Sony and IBM to develope a Playstation 3 chip

[Adul]

http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2694855,00.html


<<
Sony has hired IBM to develop and produce a high-performance microprocessor for Sony's next generation of consumer electronics, including the PlayStation 3.
The agreement, announced early Monday, could bring IBM (NYSE: IBM) revenue of between $2 billion and $4 billion over three years, people familiar with the matter said.
>>

 

[Noriaki]

Spiffy.

 

[SCUBA]

i cant imagine how real the graphics will be on this machine

 

[esung]

I wonder if the chip will based on the current IBM technology, or IBM will start from scratch?

 

[codehack2]

IBM is becoming quite the CPU whore.. Gamecube, now PS3. Sony must have seen something in the GameCube CPU that they really liked.

CH2

 

[codehack2]

Another thing.. these IBM CPU's make the XBOX's PIII look sick. MS should thank God every day for the NV20 architecture, pixel shaders, and vertex shaders. With out a GPU with hardware support for these features, that P3 would really be dogging it.

CH2

 

[Snoop]

If IBM was so great at making cpu's, how come they dont take on intel and amd in the consumer desktop market?

edit: oops, i forgot, they already tried

 

[codehack2]

Because they know where the real money is.. the corprate world. IBM played the cut-throat profit margin game in the PC world &amp; almost went belly up because of it. Despite their leadership in the desktop arena, I still say that intel is the weak link in the Xbox.

CH2

 

[Gunbuster]

IBM has hoed out production for a long time: power PC chips, Cyrix, Harddrives, Entire Acer machines.

Makes sense, no need to do tech support since nothing says IBM on it

 

[Zeeliv]

Codehack, the Gekko is supposed to be a modified PPC 750CXe (at 405Mhz), and the Xbox's CPU a modified P3 733. The only good cross platform benchmark (the Spec ones) I've seen running on both had the P3 scoring about double what the PPC did.

 

[RagingGuardian]

Don't forget that the X-Box processor is more or less a celeron. We'll see how they compare when both the GCube and Box hits the streets.

My bet is that Sony is scared of the impending launch of the Cube and X-Box. It's kind of early to be talking about PS3 when PS2 hasn't even enjoyed a decent year of shelf life and given the 5yr lifespan of the average console.

Sony the next Sega you say?

 

[Noriaki]

<< If IBM was so great at making cpu's, >>

Ever you seen an RS/6000 or an AS/400? Not exactly an x86 competitor, but there are definately well built CPUs in those kind of machiens.

<< how come they dont take on intel and amd in the consumer desktop market? >>

In order to &quot;take on&quot; intel they would have to design, produce and market their own x86 compliant CPU. I have no doubt they could do the first two quite well; but look at how long AMD has been on equal footing with Intel technology and speed wise; and AMD still has a very small market penetration. In the desktop market it's not a matter of making a better CPU, it's a matter of making a better CPU that (will run current programs), and getting people to buy it. IBM is not as big a name as Intel in the minds of common desktop users.

Besides which there's not much money to be made in Desktop, Intel holds sway here but they know the real money is in Servers and that's where they are trying to go (IA64).

x86 was never designed for forward expansion, and pushing the envelope is what IBM does best. For one example, take SOI.

Intel is no slouch either, but their x86 department is hardly excited, look at the &quot;successor&quot; to the P3. Fortunately Intel has many other departments that are doing a lot of very interesting things, IA64 and Network/Communications are two of my favourite branches of Intel right now.

 

[PliotronX]

Geez, PS2 hasn't even been out in the US for a year and there's &quot;official&quot; talk of PS3.. maybe Sony themselves are disppointed in the PS2?