IBM Cell as GPU

[djhuber82]

I'm sure everyone here has heard of IBM's Cell processor (aka the PS3 processor) and its highly parallel architecture, but here's Anand's latest take on it just in case:
http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2379

It sure seems like the Cell would make a decent GPU. It's got ridiculous memory bandwidth, and 8 parallel DSP-like cores that run at +4GHz. Are there any GPU people out there who can tell me why this wouldn't work well? Is a modern GPU just way more parallel than this? Because if it is feasable, seems like somebody could slap a Cell and some memory on a board, write some software and have a decent 3D video card. And since the GPU would be implemented in software on processor with a well-documented ISA, there is the potential for a fully open-source video card without the need to fabricate a custom chip. Any thoughts on why this would/wouldn't work?

 

[djhuber82]

I'm moving this to the Video forum as it's probablly a better fit there.

 

[tuteja1986]

cell are worthless crap chips for general process , physic and AI.

 

[Woodchuck2000]

The Cell is a general purpose processor (although heavily leaning towards multimedia apps). As such any latest-generation graphics hardware will outperform it in terms of graphics processing - simply because that's what R520/G70 are designed to do.

There is a possibility, however, of some vertex processing being offloaded to any spare SPUs in the PS3. Cell would make a good graphics co-processor but just isn't suited to doing the whole job.