers utilize the strengths of each system. Its well known that this is exactly why Nintendo took a different approach to "next gen" because the Wii, is considerably less powerful as PS3 and 360, which is why there will be a noticeable difference in their games, because they want the focus of this next gen to be about innovation. Now all this ranting brings me to the point I want to make, which is:
ITS NOT ABOUT THE SPECS, ITS ABOUT THE GAMES!
PS3 will have great games and will continue to improve.
360 already has some great games with even better ones to come.
Wii will have great games with some innovative functionality.

The bottom line is if money isn't a issue then buy all three, and consider yourself blessed to have the best of all 3. If you can only afford 1 or 2 then you have to decide what games(exclusives) are more important to you. Thats it!...don't worry about the specs, the only question is;.... Is what games do you want to play the MOST?

[Grown Folks Talk]

i've said it many times before. the ONLY difference that really matters between the systems is which exclusives you like. if you like halo 360, if you like metal gear ps3, mario + wii. power didn't seem to matter to sony fans last time around, it was better games. so why does power mean so much all of a sudden? buy whichever one or ones you want with the games you like to play. it's very simple.

[LiquifiedArt]

I think all the children, with very limited actual "real-world" knowledge would be better off giving it a rest and just enjoy having time to play the games you enjoy, because soon enough you wont have that time.

Next, The ps3 is more powerful as far as games is concerned. I dont need to state facts or anything else, any game progger knowns that the code ran in games is primarily code which is easily vectorized and 90% of it is floating point. Good Luck to any of you guys that "want" to be a game programmer; but i saw lots of "gamers" fail to achieve that goal. Study up but enjoy your free time.

Think about it, Rendering is the Most Intensive operation generally speaking. WTF is an Actor on screen made of??? Vertices!@# with FLOATS!# that have 4 floats per VERTEX. WHat is the signifigance? VBOs, Vert Arrays ect, its all Relative, Animation,Rendering,Physics!@# !@ its ALL VEctorized CODE.

VertStart.x * VertDelta.x = VertFinal.x
VertStart.y * VertDelta.y = VertFinal.y
VertStart.z * VertDelta.z = VertFinal.z
VertStart.w * VertDelta.w = VertFinal.w <-Quaternion :P
Heres a good question..Is this Vectorized code?

WEll games are 90% of this type of code.

~2 cents On with the bickering

[kewlkat007]

I remember there was a thread about all this already with lots of flaming. The matter of the fact is True gamers will get all 3 systems cause they like the games coming out on each console while fanboys choose just one system for whatever reasons they give.

It's no surprise I might get a PS3 ven 2 years after when I feel like it worth it. It has some sequals I wanna play, while I'm enjoying my 360.

It is what it is. So what, this guy said the PS3 is faster and while the other say the 360 is. IT really doesn't matter about the specs in the end but we still babble about speeds.

The PS3 is 3.2 then good for the PS3. It's not the sole reason why people purchase consoles. It's still about the games, unless your a fanboy then the specsheet/CGI means everything to you.

Anyhow this is a forum and this is news so lets babble some more.

[FeralPhoenix]

I just wanted to point out how fanboys can't get past the idea that the games are the most important thing and not the spec's.....also your post has the added bonus of showing us the ridiculous FANBOY LOGIC like this qoute from your post: "Next, The ps3 is more powerful as far as games is concerned. I dont need to state facts or anything else...." lol, so why do you actually go on to state your oppinion mixed with more specs as fact? Now I would like to correct my opening and say thanks for showing us all why "fanboy posts" have no creditability.

[UNREAL-T]

If you are a tru gamer you will get all 3 console at least 2 of them. I think i'm a tru gamer i love my pc and i will get the ps3
then i will get a 360 and maybe wii. i think ps3 will be better than 360 but i doesn't mean i hate 360 or i'm not gonna get a 360,but that's truth. why IBM like the cell? because they know the cell is better than 360 cpu. why 360 fans can't say the truth. The truth is that ps3 will be better and faster than 360 even though 360 has better online.

[UNREAL-T]

He is my homie and all ps3fans are my homies. if any of ya have myspace let me know okay.THE TRUTH (i vote on your let him/her speak). I like u man.

[MyNameIsNotRick]

CPU: 8-bit 6507 (1.19MHz)
RAM: 128 Bytes
Colors: 16 (4 on screen)
Game Media: Cartridge
Resolution: 192x160
Sound: 2-channel
Atari 2600

[MyNameIsNotRick]

with what we have/will have, whatever the system is

[Boink]

like seriously, who cares, show me what the systems can do, the power between the 2 is so close, is it really going to matter? no.

it will all come down to what developers wants to do.

This console round is about software(aka titles) and online, fun, period. and with the race set to be so close, it's nice to know who the winners will be...us.

[Theonetheonly]

i have a few questions.

Why does it have a mouse and an IBM thinkpad x40?

now before you say its the test computer why does it interface with the monitor?

whats with only having 3 controllers?

and why does the monitor have a data link to the ps3 besides the monitor output?

i guess what im saying is why is the computer even needed?

[Theonetheonly]

what do super computers do?
A: fold protein chains, by repetitively applying a complex algorithm to a dataset.

and render Pre-predered movies over the course of a few months. (which the ps3 just might be good at) if you want to watch pre rendered go to ps3 and mod it so you can pre render movies.
sony seems to have the pre rendered bit down!!
anyways just picking fun.

how many processors does a super computer have?

A: usually arranged on blades of 4 a supercomputer typically has a number in the thousands of processors.

how many cells does the ps3 have?
A:1

(so you can forget about even pre rendering movies haha because it takes supercomputers months to do!!)

so the supercomputer defense is null and void!!

so even now in the generation after you still wont get those "toy story like" graphics you were promised with the ps2.

oh what else.. hmm. somewhere i heard the ps3 compared to the intel core 2 duo processors!

i laugh at the thought.

in no way is the cell processor going to be superior to even lower clocked intel or amd processors(in the state its in in your ps3). ever give that one up.
especially not the intel core 2 duo hehe not even close. for those who are shabby at computer talk the intel core 2 duo is the fastest processor to date beating amds x2 line by 70% in most tests.

so after all of this i say the 360s processor sucks as well now sorry to use such blatant terms but you will NEVER find a console processor that is even comparable to a desktop cpu on the same point in the techno timeline.

the main advantage is that these mediocre systems are "proprietarily" designed for. giving the illusion of a much faster device.
You'd be surprised at what your home computer would be capable of if the game-devs made a game for your specific computer.

no i am neutral.

but any bogus claims from either side of the line are to be taken with pride but also to know that bogus claims are just that bogus claims. so please be skeptical.

we have heard over and over again
1)both will have the same games.
2)almost the same graphical quality (better for exclusive titles)
3)better at different things.

so the only difference is a few extra devices not related to gaming. and the price.

600$ + game x-controller= blah blah
400$ + game x-controller=blah balh

and blu ray or dvd make your choice if your mind isnt made up already because convincing anyone that either of the 3 systems are better is impossible.

its like wrestling with a pig.... after a while you get tired and mad and realize that the pig likes it.

[Aflac]

...buy sony, and let all ps3 exclusives be made for 360 so they can reach greater heights in graphics and physics during this new generation. sony has betrayed its customers by making a console that is somewhat less powerful than ur cheaper system running on proven tech. Let HP or Gateway or someone else step in as a new competitor, that wont betray customers, but will do whatever it takes to keep customers happy.

lol!!! muhahahhhahahahahahahahaa!!!!!

[kmis87]

Sony is a larger company than Microsoft, with holdings in every facet of the entertainment industry. Microsoft makes computer software and video game hardware. Sony produces electronics, movies, and music in addition to video games. Sony is a complete media conglomerate, not some small company that can be bought or sold like nothing. Just because you know that Bill Gates was the richest man in the world, doesn't mean his company was the biggest. Please do some thinking before your next post.

[Aflac]

first of all i was joking, second, ms actually could buy sony considering how much richer it is.

[kmis87]

Didn't you read what I said, Sony is bigger than Microsoft so they couldn't just buy them. Furthermore, this argument has nothing to do with games so I don't know why we're having it. And finally, in your post I detected a distinct evil laugh. I've seen enough movies to know that when someone gives an evil laugh then you should definitely watch out for them.

[DIGITALDREAMKID]

Thank You for saying that Sony is a Huge Powerhouse who has everything they also make software. Microsoft only makes software no movies no music no electronics none of that. Microsft is only in business because they have the monopoly of the computer business in America not the world. Sony is all over the world. I hate to say this because i am an american but when has an american company being able to take on a Japanese company???? Never!!!!!

[kmis87]

Well, calling Sony a Japanese company still misses the point of its global scope. It has many branches in America and Europe, and many of its holdings are based around Western interests like Sony Pictures Entertainment or BMG, one of the big four music companies. But considering how the Sony branch that deals with videogames is largely separate from many of its other branches, I don't see what the point of this my company is bigger argument is. Thanks for agreeing with me tho, Sir Nate's claim was pretty dumb.

[Funky Town_TX]

The PS3 is more owerful. Too many 3rd party dev have said this. I take there word over M$ and Sony. You guys need to stop with it. Sony is a electronics copany M$ is a software company. It's only natural that Sony will have the better hardware performance. Sony pushed for power just like xbox1 did. Sorry guys get over it. Gen purpose or not, power is power.

[PS360PCROCKS]

Ok so I missed the whole argument but to say something that apparently everyone is very misinformed of is that the PS3 has ONE CPU, ONE PPU and SEVEN SPE'S at 3.2 GHZ, ok yes EACH spe is running at 3.2 GHZ, how the cell works is the ppu runs the code and sends tasks to the SPE'S, one spe will do physics, one will do shaders and so on...the Xbox 360 has a GPU and three 3.2 GHZ dual core processors, it's very simple people

[DJ]

Not dual core. Dual-threaded is not the same thing (especially performance-wise). Cell has 1 dual-threaded processor and 8 single threaded (but dual-issue) processors. Dual issue means that each SPE can send and recieve information while workin on separate tasks, without any performance hits. (usually, processors have to switch between processing and sending/recieving data/tasks)

If you read through the official IBM Cell BE handbook it actually details multiple ways of programming Cell. There's no set pattern or rule. It can have the SPEs relying on the PPE for instructions, it can have groups of SPEs working on independent tasks without any assistance from the PPE. Get this: it can even be programmed like an Xbox 360! Only, instead of only have 133 Kb of working memory per thread over 3 dedicated processors, you get 256 Kb of working memory per thread with 6~8 dedicated processors (SPEs). I say 6 because it would allow for straight porting, though it's not required. They can always use the full architecture.

Only 15% of CPU execution time in games is spent on General Purpose code anyway(Tim Sweeney of Epic Games even came out and made this clear) so it really works out in Cell's favor. Especially since the majority of its power is with Vector Processing (similar to the PS2, only easier to handle) Developers are going to do some crazy things with this architecture. It can create polygons, it can texture, do physics, AI, lighting, particle fx, sound processing, video processing, and do all of it extremely well and extremely fast.

It's going to be exciting to see what the successor to the Cell processor is going to be like. =]

[bilal]

agreed!

[Theonetheonly]

inferiority. in terms of power the console realm is one class below the commercial cpu realm. hands down so any comparisons given clock speed or amount of processors of any sort are un-informed

especially given the different form factors.

like in a computer atx2 is the new standard.

atx was the standard but was replaced due to better performance.

atx refers to motherboard size and capability.

so evem if a processor is good on an atx mobo

a processor of equivalent speed on atx2 form factor will aut perform.

so we should most likely be worried about the northbridges and the front side bus speeds of the console rather than the processor or gpus.

3.4 ghz 1066fsb whoops the butt of a
3.4 ghz 533fsb

not to be mistaken with memeory bus speed. but the processor bus speed and bitrate also the instruction set sse2 sse3 sse4 etc.

so there is

hardware: cell rsx xenon etc.
software: resident evil etc.
firmware: version updates usually hard encoded to bare basic.
language: meaning the language used by the componenets to communicate with eachother, like binary,01 octal, 8-12 digit hexadecimal, 12345678abcdefgh.

so if all of the components work efficiently together then and only then will one or the other be declared faster.

please let him/her speak me. thanks

[badkolo]

DJ and others are you serious. Your here defending this cell chip, if its used in super computers or not, your here showing link after link trying to prove that the ps3 is more powerfull in so many ways, well whats funny is the games dont show it and the multi plat games will look the same so whats your point, but most funny of all is your trying to say over and over that the ps3 is the most powerful console this gen, well lets go back and think about last gen, WASNT THE PS2 THE MOST POWERFULL SYSTEM LAST GEN AS WELL WITH THE EMOTION ENGINE THAT CAN ARM NUKES AND CAN DEPLOY TOY STORY GRAPHICS THAT WILL OUTDO ANYTHING ON THE MARKET FOR YEARS TO COME. tHEN SOMETHING CAME OUT CALLED THE XBOX1 WITH A 733MHZ CHIP AND GUESS HOW THAT STORY TURNED OUT ON WHICH PRODUCED BETTER GRAPHICS AND A BETTER SYSTEM AS A WHOLE.

Ask yourself what are you really trying to prove.If all you want to do is scream about numbers then well you know what Your the winner, by numbers the ps3 wins and so did the ps2. Now lets get back to reality, the ps3 is a game system and not a super computer, the games are proof in the pudding, just face the facts.

[Raist]

Comparing an intel core 2 duo with a cell ?

Lol, man, i think you missed the point. Cell has nothing to do with those cpu's for family PC's.

If you wanna know what cell is really compared to, i suggest you to read this article published some weeks ago, from the Berkeley University

http://www.lbl.gov/Science-...

AS you can see, Cell completely crushes superprocessors such as Itanium2 or Opteron. So core 2 duo, well, lolz

[Microsoft Master]

The Xbox 360 was aimed for 3.6Ghz clock speed but they were forced to downgrade, so what is the problem that the PS3 is getting downgraded? I like the 360, but some fanboys are getting ridiculous. Look on wikipedia and the history of the Xbox 360. Some people need to do their homework...

[badkolo]

remove the blue ray, remove the wifi, remove the bluetooth, remove the card reader, remove thany other extra and your left with a ps3 thats 199, thats one cheap cell and rsx. but yet you feel that the cell in the ps3 is some monster super compuyer, your setting yourselvels up for a big fall. And you will realize that when your playing games that graphically equal to what the 360 will produce. You all know Gow looks pretty and some other games as well, cross plat games look the same, sonic looks the same, rainbow six loooks the same, so whats the cell and rsx for, stop blinding yourself with numbers, its all a ploy just like the emotion engine.

[Captain Tuttle]

I'll give the PS3 fans the fact that their machine is the most powerful. How the heck are they going to keep all of those incredibly fast processors cool? Especially without an external power supply. If it dosen't have a power brick that sucker is going to sound like a jet engine when you fire it up. That or each unit is going to have a lifespan of 3 weeks.

[Siesser]

It supposedly runs quieter or as quiet as the psTWO.

[Captain Tuttle]

Then unless Sony has changed the laws of physics they're going to be replacing alot of burnt up PS3's.

[kmis87]

I make no claims to be an expert, which means I'm probably wrong, but doesn't having a disc drive that spins alot slower reduce heat and noise some? If I'm wrong, just correct me. I'm not claiming it does, I'm just guessing. Also, if there are more powerful pcs out there like the makers of crysis says, shouldn't they be running even hotter. Maybe the 360's heating isn't as efficient as it could be. Also, isn't the ac adapter external? that thing gets hot too.

[PS3 Ultimate]

Alot of drama here! Welp, me and others that are purchasing The PLAYSTATION 3 will enjoy it! But where is TheMART? I have'nt seen a single post from him here. I guess its because he hates good news that he can't refuse. All 3 next generation consoles will be really interesting bur only 1 will emerge victorious! The future is almost here, with The PLAYSTATION 3!

[DIGITALDREAMKID]

YES IT WILL BE THE FUTURE WITH PLAYSTATION 3!!!!!

[badkolo]

the games that are on both systems will look the same so what future are you looking foward too. Your exclusives will look as good as the 360's exclusives since each will use the systems power to produce games to make exclusives look hot for that system and I repeat all games that appear on both systems will look the same so once again I ask you what the hell are you talking about, other thne the 200 bucks more it costs there is no difference in graphics so again whats your point, your excited about what??? are you excited that the ps3 doesnt have a real live service like the 360, im not sure ... are you excited that you lost rumble???? or are you excited cause you have blueray and can watch movies on your video game system to keep you busy while you suffer waiting for good games to come out. even though extra space on a blueray does not equate to better graphics in any way just larger storage. wow maybe it is the future, the future of the same for less , and thats called the 360.
There hasnt been 1 game shown yet that previewers have said now this is how powerfull the ps3 is becuase these graphics show its true power, no one has said that, no one has seen this so what future are you talking about

with that said I say this, 90% of all you in here posting comments should be ashamed at yourselves and this is why, you point out the ps3 has blueray and that it does 1080p, I bet most of oyu dont have enough money to buy a 1080p tv, let alone that coupled with a ps3 and games, also to assume the rest of the world has money like that. The amount of people that will actually make use of the 1o80p in the next 3 years is so small thats it is insinifigant.

[shoota33]

Its ok you jealous jealous fanboy, playing the old they will all look the same excuse lol.Everyone knows ps3 is more powerful and multiplatform/exclusive games will look better on ps3.So just give up with your jealous xbox fanboy rants.

[badkolo]

But my young child the truth is they dont, there is many many games that are being made as you wipe the crust out your eye that are on both systems and we have seen that they look the same, devs have said they look the same, 1up, ign, and all other have said tey look the same so once again what future are you looking foward too, lets not forget the 1 year advantage the devs have with the 360 and thats why gow looks better then all your launch games for the ps3 and it will continue that way, but as far as cross plat games are concerned your not going to fool anyone by just thinking they will look better on the ps3 when we all know they look the same, stop talking and go read and look at screens, they look the same and NOT one person has said otherwise.

Theres no jealousy on my oart young one, im loaded and will have the ps3, I always have said this, i can afford to have em all and i will cause i play games and I like the ps brand but your not going to fool a 34 year old. the ps3 is a game machine thats in the same ballpark graphically with the 360, the ps3 is a game system and will not replace the home computer so stop fooling yourselves. I know ill go home with my ps3 and laugh at how crappy it is just like I did when i frist opened the 360 and played some games that wherent to nexgen. But even I know that the 360 has a btter online service and even i know that ps3 has some things that the 360 shouldve had.

When the ps2 was being pushed and i heard about the emotion engine and how powerfull it is and the toy story graphics and how its more powerfull then all computers even i fell for the hype and bought one and i got home and inserted tekken and ssx and laughed, it was crap and 2 days later i sold it cause it was all a lie, this time i know that the graphics are up to par but im not falling for the super computer crap this time neither should you, nothing we have seen shows us that the ps3 is leaps and bounds better then anything we have seen so what future are you looking at????

[gnothe1]

since your trying to prove a point get all of you facts right first. sony is a big company,BUT.. everything is divided,sony pictures, sony music,sony electronics, an SCEA which is the videogames.they all run independant, so the movies division an its earnings has nothing to do with the music or videogames division.so with that its possible that 1 division can show a billion dollar profit an another one have a 600 million loss an it not really hurt SONY as a company. so were talking about sony videogame division.an money earned or loss will only effect the videogames division.

[MoKa]

For the people who are claiming they know the specs of the PS3's processing speed read this..

PS3 Hardware Specs
http://en.wikipedia.org/wik...

Xbox360 Specs
http://en.wikipedia.org/wik...

So theres no more argueing on which is faster.

[DIGITALDREAMKID]

AND SONY HAS YET TO LOOSE MONEY UNLIKE MICROSOFT WILL IS STILL LOSSING MONEY ON EVERY BOX SOLD OLD OR NEW!!!! AND FOR THOSE PEOPLE WHO KEEP SAYING THE GAMES LOOK THE SAME WELL THAT MIGHT BE SOME OF THE LAUNCH GAMES BECAUSE GUESS WHAT THERE LAUNCH GAMES WAIT A YEAR AND YOU WONT BE SINGING THAT OLD SONG!!! PLAYSTATION 3 IS MORE POWERFUL OKAY!!!!!

[ironwolf]

Sony's been loosing about half a billion dollars per quarter for a couple of years now.
And again, turn off the caps lock.

[NextGen24Gamer]

There are three critical performance aspects of a console:

The Xbox 360 CPU architecture has three times the general purpose processing power of the Cell.

The Xbox 360 GPU design is more flexible and it has more processing power than the PS3 GPU.

The memory system bandwidth in Xbox 360 exceeds the PS3's by five times.

The Xbox 360 processor was designed to give game developers the power that they actually need, in an easy to use form. The Cell processor has impressive streaming floating-point power that is of limited use for games.

The majority of game code is a mixture of integer, floating-point, and vector math, with lots of branches and random memory accesses. This code is best handled by a general purpose CPU with a cache, branch predictor, and vector unit.

The Cell's seven DSPs (what Sony calls SPEs) have no cache, no direct access to memory, no branch predictor, and a different instruction set from the PS3's main CPU. They are not designed for or efficient at general purpose computing. DSPs are not

Sony's CPU is ideal for an environment where 12.5% of the work is general-purpose computing and 87.5% of the work is DSP calculations. That sort of mix makes sense for video playback or networked waveform analysis, but not for games. In fact, when analyzing real games one finds almost the opposite distribution of general purpose computing and DSP calculation requirements. A relatively small percentage of instructions are actually floating point. Of those instructions which are floating-point, very few involve processing continuous streams of numbers. Instead they are used in tasks like AI and path-finding, which require random access to memory and frequent branches, which the DSPs are ill-suited to.

Based on measurements of running next generation games, only ~10-30% of the instructions executed are floating point. The remainders of the instructions are load, store, integer, branch, etc. Even fewer of the instructions executed are streaming floating point—probably ~5-10%. Cell is optimized for streaming floating-point, with 87.5% of its cores good for streaming floating-point and nothing else.

Game programmers do not want to spread their code over eight processors, especially when seven of the processors are poorly suited for general purpose programming.

The PS3 does have the additional 7 DSPs on the Cell to add more floating point ops for graphics rendering, but the Xbox 360's three general purpose cores with custom D3D and dot product instructions are more customized for true graphics related calculations.

When you break down the numbers, Xbox 360 has provably more performance than PS3. Keep in mind that Sony has a track record of over promising and under delivering on technical performance. The truth is that both systems pack a lot of power for high definition games and entertainment.

However, hardware performance, while important, is only a third of the puzzle. Xbox 360 is a fusion of hardware, software and services. Without the software and services to power it, even the most powerful hardware becomes inconsequential. Xbox 360 games—by leveraging cutting-edge hardware, software, and services—will outperform the PlayStation 3.

http://xbox360.ign.com/arti...

Some aspects of the SPEs, such as the lack of branch prediction, make them particularly unsuited to running most game code, which contains a lot of branches. They appear to be designed more for serialized streaming math code, more common in video codecs and audio processing, the traditional domain of digital signal processing chips. The memory architecture of the SPEs, specifically their lack of automatic cache coherency in favor of DMA transactions, seems like a lot of overhead is needed to feed work units to the SPEs and copy the results back to system memory.

the Xbox 360 has a lot more general purpose processing power that can be flexibly reallocated, and all of the Xbox 360 CPU cores have equal access to all memory. The asymmetric nature of the Cell could easily lead to situations where the game has too little of one type of processing power and too much of another. And the content might suffer as well, since you'll never see a PS3 title with more than 256MB of textures at any given time, due to the split graphics and system memory banks. When we announced 512MB of unified memory on Xbox 360, I think all of our game developers (and the artists too) did a little happy dance. It's easier to use and gives developers much more flexibility in how they allocate memory for various resources.

I know for a fact that we have a great advantage in software and services—our development environment and tools are years ahead of the competition, and this will ensure that Xbox 360 game developers can easily realize all of this performance and make superior games. Xbox 360 is a great system to develop on, a real pleasure—and I believe our developers agree.

http://arstechnica.com/arti...

So how about this one: can those E3 PS3 demos be achieved on Xbox 360?

Well, I think it's more likely that they can be realised on an Xbox 360 than they can be on a PS3. Those things are movies generated using whatever DCC software the houses had in mind. The Epic demo was running on a PC, and it was done using an early 7800 in SLI mode, so that was a high-end PC demo, but the movies were generated as movies and dressed up as: 'This is what you can expect from a PS3', but that's probably overstating what the PS3 can do a little bit. Indeed, it's well beyond what we expect the PS3 to be able to do. So I guess we'll just have to see what happens..."

http://www.gamersreports.co...

The Truth to Sony ONLY fans is like Krytonite is to Superman. Get over it. Who cares. I can post 10 links that clearly state that the 360 is more powerful "For Games". But all 3 next gen consoles will have "Games" worth getting. Only someone who is only getting one system cares. I think they will all have some must have classics. I just believe that the 10 million consoles sold to 0 will in the end mean that 360 will have a much larger user base through this Next Gen. I realize for some reason sony fans can't accept it. But numbers and history don't lie. Every single generation the console that reaches 10 million first "Always" wins. Get over it. Sony was "King" for two generations. Life goes on. times change. Dr J was the best b ball player in his time. But his time ran up and Michael Jordan took his place....and then MJ's time was up and Kobe Bryant took his place. And next is likely to be Lebron James. Times change. Sony has made many many bad decisions this time. Its ok. Microsoft has a less expensive system with provable more power for games. But we will all be witness come November when there will be many Head to Head comparissons if you really care about that. My advice....Just play the games and stop pouting. Get over it. Thank You Microsoft.

[NextGenJay]

Dude, u r the MAN. Thanks 4 the links, i knew the 360 was more powerful than the ps3 because of whut all the devs have said, but u broke it down in plain english. Keep up the good work, i understand you said u r gettin a ps3 but why? it is a waste of money. u will get pretty much all the same games via multi console support, and from whut i read they will be ported from the 360 to the ps3. so 360 most of the time, will get the superior version and earlier at times. 360 has much more exclusives this time around as well. do whut u do. i can only afford one. and 360 is clearly the best choice for gamers who can't get every system. not tht the wii is bad. it just seems like a gimmicky system. i think the fun of playing tennis with the controller will wear off rather quickly. sounds neat but, i want next gen graphics,and experiences.

[UNREAL-T]

Y are 360fans keep saying 360 is better than ps3. TOP GAMER AND HIS FANS, u said sony was the king for two generations, if u think MS is the king of this generation ur so stupid and ur telling me that MJ's time was up and Kobe Bryant took his place. And next is likely to be Lebron James. dude think before speak and 360 is not better than ps3. KEEP THAT IN YOUR HEAD. WE ARE TALKING ABOUT VIDEOGAMES NOT BASKETBALL.

[Raist]

Undisputed FACTS ?

Wow, funny... really funny xD
http://www.ps3forums.com/sh...
Should have a look at these posts.
Especially the xbox 360 vs PS3 post.

I guess there are some "facts" claimed by MS that are a bit wrong :)
So you just should quit believing in what MS says.

All your statements about bandwith, no cache for SPE's etc, are totally wrong rofl.

[NextGenJay]

ur full of it dude. lets see, do we believe one fanboy ranting on a ps3forum link or information from 3 sources...a developer/Microsoft/and ATI? I luv how TopGamer gave 3 links from 3 different perspectives. And u rebut him with a ps3forum rant? too funny.

[DJ]

can you just stop posting the same damn links from 4 months ago. Microsoft's slanted article doesn't mean anything, and pretends that the SPEs don't even exist. Quoting ATI and John Carmack (who's never touched a PS3 dev kit in his life) is not the best strategy either. Matt Lee seems to have forgotten that the RSX can access all 512 Mb of RAM, including the Hard Drive for chaching. Cell can do rendering for graphics as well; sorry to burst your bubble(s).

For every interview saying the PS3 is too hard to program for there's three more that talk about how incredibly more powerful and flexible it is compared to the 360. Hey, it's just life. Some devs are good enough to handle it, and some aren't.

Don't take their word for it? Just look at the games that you keep dissing and claiming "oh, it's just CG. The games don't look that good when you play. Sony lies!" Then a few days later you'll say "oh, those are N64 graphics! How horrible!" to the same damn screen captures. Have some consistency for once.

BTW, having your numerous screennames pat each other on the back is just as pathetic as ever.
You're ridiculous =P

[beans]

Not that it's important and not trying to get involved in this stupid spec battle but John Carmack has had PS3 kits for awhile now!

[Raist]

His posts just make perfect sense and are accurate.
Bigger cache for the xbox360 cpu ? Sure, but it's shared by 3 cores (and SPE's DO have cache).
Adding bandwith ? nonsense.
CPU having to access RAM via GPU (hello bottleneck)
And for the general purpose power, he's totally right, most of game code isn't general purpose.

A lot of developpers have already stated that programming the cell is surprisingly flexible. Although it requires a lot of work and effort, the use of SPEs allows pretty neat stuff, giving each SPE a defined task, such as physics, AI, particles, etc...

Don't forget that because of DVD9, developpers have to use huge compression rates that require huge decompression tasks. Games like kameo and PGR use a whole core just for decompression... talk about power sink. Some developpers have alreay complained about this problem (Saint Row's devs for instance)
And finally, the biggest problem of the xbox360 is its core version. Developpers must keep in mind that all consumers don't have a hard drive in their console, and that restricts them a lot.

A lot of things in the IGN article aren't accurate at all. But, sure, MS must be really, really objective about their hardware, and sony's, lol.

Want another point of view ?

Here is some quote of Tim Sweeney, one of the unreal engine 3
"In fact, if properly structured and coded for SPE acceleration, physics code could very well run faster on the PlayStation 3 than on the Xbox 360 thanks to the more specialized nature of the SPE hardware. Not to mention that physics acceleration is particularly parallelizable, making it a perfect match for an array of 7 SPEs.

Microsoft has referred to the Cell’s array of SPEs as a bunch of DSPs useless to game developers. The fact that the next installment of the Unreal engine will be using the Cell’s SPEs for physics, animation updates, particle systems as well as audio processing means that Microsoft’s definition is a bit off. While not all developers will follow in Epic’s footsteps, those that wish to remain competitive and get good performance out of the PS3 will have to."

So that's the point. Cell and Xenon have really, really different architectures. But just believing MS's statements is lame. Of course they'll say their console is the best. But from what a lot of devs say, the cell is really powerfull. The problem is that it's so different from a PC cpu, or the xenon, that it requires specific work.

[NextGenJay]

i think playable,reviewable, games come november and beyond will tell the whole story. both consoles are next gen. personally i prefer the 360, it has way more games that im interested in. and i believe all the next gen specs heavily favor the 360...and i also realize that specs dont make games. develpers do.

[Say's you]

Knowing that lalaland wouldn't know really which is more advanced the VMX or the Xbox 360's core, when really thats alot of Horse Sh1t!.