Steve Jobs rejected Sony's Cell chip before choosing Intel

[Reanimated]

The New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/11/technology/11apple.html?pagewanted=1) (free registration required) has an article that sheds a little more light on Steve Jobs' decision to move to Intel for the new Macintosh architecture. Revealed in the article is the fact that Steve met with Ken Kuturagi and rejected the use of Cell outright stating that he was disappointed in the design and that it didn't even match up with Power PC:

Mr. Kutaragi tried to interest Mr. Jobs in adopting the Cell chip, which is being developed by I.B.M. for use in the coming PlayStation 3, in exchange for access to certain Sony technologies. Mr. Jobs rejected the idea, telling Mr. Kutaragi that he was disappointed with the Cell design, which he believes will be even less effective than the PowerPC.



Stunning.

[Bushido]

*shocking*

[Thenetcase]

Ok... Steve Jobs is absolutely freaking mad (as in insane).
*snip*
Erasing this because it's pissed someone off. Who gives a crap what I think.
*/snip*

Oh well.. I guess the cocain and booze finally fried his brain.

-TNC-

[Heretic Machine]

The chip is, in everyway, amazing and VERY powerful.

...So, you've had a lot of hands on experience with it then? This chip that doesn't really even exist yet? Good for you.

[Bushido]

The New York Times (free registration required)

Registration easily bypassed (http://www.bugmenot.com/ )

K im sorry i didnt post this sooner

[Reanimated]

Ok... Steve Jobs is absolutely freaking mad (as in insane).
I have no clue what on earth he would say the cell chip is dissapointing for. The chip is, in everyway, amazing and VERY powerful. I've been doing some studying on it and it's amazing (plus it has very low heat -- a major problem Apple has with the PowerPC right now).

Oh well.. I guess the cocain and booze finally fried his brain.

-TNC-




You were doing alright until you said that Cell was a low heat chip. Cell is a goddamn hot plate of a chip, which is why Sony had to turn off 2 of the SPEs in the PS3 version of the chip. It appears that all of your "studying" has been for naught.

[ezra]

or just go here


http://www.realtechnews.com/posts/1423

[Zeal]

I will take his words over anyone's. The man is a vionary and genius of the computer industry. A living legend.

[Sion]

The console war is OVER!

[InstaPete]

sOnY iS tEh DoOmEd!!!!

[sTubbs]

I wish that the article would have embellished on just why Jobs rejected the CELL chip. I can see that it might not be the greatest multimedia processor, considering it was developed primarily with games in mind. With that possibility, it makes sense for Jobs to go with Intel instead. So, I am wondering if Jobs meant that overall the CELL is just plain shitty, or if he meant that it simply was not suited to what he wanted.

[Racknahm]

Doesn't Steve Jobs hate IBM?

[bobbler]

This is silly. Money talks, baby. Intel is giving Steveo a real good deal on its CPUs so I can only imagine the deal that Sony tried to make looked like shit in comparison. Apple wants to get away from IBM -- they aren't going to openly go from IBM to ... IBM. It's absurd. What was he supposed to say about a chip partly designed by a company he's now trying to discredit on a daily basis...?

Besides, none of the console CPUs are very fit for every day PC use (XCPU, whatever is going into N-Rev, and the Cell). None of them would have made it into Apple's comps. You can get a CPU for about 80 retail dollars that would probably work better overall than a Cell or an XCPU in every day computer use. Consoles have the luxury of doing whatever they want, part of the trouble with that is it often involves strange archetecture designs and increased 'difficulty' in programming over a PC. Which was also part of it -- Apple wants to make the transition smooth, they aren't going to switch to a Cell archetecture which would reak havoc on any chance of smooth transition they had.

There are so many reasons why Apple isn't going to like the Cell (or XCPU) that it's not even worth thinking about. I can't believe Sony bothered trying, but I suppose the off chance existing would have been worth the trouble.


You were doing alright until you said that Cell was a low heat chip. Cell is a goddamn hot plate of a chip, which is why Sony had to turn off 2 of the SPEs in the PS3 version of the chip. It appears that all of your "studying" has been for naught.

Actually, if you bother reading a bit... The Cell is rather low heat for its power and transistor count. It runs low voltage (.9-1.3) and can hit pretty high speeds without hitting its limit (35c at 3.2ghz at 1v I think it was, something close to that). Having a lot of the space taken up by cache/sram (spreading out the hot points with 'cooler' ram was also a very smart design too) keeps it relatively cool for a CPU of the size (transistor count wise).

They are turning off one(1) SPE to increase yields by quite a bit. Essentially they have created a buffer; if any one of the SPEs in a batch of Cells is dead they can turn it off and use it fine. It is the same type of thing Intel and AMD do with some of their CPUs (turning off half the cache if it has a problem) -- Often you'll see all the CPUs of one type have the same transistor count, this is because the 512kb cache cpus are just 1mb cache CPUs with half the cache turned off (usually because of yields).

[StrifeSnake13*]

The Cell may be less effective in a "PC" than the power pc CPU is, but the Cell is more effective in a game console.

The Cell's multiple SPE's are very good for vector processing and gaming, while multiple PPE's as seen in power pc CPU's are a bit better for more traditional pc tasks.

[raVen]

Or Sony's asking price was too high? It's impossible to tell really...

[kizke]

Look. Let's drop our weapons and be civil, and accept that Sony sucks.

:D

(Flamebait-R-Us)

[Zeal]

Cell was also simultaneously designed as a server processor and workstation processor, so I don't know what you guys are talking about. Jobs obviously was aware of this fact when he gave his opinion.

It's not like they made the thing specifically for game systems.

For a while, there was a rumor that Sony wasn't even gonna put Cell in the PS3.

[Reanimated]

"for it's power and transistor count"

Why does everything have a qualifier with you? It's a hot running chip, which is exactly why it has built in heat sensors.


http://www.elecdesign.com/Articles/Index.cfm?AD=1&ArticleID=9748
Each SPE consumes about 1 W when clocked at 2 GHz, 2 W at 3 GHz, and 4 W at 4 GHz. Including the eight SPEs, the PPE, and other logic, the CELL processor will dissipate close to 15 W at 2 GHz, about double that at 3 GHz, and perhaps double that again at 4 GHz.

Because of local heating caused by individual processing units, IBM designers applied local thermal sensing schemes and control mechanisms to achieve an aggressive low-cost thermal design. A linear sensor and 10 local digital thermal sensors are embedded in the CELL processor to provide warnings of any temperature increases and to trigger various thermal protection schemes.




I mean why do you think the PS3 looks like a refrigerator? It's even bigger than the original Xbox and it doesn't even have a Hard Drive.

[Zeal]

I mean why do you think the PS3 looks like a refrigerator? It's even bigger than the original Xbox and it doesn't even have a Hard Drive.

This is a very good point, I might add.

[Keeperofpeas]

Serves Kutaragi right for his big mouth and lies. :mad:

[StrifeSnake13*]

I mean why do you think the PS3 looks like a refrigerator? It's even bigger than the original Xbox and it doesn't even have a Hard Drive.

the prototype you saw has a harddrive bay.
you can see the bay on the bottom,

http://img76.echo.cx/img76/9199/76my.jpg

[Dirty Harry]

You know i could add to this converstation but then i thought hey, i could waste all this energy being MR. E-tough guy with my FACTS of justice but hey Gta is calling plus all i really care about is that my sony console is cooler than the xcrap.

[bobbler]

"for it's power and transistor count"

Why does everything have a qualifier with you? It's a hot running chip, which is exactly why it has built in heat sensors.


Hate to break it to you.. but what you just quoted there proves that it's Not a hot running chip -- especially for its size (find a 230million transistor chip that only eats up around 30-60 watts). All current day CPUs have sensors to keep themselves under control (P4s, A64s, etc) -- they probably spent a bit more on it because the chip is a monster in size and there is more area to watch over.

15 watts at 2ghz can be cooled with a small passive heatsink (original Pentium era), 30 watts is only slightly more than a laptop cpu (20-30 watts for most P-Ms or Mobile A64s). 60 watts is less than a p4 by huge margin (similar to a Winchester A64 at 2.2-2.4ghz).

Thanks for finding the info for me.

As for the size of it, that is still undetermined (no official numbers) and all comparisons with any sort of credibility point to a very similar size as X2 (usb port size comparisons that aren't fudged, power plug, disc size, etc).

You got anything else for me to shoot down?

[sTubbs]

the prototype you saw has a harddrive bay.
you can see the bay on the bottom,

http://img76.echo.cx/img76/9199/76my.jpg

Yes it does. But, the HDD is completely optional and will not be included with the console, unlike the 20gig HDD that will be boxed with every 360.

[Nameback]

Doesn't Steve Jobs hate IBM?

From my understand he does hate IBM a considerable amount. He was Anti-IMB in the early days so I wouldent be suprised if thats a major reason why he didnt pick Cell.

[Ghost_Saint]

I just find it funny that no one has brought up the fact that the Xbox runs off Power PC chips.


But I don't think the Cell processor was created with games in mind at all. It's set up is actually very close to the super computers that were being created in the 90s. The fact is that all the other 'whatevers' that the cell has 8(7?) do floating point operations, of which there's not that much in games. Especially console games, RTS games are slightly diffrent. The most amount of processing that goes on in console games is graphics. Graphics aren't floating point operations.

[Last of the Red Hot Mamas]

...So, you've had a lot of hands on experience with it then? This chip that doesn't really even exist yet?

From what I've heard the devkits have had Cells for awhile now. I've also heard heat is a very big problem -- a guy at Gaming Age supposedly working on Warhawk claimed the alpha kits have eight separate fans inside. The alpha kits presumably run a lot hotter than the final hardware will, but that's still pretty damn hot. Given that the G5's heat issues (particularly with laptops) were one of Apple's biggest concerns, it's hardly surprising Jobs would reject the Cell.

[Reanimated]

IGN has the console sizes as this:

Xbox 360 is 10.25" x 2.5" and the PS3 13.5" x 3.25"

But in your world of qulifiers and fuzzy math, I'm sure IGN is probably only "relatively" reliable or "somewhat" trustworthy. lol

Ah, now I've found where I read about the SPE being turned off:


http://www.neowin.net/forum/lofiversion/index.php/t321290-800.html
Keep in mind that the processor speed for the PS3 is in ideal conditions, it has been said that the cell processor runs way too hot to be able to keep that kind of speed and it most likely will be clocked down to prevent over-heating and frying one of the cores (again, that's why there are 8 cores, with one redundant (7 SPEs) in order to replace one of the 8 that may fry). Doubtful it will actually reach ~2TFlops

There were some other articles from ISSCC, but I'm having trouble finding them now. In any event, it runs hot.

[Reanimated]

I just find it funny that no one has brought up the fact that the Xbox runs off Power PC chips.


3 general purpose PPC cores (X360) is a world away from a single PPC core with 8 SPEs. Worlds apart.

[Bushido]

I dont even know what lagnuage you guys are talking in.

[Zeal]

It's common knowledge that the Cell processor is one of the biggest chips ever made, and also runs very hot. This has been stated by every major hardware site, including the technical gurus over at Beyond3D.com.

Based on a great track record with technology, I'll take their word for it. Their members are very knowledgable.

Oh, and by the way, I challenge any Sony fanboy to paste a single image of the Cell processor in this thread. It doesn't exist yet.

Ken Katuragi is synonymous with hype.

[bobbler]

You are using IGN's random numbers as a source? Their Xbox360 numbers are wrong also. 12.15 in wide x 3.27 in high x 10.15 in deep is what the Xbox360 is, officially. So I imagine if they have the Xbox360 numbers wrong, there is no reason to believe their PS3 numbers. You need to try a little harder.



You're quoting some joe forum user to discredit me? You have got to be kidding...

This clown obviously doesn't know why things on CPUs are disabled or what redundancy means in terms of CPUs -- I already explained in my last post, the 8th SPE is disabled and acts as a buffer -- it could be any of the 8 that ends up disabled (which ever one isn't working, if they all work chances are it'll be used in a workstation or something). It's not beause of heat, it's because of yields. And... the Cell is clocked down, from ~4.6 ghz to 3.2ghz to keep heat at a easy to deal with level. The Cell has a pretty long pipeline (so does the XCPU) so clocking it to 3.2ghz is pretty easy -- getting the last bit of extra mhz out of it will require an increasing amount of power, yet the nominal frequency is easy to hit with minimal power. Addionally, the Cell was never claimed to be 2Tflops. The Cell has a peak gflop of ~218gflops and the XCPU has 115.2gflops -- neither will touch their peaks ever. Peak is theorectical; real world is completely based on what type of code you are running. It's moot either way, this guy doesn't know what he is talking about.

You are trying to claim that the Cell is incredibly hot CPU, but it's not. Simply put there are hotter CPUs that are used in similar spaces. It was very smartly designed so it wasn't anything hotter than what we've seen before -- cooler than P4s by a lot -- if DTR laptops can be made from a CPU that sucks up 80+ watts then the Cell is no problem. You know why dual core CPUs are becoming the rage? Heat. Multiple cores can give more performance than just ramping up the clock speed, watt for watt. Each CPU stepping has a nominal frequency which is easy to hit with fairly low wattage if the CPU is designed well -- increasing it past there leads to an exponential increase in wattage required to increase the speed (half a parabola). If you made a claim that the 4.6ghz Cell was a hot plate then I'd have to agree with you, because it would be. Just like a P4 at 3.8ghz (or any speed prescott for that matter, I suppose).

[Zeal]

You are using IGN's random numbers as a source? Their Xbox360 numbers are wrong also. 12.15 in wide x 3.27 in high x 10.15 in deep is what the Xbox360 is, officially. So I imagine if they have the Xbox360 numbers wrong, there is no reason to believe their PS3 numbers. You need to try a little harder.



You're quoting some joe forum user to discredit me? You have got to be kidding...

This clown obviously doesn't know why things on CPUs are disabled or what redundancy means in terms of CPUs -- I already explained in my last post, the 8th SPE is disabled and acts as a buffer -- it could be any of the 8 that ends up disabled (which ever one isn't working, if they all work chances are it'll be used in a workstation or something). It's not beause of heat, it's because of yields. And... the Cell is clocked down, from ~4.6 ghz to 3.2ghz to keep heat at a easy to deal with level. The Cell has a pretty long pipeline (so does the XCPU) so clocking it to 3.2ghz is pretty easy -- getting the last bit of extra mhz out of it will require an increasing amount of power, yet the nominal frequency is easy to hit with minimal power. Addionally, the Cell was never claimed to be 2Tflops. The Cell has a peak gflop of ~218gflops and the XCPU has 115.2gflops -- neither will touch their peaks ever. Peak is theorectical; real world is completely based on what type of code you are running. It's moot either way, this guy doesn't know what he is talking about.

You are trying to claim that the Cell is incredibly hot CPU, but it's not. Simply put there are hotter CPUs that are used in similar spaces. It was very smartly designed so it wasn't anything hotter than what we've seen before -- cooler than P4s by a lot -- if DTR laptops can be made from a CPU that sucks up 80+ watts then the Cell is no problem. You know why dual core CPUs are becoming the rage? Heat. Multiple cores can give more performance than just ramping up the clock speed, watt for watt. Each CPU stepping has a nominal frequency which is easy to hit with fairly low wattage if the CPU is designed well -- increasing it past there leads to an exponential increase in wattage required to increase the speed (half a parabola). If you made a claim that the 4.6ghz Cell was a hot plate then I'd have to agree with you, because it would be. Just like a P4 at 3.8ghz (or any speed prescott for that matter, I suppose).


And you're claiming all of this without having any developer experience with a chip that is (as of now) vaporeware. I'll take the word of developers and game journalists over a forum user.

[Reanimated]

It's common knowledge that the Cell processor is one of the biggest chips ever made, and also runs very hot. This has been stated by every major hardware site, including the technical gurus over at Beyond3D.com.

Based on a great track record with technology, I'll take their word for it. Their members are very knowledgable.




Well there are a lot of developers that frequent that board. I read that board daily, but dare not post. :p

[SaintArnold]

People, this makes perfect sense. The PPE is much less powerful than a G5, and the Cell would make a poor general-purpose processor. (And unless they make really good use of the SPEs, it's going to make a poor gaming processor.)

I'm surprised Jobs even met with Sony.

[bobbler]

Ugh. Vaporware?

There have been Cells floating around for months now. The design is very smartly done. It's hard to disagree with that, no matter what level you look at -- architecturally, SPE/PPE arrangement on chip (transistor wise), etc. XCPU is well designed too; not sure why some of you can't see both sides are doing things right. But claiming the Cell is Hot is like having a P4 3.2ghz chip say a P4 3.6ghz is Hot. It's relative -- does it run hot? yes, all CPUs with any sort of power do. Is it completely controllable? yes, that why it's at 3.2ghz instead of 4ghz or more.

The XCPU is more 'vaporware' than the Cell. If you want to get technical. Cell has been taped out longer than the XCPU and there were real Cells floating around long before XCPUs.

In addition, what do you know about My background? You discredit my valid points only because I post on EA? Don't be stupid. I'd love for you to find some information anywhere from a 'credible' source that goes against what I say or have said.

[Deadend]

I just think Jobs doesn't want a PS3 chip in the Mac.

Consumers will look at the $2,000 mac, and go "So... it has the same chip as the $300 PS3... why is it so much more?"

Apple makes stuff that is all about the style and image of an Apple. They will not make iPods cheaper, and they will not allow their systems to be comparible to a damn home console.

[SaintArnold]

It's common knowledge that the Cell processor is one of the biggest chips ever made, and also runs very hot. This has been stated by every major hardware site, including the technical gurus over at Beyond3D.com.

Based on a great track record with technology, I'll take their word for it. Their members are very knowledgable.

Oh, and by the way, I challenge any Sony fanboy to paste a single image of the Cell processor in this thread. It doesn't exist yet.

Ken Katuragi is synonymous with hype.

It absolutely does exist, dumbass.

First hit on google for "Cell die photo": The Cell (http://www-03.ibm.com/chips/photolibrary/photo10.nsf/WebViewNumber/309F1D9E3325AF3B00256FEA00618BA2)

[bobbler]

...
Oh, and by the way, I challenge any Sony fanboy to paste a single image of the Cell processor in this thread. It doesn't exist yet.


I wouldn't exactly call myself a Sony fanboy, but I'll bite.

Here is a picture from Tech-On.


IBM Cell server (http://techon.nikkeibp.co.jp/english/NEWS_EN/20050525/105050/)

http://techon.nikkeibp.co.jp/english/NEWS_EN/20050525/105050/IBMCELLboard1500.jpg
2 Cells, not just 1.


I just know you'll mention the fact that they are only running at 2.4-2.8ghz and have a huge heatsink currently -- This has to do with not being mass produced yet. There is no major tweaking done to get the most out of it and reduce heat (after taping it out there is a period where they tweak the CPU/GPU/etc to reduce heat and increase clock speed; they have the next 6-8 months to do this).

Here is an article on yields (7 spe vs 8) of the Cell (http://techon.nikkeibp.co.jp/english/NEWS_EN/20050519/104832/)

[B_Money]

I just think Jobs doesn't want a PS3 chip in the Mac.

Consumers will look at the $2,000 mac, and go "So... it has the same chip as the $300 PS3... why is it so much more?"

Apple makes stuff that is all about the style and image of an Apple. They will not make iPods cheaper, and they will not allow their systems to be comparible to a damn home console.

So instead it has the same chip as a $500 Dell?

[Scar]

I've seen the early cell dev units and they are hot as hell, and noisy too. I'm sure sony will get the form factor down as time goes on, though whether they will rape dev studios on the price YET AGAIN is another matter.

I can see Jobs' point. I'm not sure if the processor will have all of the right attributes for a general purpose, or even dedicated video/music processing job.

Another thing to consider is that this whacky architecture is going to be pretty tricky to develop for. Even the PS2 was a frustrating nightmare of trying to get information back and forth from the various processors, can you imagine what it's going to like for this many? Unless Sony pulls some incredible hat-trick with middleware or developer support (this is unlikely and qualifies as a "hell freezing over scenario") I'm guessing it'll take even longer to see top of the line stuff than it did with PS2.

[Ernst_Jager]

I guess Steve didn't fall for the smoke and mirror routine that Sony is so very good at.

[Paranoia]

CELL is overated. I'm glad Steve didn't fall for the Killzone 2 footage. :P

[bobbler]

I've seen the early cell dev units and they are hot as hell, and noisy too.

This is sort of the heart of the problem. Early development sample chips aren't the same as final production chips, not by a long shot. This is what people are basing their opinions on, which is totally faulty -- If the XCPU was in existance in development samples 3-6 months ago it would have ran hot as shit too.

When someone says the Cell is a hot running chip, that implies that it was is and always will be. The cell development samples are probably hot as hell... does that mean final production ones will (after months of refinement and tweaks)? No.

[B_Money]

This is sort of the heart of the problem. Early development sample chips aren't the same as final production chips, not by a long shot. This is what people are basing their opinions on, which is totally faulty -- If the XCPU was in existance in development samples 3-6 months ago it would have ran hot as shit too.

When someone says the Cell is a hot running chip, that implies that it was is and always will be. The cell development samples are probably hot as hell... does that mean final production ones will (after months of refinement and tweaks)? No.

Your faith in Sony is astounding, but I understand your position. After all, it's not like Sony has ever lied to us about console abilities in previous generations.

[bobbler]

Your faith in Sony is astounding, but I understand your position. After all, it's not like Sony has ever lied to us about console abilities in previous generations.

What does this have to do with the Cell that was made by not just Sony, but Toshiba, and IBM?

Can some of you not see how biased you guys really are? You don't think the Cell will end up existing in the PS3? You don't think there will be fun games on the PS3? I don't understand what the purpose of your post was, B_Money. I can only assume you wanted to take a jab at me while I'm already stuck defending myself against multiple people who have no clue what they are talking about.

[Zeal]

I should have clarified. I meant the completed, mass-produced model running at the promised speeds. I won't nitpick like some people here, though.

That pics aight. Kudos.

By the way, notice how big that mother fucker is. There's no way around it, the thing's gonna run hot.

Early development sample chips aren't the same as final production chips, not by a long shot.

And by the way, I hate to say this, but that's the same exact excuse (word for word), Sony enthusiasts were using for the Emotion Engine.

We all know how that turned out.

And don't even get me started on the "Graphic Synthesizer" lol. So much for a synthesizer...developers had to manually program AA on the software side.

[*Legion*]

I love "chip wars" involving people with no concept of processor design or computer engineering.

[Reanimated]

Don't act like Cell is the product of an equal intellectual partnership of those 3 companies. Toshiba actually had VERY little input on the design of the chip and merely contributed development dollars for the rights to be able to use this chip in some of their products - namely their HDTVs. Anyone that has followed the design of the chip will tell you that Sony dictated the design, with Kuturagi himself directing IBM's engineers. They also paid most of the bill. For all intents and purposes, this is a Sony chip. Why the hell do you think it was Kuturagi that Steve Jobs was talking to about Cell?

Also, I think you need to back up for a second. Nobody here is saying any of this crap about the PS3 or it's games that you're getting all defensive over. I think the intent of B_Money's post was reflective of the tone of this thread - that is to say that, yet again, Sony's hype of a chip that it's developed is over the moon. I mean I think everyone remembers the Emotion Engine and Kuturagi's promises of it plugging you into the matrix (real quote). The reality seems to be that Sony has not achieved this huge leap outside of the bounds of Moore's Law, and Cell isn't good for much more than producing FLOPs. That's not to say that it's a total bust, but Sony certainly seems to have missed the fact that only 15-20% of game processing is producing FLOPs.

[Mason]

This is a very stupid argument.

What would a Mac do with 8 or so parallel vector processing units? There are things you could do with that, but would it be central enough to a generalized computing platform to make it worth the cost/power/die space? Very likely not. End of story.

Cell is not an OOOe CPU. It is in-order and thus is quite handy for DSP-type work (which presumably is what consoles will use it for) but puts a lot of the burden on the compiler. People talked about Apple moving to Cell for a long time, but all the technical analysis back then agreed that for generalized computing the G5 is the far superior processor. If you don't currently grasp this distinction, then please stop talking.

Now, what I don't get is why Sony would even try this. Maybe they assumed that their hype had taken on hypnotic qualities. But there is zero reason to think that the Cell will be good at PC-style tasks. PCs/Macs need really solid single-thread execution, and while various simple in-order solutions have been dreamed up over the years, OOOE cpus still stay on our desktop.

For the record, the XBox 360's trio of PPC cores is equally poorly suited to taking the place of P4s or Athlons. Jobs' comment wasn't made just because "Sony suxxors" or anything like that, it was made because the current console cores use a style of processing that wouldn't work well for a desktop machine.

[bobbler]

And by the way, I hate to say this, but that's the same exact excuse (word for word), Sony enthusiasts were using for the Emotion Engine.

We all know how that turned out.


The EE was actually upgraded before release...

250mhz to 300mhz?

Nor was it substantially hot.

I don't quite follow what you are talking about.

The EE was actually a pretty powerful chip, the GS was the bottleneck as far as I've heard.

[bapenguin]

Steve Jobs says Cell Sucks
Bill Gates says Cell Sucks

Who's next? Come on Iwata, you know you want to.

[Zeal]

I mean I think everyone remembers the Emotion Engine and Kuturagi's promises of it plugging you into the matrix (real quote).

http://blog.rebang.com/pic/kutaragi_ps3.jpghttp://img233.echo.cx/img233/1703/neo4vc.gif

[bobbler]

Don't act like Cell is the product of an equal intellectual partnership of those 3 companies. Toshiba actually had VERY little input on the design of the chip and merely contributed development dollars for the rights to be able to use this chip in some of their products - namely their HDTVs. Anyone that has followed the design of the chip will tell you that Sony dictated the design, with Kuturagi himself directing IBM's engineers. They also paid most of the bill. For all intents and purposes, this is a Sony chip. Why the hell do you think it was Kuturagi that Steve Jobs was talking to about Cell?

Touche. However, IBM did most of the actual work engineering wise (after the design was semi finalized) -- Toshiba came in with the 'Cell' type design which involved several smaller CPUs together (CPU of all SPEs). IBM had a design with several PPC chips (CPU with all PPEs). The Cell was the mix of both. So saying Sony had more to do with it than any of the 3 companies is rather ignorant. Toshiba and IBM had more to do with the design than Sony did. Sony fronted a lot of money and made some decisions, but the original designs that were merged came from Toshiba and IBM.


Also, I think you need to back up for a second. Nobody here is saying any of this crap about the PS3 or it's games that you're getting all defensive over. I think the intent of B_Money's post was reflective of the tone of this thread - that is to say that, yet again, Sony's hype of a chip that it's developed is over the moon. I mean I think everyone remembers the Emotion Engine and Kuturagi's promises of it plugging you into the matrix (real quote). The reality seems to be that Sony has not achieved this huge leap outside of the bounds of Moore's Law, and Cell isn't good for much more than producing FLOPs. That's not to say that it's a total bust, but Sony certainly seems to have missed the fact that only 15-20% of game processing is producing FLOPs.

This doesn't really have anything to do with hype. Someone made a comment on how the Cell was well designed and it was (this thread is partially about the Cell), you'd be hard pressed to discredit that. Yet you fucking tried. You tried to tear it apart every step of the way. I defended the fact that it was a well designed chip and didn't (wouldn't) have massive heat problems like you were trying to imply. You and a few others went on to somehow say it wasn't well designed -- That's simply not true. The X360 CPU was well designed too, does that detract in any way from the fact that Cell was well designed? Both were well designed. Big deal.

You don't win friends by stomping on peoples sand castles.

[mister_slim]

I can see Jobs' point. I'm not sure if the processor will have all of the right attributes for a general purpose, or even dedicated video/music processing job.
It should decode H.264 video very well, which will be quite useful for Blu-Ray.
Your faith in Sony is astounding, but I understand your position. After all, it's not like Sony has ever lied to us about console abilities in previous generations.
Can you people shut up about Sony? I mean, it's not like Microsoft has ever lied to anyone. Windows will eventually have the same capabilities as Spotlight or Google Desktop Search. And Nintendo isn't exactly wearing virginal white either. Cell isn't suited for laptops, which Apple sells quite a few of, nor is it designed for general computing. End of story.

[Deadend]

I want to be on the matrix on my Ono-Sendai deck with some nice trodes while I dodge some nasty black ICE. Which chip will let me do that?

/Neuromancer reference

[Reanimated]

Touche. However, IBM did most of the actual work engineering wise (after the design was semi finalized) -- Toshiba came in with the 'Cell' type design which involved several smaller CPUs together (CPU of all SPEs). IBM had a design with several PPC chips (CPU with all PPEs). The Cell was the mix of both. So saying Sony had more to do with it than any of the 3 companies is rather ignorant. Toshiba and IBM had more to do with the design than Sony did. Sony fronted a lot of money and made some decisions, but the original designs that were merged came from Toshiba and IBM.



IBM's engineers did the engineering work under the direction of Kuturagi, who, I'll add, sent them back to the drawing board on more than one occasion. Toshiba contributed their design for the evolution of the EE VPUs (that they designed). This is hardly a big contribution given the fact that Sony had already licensed and used the technology and Kuturagi had intimate knowledge of it. Sony paid the bill and Sony directed development, thus making the chip, like I said, for all intents and purposes, a Sony chip. IBM's biggest contribution will probably end up being their fabrication facilities, but I mean they're only even doing 50% of the fabrication.

[Furious Wang]

http://img202.echo.cx/img202/8608/kutara33ao.jpg

[Royal Fool]

From my understand he does hate IBM a considerable amount. He was Anti-IMB in the early days so I wouldent be suprised if thats a major reason why he didnt pick Cell.

I'm certain that Steve Jobs would let his own "personal hatred" for IBM be one of the deciding factors for how the millions of future Apple computers his company will be selling are going to end up, competition-wise...

Better pick the more expensive/less powerful hardware because he hates the superior option, or rather the company that offers it. Greatest business decision evarrrr.

[bobbler]

Reanimated:

There was some article I saw a couple days ago (it was some interview about the beginnings of the Cell, translated from japanese I think). Link to rough translation of it (http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=23713).

Toshiba was supposedly working on the GS2 but that was a different thing entirely from the Cell. Toshiba had their own plans of a new CPU for their TVs and things like that (which was a CPU of all SPEs; the Force System). IBM had an idea, coming into the project, for multiple PPE chip -- They were supposedly pretty pissed about Toshiba's idea since it didn't involve any PowerPC technologies so IBM felt they didn't really matter (marketing wise that is; no PowerPC architecture means IBM isn't recognized as partly responsible for it). One thing of note is the X360 CPU is actually probably pretty close to the idea IBM originally came into the Cell project with (multiple 'PPEs'), they probably tuned it a bit (shared cache) and found they had a nice design and went with it.

Sony had less to do with actual design than you think, on a broad scale that is. They helped make the decision as to what the final design would be (as you said, kutaragi made them redo a lot of it over and over). But, the basic design was a merger of Toshiba and IBMs designs -- There would be no Cell without Toshiba and IBM. It would have turned out vastly different without Toshiba or without IBM -- there would be no SPEs without Toshiba, and no PPC PPE without IBM. The fine details Sony probably controlled (like the FlexI/O bus, etc), but the idea that the Cell would be a PPE and several SPEs was almost entirely a merger of IBM and Toshiba's ideas. So saying it, for all intents and purposes, is a Sony chip is, again, ignorant.

From what I've heard Sony will be producing their Cells and RSX (they made a new fab recently in the last few years for this type of thing and future endeavors). IBM will probably be producing Toshiba and their own Cells, though.

This really doesn't matter though.

[bobbler]

I'm certain that Steve Jobs would let his own "personal hatred" for IBM be one of the deciding factors for how the millions of future Apple computers his company will be selling are going to end up, competition-wise...

Better pick the more expensive/less powerful hardware because he hates the superior option, or rather the company that offers it. Greatest business decision evarrrr.

The decision to choose Intel was probably long done already (before Sony tried it's hand at it) -- the simple fact that OSX has been written every step of the way as an x86 version leads me to believe they have been wanting to switch for a couple years now -- not switch from PPC to crazier PPC, but PPC to x86.

I don't know about personal hatred, but there is no way he would choose another PPC platform after wanting to dump it -- if IBM had anything to do with it, it wouldn't have made its way into the new Macs. Apple can easily blame its failures on IBM now, they wouldn't be able to do that if they just choose another product IBM had a pretty significant part in designing. I think marketing had a lot to do with it -- having a nice scape goat helps.

This entire thing is silly.

[*Legion*]

Doesn't Steve Jobs hate IBM?

Does Steve hate the company that has been manufacturing the chips for his computers for the past couple of years? No.

[Redline]

The sky is falling, the sky is falling!!

[Reanimated]

Yeah, you basically just repeated what you said in your last post. So I mean I'd copy and paste my last post, but you can just scroll up.

And IBM isn't even going to be using Cell. They're already ruled it out for their workstations and the server stuff they've been working on isn't going so well from what I've read. I don't know who would buy Cell servers anyway. Pixar? They'd only really be useful for render farms. I can't imagine that being a very large business. Certainly not something that's going to create a return on billions invested.

I imagine that the only large scale uses of Cell will be in PS3 and in Toshiba's HDTVs. It's too big, hot, and specialized for anything else.

You say it's a great design but I just personally don't see it. A well designed chip would have been something that was good at more than just one thing and could have been useful in more places. As it stands, I don't see anyone involved getting an ROI from Cell.

Anyway, I'm going to play RE4. I've wasted entirely too much time here.

[Evil Dude]

http://www.ga-forum.com/showthread.php?t=51137 (IBM thought Kutaragi was OUT OF HIS MIND about 1,000 the chip-performance of PS2 )

[Atrapas]

You know.. You guys lost me on quite a bit of this argument, but you're both quite passionate about it and both give compelling reasons why you're right. (Whoever that might be).

Kudo's for the argument! Was a pleasure to read ;)

[bobbler]

Yeah, you basically just repeated what you said in your last post. So I mean I'd copy and paste my last post, but you can just scroll up.

And IBM isn't even going to be using Cell. They're already ruled it out for their workstations and the server stuff they've been working on isn't going so well from what I've read. I don't know who would buy Cell servers anyway. Pixar? They'd only really be useful for render farms. I can't imagine that being a very large business. Certainly not something that's going to create a return on billions invested.
...

You say it's a great design but I just personally don't see it. A well designed chip would have been something that was good at more than just one thing and could have been useful in more places. As it stands, I don't see anyone involved getting an ROI from Cell.


You apparently didn't read it the first time, so it had to be repeated -- except I gave some backing the second time -- figured it wouldn't hurt.

I don't see how you can say that IBM has ditched the Cell. They are heavily peddling it to everyone. Zdnet article (http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/hardware/0,2000061702,39196414,00.htm). You sure do like to make a lot of wild claims without any sort of backing.

So, things that are good at a few select things aren't able to be a great design in your mind? GPUs came about because the chips that were good at several different things didn't do well enough at certain tasks. Most chips made are only good at a few things, that is why they are made. There is a reason there is only a couple companies making general purpose CPUs; the cost investment to make a CPU/chip that is good at numerous things is insane. I realize you don't appreciate the design of it, that's fine, but your reasons for not are a bit shaky.

We'll have to agree to disagree on this.


Anyway, I'm going to play RE4...
I want RE4 :(

[zsears]

Listen asses, why the hell does everyone have to bitch about which system is faster or has better graphics. They are not even out yet and there is no physical proof. Besides, those of you that bought systems for their processor and graphics alone are idiots. It is the games that matter, you can't judge one system against the other without games to back it up. Xbox -Halo Playstation- Metal Gear Nintendo- Mario or Metroid all three have kick ass games. If you were a true gamer you would by all three in the next five or so years.

The games matter most, so all of you Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo fanboys, shut the fuck up! :p

[bobbler]

Listen asses, why the hell does everyone have to bitch about which system is faster or has better graphics. They are not even out yet and there is no physical proof. Besides, those of you that bought systems for their processor and graphics alone are idiots. It is the games that matter, you can't judge one system against the other without games to back it up. Xbox -Halo Playstation- Metal Gear Nintendo- Mario or Metroid all three have kick ass games. If you were a true gamer you would by all three in the next five or so years.

The games matter most, so all of you Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo fanboys, shut the fuck up! :p

I don't think anyone was arguing that one was better than the other (at least I wasn't). The arguement was around whether or not the Cell will be a hot cake piece of shit or if it was a well designed chip.

I fully agree that all three consoles will and do have their good games. Sadly, I probably will end up with all three next generation (by the time it ends, that is).

[Zeal]

Sony had less to do with actual design than you think, on a broad scale that is. They helped make the decision as to what the final design would be (as you said, kutaragi made them redo a lot of it over and over).

Sorry, but this bobbler dude is just making stuff up now, clearly. Even I know Sony was behind the design of the chip.

And IBM isn't even going to be using Cell. They're already ruled it out for their workstations and the server stuff they've been working on isn't going so well from what I've read.

Damn, are you serious, Reanimated? I wasn't even aware of this information. If this is true, it speaks volumes for the practicality of the chip design. That doesn't sound good at all.

But yes, this isn't the only report I've read of the chip being unable to meet expectations. I also remember a story a ways back about how they had to totally scrap the original concept and start anew serveral times. It seems the buzz is going around inside developer circles.

[StrifeSnake13*]

Bobbler said, "Sony had less to do with actual design than you think, on a broad scale that is. They helped make the decision as to what the final design would be (as you said, kutaragi made them redo a lot of it over and over)."
Sorry, but this bobbler dude is just making stuff up now, clearly. Even I know Sony was behind the design of the chip.


actually if you read the article that bobbler posted you will see that the cell we have now was in fact a merger of the original toshiba and IBM CELL architectures. Toshiba wanted all SPE's but IBM didn’t because then it wouldn’t use the PPE, IBM wanted all PPE's; they compromised and that became the cell. Kutaragi did have a lot to do with the chip but IBM and Toshiba were the main players.

read the last part,
http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=23713

[Thenetcase]

You were doing alright until you said that Cell was a low heat chip. Cell is a goddamn hot plate of a chip, which is why Sony had to turn off 2 of the SPEs in the PS3 version of the chip. It appears that all of your "studying" has been for naught.

Every article I've read talks about the improved heat dissipation. I think that refers to having a lower temperature... Or maybe "heat dissipation" has a new meaning? Hell if I know. I'm just repeating what I've heard / read.

-TNC-

[outontheporch]

Ok... Steve Jobs is absolutely freaking mad (as in insane).
I have no clue what on earth he would say the cell chip is dissapointing for. The chip is, in everyway, amazing and VERY powerful. I've been doing some studying on it and it's amazing (plus it has very low heat -- a major problem Apple has with the PowerPC right now).

Oh well.. I guess the cocain and booze finally fried his brain.

-TNC-

yeah what the heck would steve jobs know about computers?

[Lunar Blue]

Let's see if i got this right. So if a single CELL chip makes into top10 of the supercomputers in the world, how come everyone hasn't gone WOOOO!!! over it and made a server assembled with CELL chips only? Ten of those chips working together would produce like shitloads of gflops or whatever right? Me is a country boio, me no understand :(

And while i'm at it, is Sony still saying all the PS3's connect through internet? How much data do this things produce again? :p

[bobbler]

Let's see if i got this right. So if a single CELL chip makes into top10 of the supercomputers in the world, how come everyone hasn't gone WOOOO!!! over it and made a server assembled with CELL chips only? Ten of those chips working together would produce like shitloads of gflops or whatever right? Me is a country boio, me no understand :(

And while i'm at it, is Sony still saying all the PS3's connect through internet? How much data do this things produce again? :p

I wouldn't exactly count on a single one of these getting into the top 10, not by a long shot. It's theoretical Gflop rating is ~218, real world would probably be less than 100Gflops in a lot of cases (upwards of 180 I'm sure you could get depending on the task). Theoretical ratings don't get you anywhere outside of marketing -- 'real world' numbers are usually tested with Linpack (http://www.top500.org/lists/linpack.php), at least in the supercomputer world. Depending on the work load, though, you can get over 100gflops out it per Cell (IBM's latest conference about programming the cell -- just a couple days ago -- showed examples of real world performance one can expect doing certain tasks on the Cell - 9-19gflops from an SPE won't be unheard of, depending on the optimization). Blue Gene can put out like ~71 Tflops but it has 32k CPUs that are only 700mhz each -- imagine a super computer with 32k 2.4ghz Power5s, or 2.4ghz Opterons, or 3.6ghz Xeons, etc. A server with a few thousand Cells? That could do some decent damage.

It's all a matter of practicality though. The reason the chips are chosen for the super computers is because they are usually the cheapest they could get or made by the company themselves (IBM and blue gene, for example -- they make all the CPUs that went into it). You probably won't see any Cell based comps on there, even though it'd probably do real well. It's the same reason you see Intel based super computers instead of AMD (an Opteron based super computer with several thousand CPUs would be better than anything we currently), but that won't happen. Cost and archetecture will keep the Cell from reaching super computer status (XDR ram alone would be enough to keep any company away) -- Super computers are usually all about highest performance per dollar (that's why they use more lower clocked CPUs instead of a bit less higher clocked ones, usually).

I'm not really sure if I answered your question or not... but there is some information, regardless.

[lurker4hire]

A fair and balanced approach:

Cell: An interesting processor architechture with a unique set of design decisions. Not available in consumer products and any real concrete details about how it performs in its intended environment are probably under NDA until the release of the PS3. So, STFU and wait cause unless you're a serious hardware hacker you're not gonna get a chance to try it out and make informed decisions until release. Chances are you won't really know what it can do until it's been out for a couple years anyways.


X360: Another interesting, but different, CPU architecture with a unique set of design decisions. Not available in consumer products and any real concrete details about how it performs in its intended environment are probably under NDA until the release of the 360. So, STFU and wait cause unless you're a serious hardware hacker you're not gonna get a chance to try it out and make informed decisions until release. Chances are you won't really know what it can do until it's been out for a couple years anyways.

Nintendo: Nada, no details. STFU.

Personally I trust arstechnica for my hardware analysis, so I suggest reading the following articles for background.

http://arstechnica.com/articles/paedia/cpu/xbox360-1.ars
http://arstechnica.com/articles/paedia/cpu/cell-1.ars

Oh and as for apple, I'm surprised no one has mentioned the actual reasons that Jobs went with intel.
1. they already have a working version of their OS for the x86 platform
2. Intel has a roadmap of processors suitable to their needs covering all their product lines that plans out the next several years of new cpus (and will likely always have a similiarly predictable roadmap). IBM, frankly does not (cell or no cell).
3. Cost, cost, cost...

[Furious Wang]

Yes yes. We all know how it works. When the argument starts to turn against you, just start telling everyone to shut up and wait and see. Clever.

We're here to debate a topic based on current information known, speculative rumor, and intelligent logical predictions. If you don't want to join the debate, then don't. You've got no reason to just tell everyone to "STFU". People enjoy arguing about this. You think they're going to stop just because you say "STFU"? Please.

Anyway, BoT:

Everyone remember what the Cell was originally supposed to do? It was supposed to use distributed computing technology to divy up data and calculations between other Cell chips connected to the Internets for a massive gain in performance.

That ridiculously over ambitious concept obviously fell through. Instead of creating another chip they decided to just cut their losses and make something out of the scraps.

I think there's a very good chance the 360 could slightly outperform the PS3 in videogame performance.

[Pumped'Up]

Arguing over which processor is better is ridiculous. What all you uneducated morons here touting how cell tech sucks need to be slapped silly. Obviously, the PS3 is technologically superior over the 360. Everyone can admit to that...and if you can't then LOL, ur teh doomed.

Debate over, SONY wins.

Nuff said.

[Jaybo]

Obviously Sony was pushing hard for the processing numbers to sell the product instead of making a good online gaming experience push...

Gee, I wonder which most of the consumers of these products will be more interested in? Higher sales tend to catch third party developer's attention... More good games sounds better to me.

[Ajr]

Why has this broken into a Xbox vs Playstation debate? Isn't the topic Apple, CELL, and Intel?

The Pentium M is the bomb for notebooks.
AMD is better for everything else but they couldn't supply Apple.
CELL has had its problems, it's obviously not finished, at this moment and probably through next year CELL would not be a very good desktop CPU at all.
PowerPC is dead as a desktop solution, and there have been rumours that IBM couldn't supply Apple and Microsoft at the same time, so I guess Bill won.

I think that refers to having a lower temperature... Or maybe "heat dissipation" has a new meaning?
Lower temperature than what? I guess someone doesn't quite grasp what improved means, or perspective, context, relative etc...

[Beelzebud]

You people are nuts. Totally effin nuts. Both of those processors (X360, Cell) suck ass when compared to the MOTHER OF ALL PROCESSORS:

http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/68000/index.html

Now that is some raw computing muscle. Don't try to look at it all at once, it may blow your minds!

[Jaybo]

Isn't that the chip they used in the Amiga 500?

[Vandenh]

Actually Steve is right... for a PC/Mac Cell sucks bigtime... even more.. looks like Cell will only be used in the PS3. What a retreat from the early lofty design goals, it is starting to look like a damage control chip right now. Luckily it will do fine as a console chip...

[Dracula-X]

You people are nuts. Totally effin nuts. Both of those processors (X360, Cell) suck ass when compared to the MOTHER OF ALL PROCESSORS:

http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/68000/index.html

Now that is some raw computing muscle. Don't try to look at it all at once, it may blow your minds!The 68k kicks ass :) So did the Amiga...

[Kelegacy]

Can you people shut up about Sony? I mean, it's not like Microsoft has ever lied to anyone.

AAAAAAAhhhhh, Thank God. I'm sick of the rampant finger jabbing at Sony for being the DarkSide of lies while Kutagari is Darth Fibber. It's a moronic arguement. Stop taking things so personally people. I have never once felt like I was being punished for being a gamer this round. Next round, with lack of HDD preinstalled in the PS3, i might be. But you people seem to think Heaven is located in Redmond and the Eerie of Deceit is near the Ring of Fire.

MS is no different. Take them off that godforsaken, undeserved pedestal

[bone4ahead]

Except Microsoft as delivered on everything they promised. (Harddrive, Xbox live) etc. The xbox is exactly as powerful as Microsoft claimed it would be. So until Xbox 360 turns out to be a joke like the Emotion Engine, I take Microsoft's word over Sony's.

[Cpt.Justice]

I wouuldn't trust him, he's got cancer. I hear it makes you crazy.

[riposte101]

I've seen the early cell dev units and they are hot as hell, and noisy too. I'm sure sony will get the form factor down as time goes on, though whether they will rape dev studios on the price YET AGAIN is another matter.

I have a shitty $10000 PS2 Dev Tool sitting right next to me. This pos runs hot as fuck and makes so much noise I have to keep my headphones on at all times just to concentrate.

[Stryfe01]

Ugh. Vaporware?

There have been Cells floating around for months now. The design is very smartly done. It's hard to disagree with that, no matter what level you look at -- architecturally, SPE/PPE arrangement on chip (transistor wise), etc. XCPU is well designed too; not sure why some of you can't see both sides are doing things right. But claiming the Cell is Hot is like having a P4 3.2ghz chip say a P4 3.6ghz is Hot. It's relative -- does it run hot? yes, all CPUs with any sort of power do. Is it completely controllable? yes, that why it's at 3.2ghz instead of 4ghz or more.

The XCPU is more 'vaporware' than the Cell. If you want to get technical. Cell has been taped out longer than the XCPU and there were real Cells floating around long before XCPUs.

In addition, what do you know about My background? You discredit my valid points only because I post on EA? Don't be stupid. I'd love for you to find some information anywhere from a 'credible' source that goes against what I say or have said.


Now your entering the realm of bullshit. The final cell design was only announced a few months ago THIS year. Secondly, Sony has quite often stated that the cell architecture is morphable. Meaning that just because a device uses a Cell processor, does not mean it's using the same amount of Cell processors as in the PS3. Thirdly, it's utterly ridiculous to say that the XCpu is vaporware. The design is finalised and in fabrication. MS and IBM cannot hope to even shift 500,000 working Xbox360's by December 31 without it. Can things be modified slightly in this short time ? Yes, but not enough to cause a dramatic shift in its abilities.

The fanboy radicalism needs to stop. We just need to think of this in unbiased terms. It probably will never happen, but at least I tried.

[chechenepiphany]

The Cell isn't a bad processor by any means. It just wasn't made for workstations. It was designed solely for the ps3, not for emacs. And the relationship between apple and IBM was rocky from the start. IBM has had trouble meeting shipping dates for a long time. And it doesn't help that they were unable to give Jobs the mobile or 3 Ghz G5 processors he wanted/promised despite the ability to provide MS and Sony with primo material for their consoles.

[Reanimated]

Yeah XCPU is certainly nowhere near being vaporware. I mean final Beta kits started shipping last week.

[Doomsday]

I'm shocked that Steve Jobs chose a chipset with decades of history over a chip used in a videogame machine. This is certainly valuable news!
Why is Apple going with Intel again? Because they figured out with the G5 that just adding more PPC chips to a system is a stopgap measure in the CPU wars?

[megatron666]

Except Microsoft as delivered on everything they promised. (Harddrive, Xbox live) etc. The xbox is exactly as powerful as Microsoft claimed it would be. So until Xbox 360 turns out to be a joke like the Emotion Engine, I take Microsoft's word over Sony's.

Ya, Microsoft didn't lie about the power of the xbox. But there weren't any decent games, except for Halo, for a year and a half. Xbox live took forever to come out and even then there weren't any killer games using it. No, it took the xbox about 3 years to hit it's stride and actually be the gaming machine Microsoft promised.

Although, this 3 year mark is about the same time the xbox cd readers die. 2 of my friends who own xboxes can't play half the games they have bought.

Now, you are claiming the Emotion Engine is a joke. At first it was but after the developers had enough experience programming with the difficult architecture, there have been some impressive games. Just look at God of War.

So, saying that Microsoft isn't lying and it is going to deliver everything it's promised for the 360, right at release no less, is total bullshit. No console can live up to it's promises at release.

I believe that Killzone 2, as it was show at E3, could exist on the PS3. I also think that a game of equal quality can exist for the 360. But I don't think there is a developer out there, right now, who knows how to program for either system well enough to pull it off. It's going to take years for programmers to get used to the new hardware before we really see the power of these systems.

[Zeal]

Ya, Microsoft didn't lie about the power of the xbox. But there weren't any decent games, except for Halo, for a year and a half. Xbox live took forever to come out and even then there weren't any killer games using it. No, it took the xbox about 3 years to hit it's stride and actually be the gaming machine Microsoft promised.

Although, this 3 year mark is about the same time the xbox cd readers die. 2 of my friends who own xboxes can't play half the games they have bought.

Now, you are claiming the Emotion Engine is a joke. At first it was but after the developers had enough experience programming with the difficult architecture, there have been some impressive games. Just look at God of War.

So, saying that Microsoft isn't lying and it is going to deliver everything it's promised for the 360, right at release no less, is total bullshit. No console can live up to it's promises at release.

I believe that Killzone 2, as it was show at E3, could exist on the PS3. I also think that a game of equal quality can exist for the 360. But I don't think there is a developer out there, right now, who knows how to program for either system well enough to pull it off. It's going to take years for programmers to get used to the new hardware before we really see the power of these systems.


At least Microsoft actually created a global, online game network. What did Sony do?

[bobbler]

Now your entering the realm of bullshit. The final cell design was only announced a few months ago THIS year. Secondly, Sony has quite often stated that the cell architecture is morphable. Meaning that just because a device uses a Cell processor, does not mean it's using the same amount of Cell processors as in the PS3. Thirdly, it's utterly ridiculous to say that the XCpu is vaporware. The design is finalised and in fabrication. MS and IBM cannot hope to even shift 500,000 working Xbox360's by December 31 without it. Can things be modified slightly in this short time ? Yes, but not enough to cause a dramatic shift in its abilities.

The fanboy radicalism needs to stop. We just need to think of this in unbiased terms. It probably will never happen, but at least I tried.

I didn't claim the XCPU was flat out vaporware. I said it was 'more vaporware' than the Cell -- I even put vaporware in quotes. I was pointing out the fact that until very recently the XCPU was nowhere to be found (not in dev kits, nothing) -- meanwhile the dev kits for the PS3 have had Cells in them for a while now (hence the reason for low dev kit counts) and there have been Cells making their way around IBM and Toshiba. Claiming the Cell is vaporware is far more silly than claiming the XCPU is vaporware, I hope you can see this -- that is what I was pointing out. Neither are vaporware, though.

The first revision of the Cell was done last year (and they have been floating around since then), the second revision (revision DD2; higher transistor count and the PPE using 2 threads on its own instead of just 1) was done a few months back.

I'm pretty sure I'm one of the only people here thinking unbiasedly. I'm trying to defend the fact that the Cell was well designed. Which it was. Have I said anywhere that the XCPU was bad or the Xbox2 was bad? No... all I have said is the complete opposite.

You need to read what I said, and what I was responding to, again.

[megatron666]

At least Microsoft actually created a global, online game network. What did Sony do?

From your post it seems that you think that I think that Sony is better. I don't. I think they are the same. They are both big companies that are out to make money. And I fully expect both to throw bullshit my way in order to sell products.

But, you are correct. Microsoft did set up an incredible gaming network. I am able to easily find people to play online with as well as chat with them at the same time. Even if that means that I'm told by 13 year olds that they just screwed my mom.

I think the reason Sony didn't create such a network was the same reason that Nintendo didn't. They are both Japanese companies and, at the time, didn't see online gaming going anywhere. (I don't think the Japanese play online games at the same scale that westerners do.)

Since both companies have put network adapters in their next generation machines I think they have learned the error of their ways. But neither company will probably create a network as good as Microsofts. I don't think either of them have the resources to set up the network.

[Nessus]

"my Favorite Multinational Corporation's Dick Is Bigger Than Yours!"

[lurker4hire]

We're here to debate a topic based on current information known, speculative rumor, and intelligent logical predictions. If you don't want to join the debate, then don't. You've got no reason to just tell everyone to "STFU". People enjoy arguing about this. You think they're going to stop just because you say "STFU"? Please.


A bit late on the reply here, but what the hell.

My point isn't just to say STFU to be an arsehole, but I'm just trying to remind you that there simply isn't enough data to form a reliable analysis. About the only opinion that can actually be backed up with data is that both processors have interesting designs.

If, however you are fully aware and comfortable with the fact that you're spending time and energy debating:


"current information known" - not much
"speculative rumor" - a whole lot
"intelligent logical predictions" - questionable at best

then fine go ahead... have fun.

Personally I think you're wasting your time and energy. It's just some company trying to sell you stuff, buy it or don't but when you become emotionally involved that's when the ad agencies and marketing depts have won.

l4h

[Eon]

At least Microsoft actually created a global, online game network. What did Sony do?

Sell shitloads more consoles and games than Microsoft did.

[Heretic Machine]

Sell shitloads more consoles and games than Microsoft did.

To the same people who made Linkin Park superstars. That's real difficult.

[Eon]

Don't let me stop you on your way out the door to undoubted financial success. As it's so damn easy.

[Beelzebud]

To the same people who made Linkin Park superstars. That's real difficult.

ROFL

Good point.