PS3 Cell Processor faster than i7 965 XE

timgaul said:
You've hit the nail on the head with that one, unfortunately Sony doesn't agree and that is where my issue lies. They believe the GPU can be done away with by placing all the burden on the CPU and I, as appears do you disagree. A top class GPU is fundamental in the presentation, leave the physics to the CPU.
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Yes well, I'm pretty sure they've learnt their lesson for now.

The massive potential of the Cell is crippled by the aged technology of the RSX, while the comparatively lower-spec Xenon copes very well with the help of the Xenos, with its unified shaders.

Anyone who has done the research knows that the PS3 and 360, while taking very different approaches, solve the problem very well. They each have their strong and weak points (as is expected in any engineering situation). Weighing everything up puts their performance ON PAR.
 
sn3rd said:
Yes well, I'm pretty sure they've learnt their lesson for now.

The massive potential of the Cell is crippled by the aged technology of the RSX, while the comparatively lower-spec Xenon copes very well with the help of the Xenos, with its unified shaders.

Anyone who has done the research knows that the PS3 and 360, while taking very different approaches, solve the problem very well. They each have their strong and weak points (as is expected in any engineering situation). Weighing everything up puts their performance ON PAR.
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Correct, Microsoft took the standard approach. Sony thought they'd be clever with the cell but the whole resulting product has produced much of the same. Perhaps, as you say, they will have learnt their lesson for the next generation.
 
timgaul said:
Correct, Microsoft took the standard approach. Sony thought they'd be clever with the cell but the whole resulting product has produced much of the same. Perhaps, as you say, they will have learnt their lesson for the next generation.
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We can only hope...

Innovation and learning can only mean better products for the consumer
 
timgaul said:
Is there life after folding@home? Apparently that is all the PS3 is good for, but I'm happy with sacrificing every PS3 to cure cancer. The question is: can it actually play games?
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No surely, in your eye's, it can't, I mean KZ2 is a flop, U2 not far behind, GOWIII already is slated as a FAIL! :p Wonder in which hotel backroom you read your gaming info magazine, free issue? Maybe in the public toilets, scribbled info on the wall? :sick:
 
timgaul said:
Actually, that is a bit of a verbose statement. The GPU on the XBox 360 is superior to the PS3 which leads to a greater reliance on the CPU and results in putting processing where it really shouldn't be.
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I think you misunderstood me. I said before that currently, graphics processing occurs mostly on the GPU. That's not to say that it SHOULD ALWAYS be like that. I think Sony made a mistake by thinking a little too out-the-box too soon. But I don't think it's a complete failure of an idea. If they had taken the time to develop the idea properly, *queue speculation* they might have come up with a workable solution.

timgaul said:
Something like that, that's why the PS3 is superior only in its capability of raw theoretical performance within its CPU; or namely, its a number cruncher :D
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It's a number cruncher indeed, but your comment, while cleverly phrased, leaves the impression that you think it's ONLY good for that. While it may be BEST at that, I think it's clear from the competition it provides that it's not ONLY a good number cruncher.

timgaul said:
I will say this much: this thread didn't stand much chance either.

PS3 or XBox 360 thread: I'm getting sick of the threads turning into X vs Y the whole time! People, if we don't discuss this in a mature adult manner we're really not going to learn anything.

This thread had a good OP about a decent topic that may or may not be completely correct. Now, neither side will know because no one is willing to discuss the OP in a decent manner and this thread has merely deteriorated into a mudslinging match.

*grumble*
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Thought I'd post this here so as not to further derail the other thread; and chose this one because it's where we initially had the discussion of CPU vs GPU processing.
 
sn3rd said:
I think you misunderstood me. I said before that currently, graphics processing occurs mostly on the GPU. That's not to say that it SHOULD ALWAYS be like that. I think Sony made a mistake by thinking a little too out-the-box too soon. But I don't think it's a complete failure of an idea. If they had taken the time to develop the idea properly, *queue speculation* they might have come up with a workable solution.
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I think it will be a long time until we see all GPU and CPU work done on one chip, the processing power of graphics cards are immense compared to a CPU, by the time the CPU's catches up with current GPU performance, GPU's will again be leagues ahead, and developers will always try to use as much processing power as possible
 
Nduimiso said:
I think it will be a long time until we see all GPU and CPU work done on one chip, the processing power of graphics cards are immense compared to a CPU, by the time the CPU's catches up with current GPU performance, GPU's will again be leagues ahead, and developers will always try to use as much processing power as possible
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Gee, what makes GPUs in current PCs so powerful... ? Oh yes, they have architectures similar to that of the Cell :rolleyes:

Using your argument, the processing power of Cell (and related processors) should start to be used in graphics cards.

The issue doesn't lie in a lack of performance, it lies in the difficulty in combining general usage with specialised usage. The trade off is readily apparent.

So I agree it'll be a while before we see a good solution that combines all processing onto one chip. But not because current technology lacks the power; rather because integrating the two while sacrificing no performance is a difficult problem to solve.
 
sn3rd said:
Gee, what makes GPUs in current PCs so powerful... ? Oh yes, they have architectures similar to that of the Cell :rolleyes:

Using your argument, the processing power of Cell (and related processors) should start to be used in graphics cards.

The issue doesn't lie in a lack of performance, it lies in the difficulty in combining general usage with specialised usage. The trade off is readily apparent.

So I agree it'll be a while before we see a good solution that combines all processing onto one chip. But not because current technology lacks the power; rather because integrating the two while sacrificing no performance is a difficult problem to solve.
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Do you have a link about cell architectures being similar to GPU's, but the fact is that GPU's are still better at graphics than Cell, otherwise where are all the GPU's using cell chips?
 
sn3rd said:
Gee, what makes GPUs in current PCs so powerful... ? Oh yes, they have architectures similar to that of the Cell :rolleyes:

Using your argument, the processing power of Cell (and related processors) should start to be used in graphics cards.

The issue doesn't lie in a lack of performance, it lies in the difficulty in combining general usage with specialised usage. The trade off is readily apparent.
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They do not understand, they are stuck (up) on the cell. Wonder if they ever looked at the power PC structures.

Nduimiso said:
Do you have a link about cell architectures being similar to GPU's, but the fact is that GPU's are still better at graphics than Cell, otherwise where are all the GPU's using cell chips?
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Announced first for use in the PlayStation 3, the Cell Broadband Engine chip was co-developed by Sony, Toshiba and IBM. Each chip has a general purpose Power PC processor and eight co-processing elements that are tuned to handle intensive operations such as high-definition graphics .
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Supercomputers are one of the first uses beyond the PlayStation 3 for the Cell chip but others are envisaged.

Earlier this year Toshiba demonstrated a televisions with a Cell Broadband Engine. The TV, which Toshiba said should be out by the end of next year, uses the Cell chip for realtime upscaling of standard-definition TV to high-def, and display multiple video streams simultaneously for quick navigation of many TV channels.

Toshiba also plans to launch laptop PCs with a derivative of the Cell chip called the SpursEngine. The SpursEngine is a co-processor that will work with the laptop's main processor and handle graphics and multimedia tasks. The laptop should be out sometime before the end of March next year.
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Nduimiso said:
Do you have a link about cell architectures being similar to GPU's, but the fact is that GPU's are still better at graphics than Cell, otherwise where are all the GPU's using cell chips?
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Sure. Just read up on the Cell processor and how GPUs work:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cell_(microprocessor)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphics_processing_unit#GPU_forms

I agree that currently GPUs are better at graphics than Cell.

This is not even what I was talking about initially; don't know how we got here?

I said that the Cell was NOT to be used in graphics cards (sorry if the sarcasm was uncalled for :p ).

The point is that the Cell is not simply a number cruncher, and that Sony had a quite revolutionary approach that wasn't very well implemented (we all know that the RSX was squeezed into the equation once Sony realised that they had to get the PS3 out sometime and couldn't continue developing forever). The speculation is that the PS3 might have been something that changed the face of not only gaming, but computing in general.
 
sn3rd said:
I think you misunderstood me. I said before that currently, graphics processing occurs mostly on the GPU. That's not to say that it SHOULD ALWAYS be like that. I think Sony made a mistake by thinking a little too out-the-box too soon. But I don't think it's a complete failure of an idea. If they had taken the time to develop the idea properly, *queue speculation* they might have come up with a workable solution.

It's a number cruncher indeed, but your comment, while cleverly phrased, leaves the impression that you think it's ONLY good for that. While it may be BEST at that, I think it's clear from the competition it provides that it's not ONLY a good number cruncher.
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That is what I've been saying! I agree fully with you as in it is only better at number crunching, in terms of graphics it is on a par with the XBox 360 (which is very good).
 
Nduimiso said:
I think it will be a long time until we see all GPU and CPU work done on one chip, the processing power of graphics cards are immense compared to a CPU, by the time the CPU's catches up with current GPU performance, GPU's will again be leagues ahead, and developers will always try to use as much processing power as possible
Click to expand...

sn3rd said:
Gee, what makes GPUs in current PCs so powerful... ? Oh yes, they have architectures similar to that of the Cell :rolleyes:

Using your argument, the processing power of Cell (and related processors) should start to be used in graphics cards.

The issue doesn't lie in a lack of performance, it lies in the difficulty in combining general usage with specialised usage. The trade off is readily apparent.

So I agree it'll be a while before we see a good solution that combines all processing onto one chip. But not because current technology lacks the power; rather because integrating the two while sacrificing no performance is a difficult problem to solve.
Click to expand...

That's not true, the cell processor has some aspects of desktop processors and some aspects of graphics-processors. It sits somewhere in between the two and borrows from both technologies. Here is the kicker: the XBox 360 processors do a similar thing as they are based on PPE technology!

However, GPUs are still much more specialised. GPUs excel in graphics acceleration and rendering, since they are dedicated they do a much better job of it, as well. So the theory is there for the cell and perhaps future version will be more capable, but for now I believe Sony jumped in before they were ready.
 
timgaul said:
That's not true, the cell processor has some aspects of desktop processors and some aspects of graphics-processors. It sits somewhere in between the two and borrows from both technologies. Here is the kicker: the XBox 360 processors do a similar thing as they are based on PPE technology!

However, GPUs are still much more specialised. GPUs excel in graphics acceleration and rendering, since they are dedicated they do a much better job of it, as well. So the theory is there for the cell and perhaps future version will be more capable, but for now I believe Sony jumped in before they were ready.
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The Xenon has 3 PPEs, yes, but no SPEs, which is the whole POINT of having the architecture that the Cell has. Put it like this; if the Xbox were to have Cell and the Xenos, it would be a major monster.

I do agree, fully, however, that Sony rushed things.
 
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