Originally posted by: warcrow
Allow me to elaborate on my two word answer (yes. Money). With the amount of chas MS is sitting on, they will pour an insane amount of funding into every aspect of the next generation race. Because MS was actually able to surpase Nintendo in sales, the suits upstairs see the possibilites with more funds. I currently dont own an Xbox (and don't even want one, Halo was meh...but thats just my opinion...I'm a PC guy anyways), but I'm interested in the next generation console. I'm really looking foward to seeing what all 3 companies will do, especially Sony. This new Cell technology has had billions invested in it by 3 HUGE companies (that I know of, there might be more). I'm looking foward to new information to be leaked or revealed.
Ya, The Cell technology is very exiting. I think that people don't understand it, that's why you see lots of people calling BS on Sony and says it's hype.
The Cell archatecture is mostly a cheap way to mass produce multiple CPU's on one chip, pretty much. For instance the latest specs for Sony's setup is to have 1 4ghz PowerPC CPU surrounded by 4 or 6 special purpose CPU's that are just for floating point calculations. That will be one cell module. People are figuring that they are going to stick 4 of these into a single Sony Playstation3.
Then the cool part is that the Bus, grid, or whatever, that the CPU's communicate with each on is extendable too. So that if you plug a 2nd Playstation3 into it thru a special fiber optic connection then that will enable it's CPU's to communicate directly with each other.
Then you can add another 3rd playstation. Or maybe your HDTV has a cell proccessor in it (PowerPC's are very low power compared to x86 CPU's so they are commonly found in embedded applications. You probably have a few around you somewere right now (you know like 100mhz, 200mhz versions). So the same thing could happen to the Cell stuff), then you can have that work with your setup too.
So each Sony device you buy and hook up, then your entertainment system will just get more powerfull.
Of course that's not for years and years from now. If it ever happens. But it's a interesting concept.
If you want to see proof of how this works, check out the BlueGene/L experimental supercomputer from IBM
It currently has 8000-8200 PowerPC proccessors in little "Cell" modules. They interconnect in what would be a logical "torus" shape (vs a logical star shape, or a buss shape if your familar with networking.)
Even though it is experimental it is currently the 4th most powerfull known computer in existance as of June of this year.
The 3rd is the Los Alamos Ascii Q, running 8192 1.25ghz Alpha proccessors. The Ascii Q was recently upset by the Linux cluster at Livermore National labratories that run on 4096 1.4Ghz Intanium2 proccessors (that's #2).
The 5th most powerfull computer is the "Tungsten" Linux cluster running 2054 3.06Ghz Xeon proccessors (Dell computers, too
).
Of course the kicker is is that
the IBM BlueGene's PowerPC are 500mhz. Probably modified embedded versions choosen for their low power dissapation. That's some hard-core scalability.
Cell stuff may not happen, but the technology is possible.
edit:
pluss I don't think it'll make much difference in Xbox2 vs Playstation3. Techology isn't going to happen in a usefull way for years. Do it might as well be mostly hype.
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