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Playstation 3 Cell processor - 100 times more powerful than a 2.5GHz Pentium 4

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What ever happened to those supercomputers that were going to be based on like 4 or 8 Emotion Engines? Was that just part of the pre PS2 hype when it was stated to be 5 times as powerful as it really is? Now seeing the power of it, 8 isn't going to do much justice. It may be a few times faster than a 9700 3GHz system but certainly nothing compared to Cray or SGI supercomputers.
 
Originally posted by: LuNoTiCK
I won't believe it till I see it.

100x more than 2.5ghz P4. Sounds like a lotta hype and bullsh!t to get people to buy it earlier and preorder. If it was that much better than P4 I think they could charge thousands for it than, and it won't be a gaming machine.
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Running a RISC set of instructions on a RISC chip VERY fast.

That is probably what they are feeding off of.
 
Regardless of words and numbers now I'm sure that the PS3, though very nice, will be nothing more than a simple evolution of power we see now. The jump from PS2 to PS3 won't be similar to an Atari 2600 to an Xbox or anything silly like that. It will be a good bit faster and nicer, but nothing that makes me want to weep for my own life at the pure beauty of it. By the time it comes out I doubt it will be much better than PC games at that time, and a year later it will be slower.

And I say that being a heavy console gamer now.

If you think it will be "100X faster than a 2.5GHZ" machine at games I feel just a tiny bit sorry for you 😉
 
I think some of the posts here have been a bit exaggerated. First of all Intel and AMD will be much faster by 2005. If we assume speed doubles every 18 months (which is typical) then Intel will have a processor that is 3 times as fast as the current 2.5 GHz P4. Thus that 100x claim is reduced to just 33x. But this total calculations is a total of the processor, video card, and a whole ton of other cores. Lets pretend the processor does one third of the work. Now reduce that 33x down to just 11x. But it is rare that a chip is utilized at 100% capacity - I bet 25% capacity is much more likely. That reduces the 11x figure down to maybe 3x the speed. Now comes the impossible part to tell - is this calculation claim based on really simple calculations or complex calculations? If the claim only refers to simple calculations and the games require complex calculations you can easilly divide the speed by a third. Divide that 3x figure by 3 and you get that this Cell processor will be about the same speed as the current top Intel processor.

I know I made a whole lot of assumptions (So I know I will be off in my final answer). But it just shows that some of your posts really are off base. I could see it being 5x as fast if it lives up to its hype - certainly not 100x as fast.
 
Does it come with an interface cable I can plug directly into my brain to reduce reaction time for my onscreen actions?
 
There is a lot more to the story than saying "100 trillion Mathematical operations a second". What is more important is the complexity of the instructions they are refering to.

From what I understand of the Cell technology is many very basic processors running at tremedous speeds...these processors perform very simple calculations though and need to peform quite a few of them before they are able to complete anything worthwhile.

I'm not saying this technology is not promising...I am sure the PS3 will kick arse, but I don't think you can directly relate it to a Pentium 4 and definitely not to specialliazed processors like the nVidia NV2A processor in the Xbox. If microsoft continues down their current strategy of incorporating some mutation of the next generation chip from nVidia or ATI, I believe the Xbox 2 will definitely perform favorably to the PS3.

Another huge factor is how difficult the PS3 will be to program for. Since microsoft is able to provide a great programming environment by way of DirectX 9 or DirectX 10, programmers will have a much easier time getting decent games out the door.

In all honesty I hope both Consoles rock and that we continue to have some decent competition in that area. I think the gaming industry is getting more and more exciting and I hope to see the industry profit more and more.

 
you kids are sure gullible...
why would you put that kind of power into a gamebox to start with?
no to mention the cost factors involved...
i'm sure that a gamebox that sells for a few grand will be a great seller...
well johnie you have a choice for your birthday, a new car or the new playstation. what'll it be son?
 
Originally posted by: dullard
I think some of the posts here have been a bit exaggerated. First of all Intel and AMD will be much faster by 2005. If we assume speed doubles every 18 months (which is typical) then Intel will have a processor that is 3 times as fast as the current 2.5 GHz P4. Thus that 100x claim is reduced to just 33x. But this total calculations is a total of the processor, video card, and a whole ton of other cores. Lets pretend the processor does one third of the work. Now reduce that 33x down to just 11x. But it is rare that a chip is utilized at 100% capacity - I bet 25% capacity is much more likely. That reduces the 11x figure down to maybe 3x the speed. Now comes the impossible part to tell - is this calculation claim based on really simple calculations or complex calculations? If the claim only refers to simple calculations and the games require complex calculations you can easilly divide the speed by a third. Divide that 3x figure by 3 and you get that this Cell processor will be about the same speed as the current top Intel processor.

I know I made a whole lot of assumptions (So I know I will be off in my final answer). But it just shows that some of your posts really are off base. I could see it being 5x as fast if it lives up to its hype - certainly not 100x as fast.
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I bet you did the numbers for Enron too? Some creative figuring you got there.

It's all BS. It's marketing hype. I'm SURE their marketing division can find a way to make the numbers work, but that doesn't mean it's true.

 
Originally posted by: GroundZero
you kids are sure gullible...
why would you put that kind of power into a gamebox to start with?
no to mention the cost factors involved...
i'm sure that a gamebox that sells for a few grand will be a great seller...
well johnie you have a choice for your birthday, a new car or the new playstation. what'll it be son?
Click to expand...

Perhaps now, but in the future things will be cheaper, as it has always been.
A nice bestbuy PC will absolutely obliterate an old CRAY machine of years past...a really old one though...try to explain to someone in the 80s that the Gamecube is faster than the mainframe and you want it to be even faster...
 
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