Nvidia's RSX + cell and 2tflops

Terrahertz

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It has been stated that the PS3's GPU and cell when combined will provide an astounding two teraflops of floating point horsepower.

Is this theoritical? or is the architecture of cell and what Nvidia has made can make this possible. I thought a machine that can do this would cost about $20,000. Not to mention 2petaflops will run you in the range of $2,000,000.

Is the XDR and the speed of the bus making this possible?

Sazar? Anybody?
 
From what I've read, just like MS, Sony has been using "hypothetical" numbers and not really world numbers. Since the battle between the 2 is about hardware #'s and not games they are playing the numbers anyway they can to attract those w/out a clue. Alot of companys do the same though.
 
http://www.vr-zone.com/?i=2206

Theoretically it is a variation of this card used in a dedicated setup in the PS3.

Supposedly the PS3 is able to do 2.18+ Tflops, with the XBOX360 supposedly able to do about 1.25 Tflops.

Now here is the kicker. Looking at the marchitecture and looking at it from a sheer speed POV, the XBOX seems to be the faster product wrt the all-important shader-speed. BOTH systems are highly specialized with independent API's apparently that game-devs are working with.

Consider though that the PS3 is deriving much of this Tflop power via the GPU. About 1.8 Tflops to be precise. The XBOX360 is a lot more balanced beast even though the claimed Tflop number is about half.

Theoretically they are using basically the same type of procs in the system. Sony has simply customized theirs a lot more thereby allowing for better on-die processing and, again theoretically, getting better performance a-la AMD and their on-die mem controller.

Keep in mind the methodology of the powerPC proc and the AMD proc in my analogy are very different, I am simply correlating the benefits of work done on-die :D

Personally I think both systems should be close in performance and gfx, and if they both are out to do well, it will mean cheaper prices for us, the consumers.

I am still of the opinion that because the Nintendo revolution will use a refresh of the XBOX gpu, it could well end up being the strongest competitor.

---

As an aside WRT in-game footage, some of the XBOX360 was in-game, some CGI. Pretty much all of the PS3 was CGI. Everyone getting a boner based on the footage will be in for a reality check when they actually play the games. They'll look good, but not quite as good as the custom CGI clips nor anywhere as smooth.
 
Sazar said:
I am still of the opinion that because the Nintendo revolution will use a refresh of the XBOX gpu, it could well end up being the strongest competitor.

I agree...I think the Revolution is going to sneak up on people with how good it might be
 
Hehe, anyone who thought that Killzone 2 demo was real, well, it was too good to be true. I wish it was, but it was too good. ;)
 
At the end of the day it could be pushing 18Tflops, however unless the games developers actually utilise the power, there's no point having it (Think running 486 games on your new alienware).

Sony seem to have proven across their previous two consoles that right up until the end of it's life most developers and Sony themselves almost play a complete disregard for the power they have, with the really "pretty" stuff only surfacing later on in the consoles life.
 
SPeedY_B said:
At the end of the day it could be pushing 18Tflops, however unless the games developers actually utilise the power, there's no point having it (Think running 486 games on your new alienware).

Sony seem to have proven across their previous two consoles that right up until the end of it's life most developers and Sony themselves almost play a complete disregard for the power they have, with the really "pretty" stuff only surfacing later on in the consoles life.
I agree with the 1st part completely. All the power in the world is great, but does nothing and is a waste of $ if not used.

Sony has also had a habbit (though I'm sure not intentional) of making consoles that are hard to write games for. I've heard PS3 will be no different. You would think when Sony has the kind of $ to just throw at a game console they could get some people that could design an easy to program for console.
 
I wouldn't of thought the Playstation to be that hard to write for, considering the amount of utter crap that comes out for them (Seriously, there must be a 8:1 crap:good game ratio) they don't seem to care who develops or what they develop for their system. Then there's the sequels, they do love their sequels.

Ah well, it'll still be the highest selling console, because the majority of the population are sheep. Shame.
 
SPeedY_B said:
I wouldn't of thought the Playstation to be that hard to write for, considering the amount of utter crap that comes out for them (Seriously, there must be a 8:1 crap:good game ratio) they don't seem to care who develops or what they develop for their system. Then there's the sequels, they do love their sequels.

Ah well, it'll still be the highest selling console, because the majority of the population are sheep. Shame.

That is true, but tons of developers make games for Playstation because there are 80 million of them :p
 
SPeedY_B said:
I wouldn't of thought the Playstation to be that hard to write for, considering the amount of utter crap that comes out for them (Seriously, there must be a 8:1 crap:good game ratio) they don't seem to care who develops or what they develop for their system. Then there's the sequels, they do love their sequels.

Ah well, it'll still be the highest selling console, because the majority of the population are sheep. Shame.
From what I've read the PS and PS2 were both hard to write games for. They only got more games because the "sheep" buying the console like mad. It's also the reason the specs go so long without being used to the max. ;)
 
Grandmaster said:
That is true, but tons of developers make games for Playstation because there are 80 million of them :p
Indeed, and it's a damn shame! :D
 
Thanks for the input guys but I feel Sony got this one right. Nvidias API's will help alot and Tim Sweeny got the PS3 real time Unreal demo 3.0 up and running in less than two months on a dev kit running two 6800ultras. Opengl 2.0 will be utilized Im sure. The 360 is a hell of a machine but the sheer power of the cell allows programmers to get that extra umph. Nintendo as usual quiet. They have to do more than just talk this generation.
 
Terrahertz said:
The 360 is a hell of a machine but the sheer power of the cell allows programmers to get that extra umph. Nintendo as usual quiet. They have to do more than just talk this generation.
This extra "umph" may well add more complexity to making games for the PS3, as it will differ the most from the 360 and Revolution. Also just because Nintendo isn't working the spin machine doesn't mean they won't be ready. They have stated that all will be revealed by the end of the year.
 
Xie said:
This extra "umph" may well add more complexity to making games for the PS3, as it will differ the most from the 360 and Revolution. Also just because Nintendo isn't working the spin machine doesn't mean they won't be ready. They have stated that all will be revealed by the end of the year.
I see your point. Ahh Nintendo...oh well I'll just wait and see what they bring to the table. Its all about the games when all is said and done.
 
Grandmaster said:
Came across an interesting article at IGN today. It's a long read, but essentially its saying that even though on paper PS3 seems more powerful, it is nowhere as efficient, therefore the 360 might actually perform better.

http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/617/617951p1.html

Read between the lines. M$ helped with some of the tidbits there so think pinch of salt and taking.
 
Sazar said:
Read between the lines. M$ helped with some of the tidbits there so think pinch of salt and taking.
Plus its IGN Xbox site. Theyve been known to be the fanboys at times.
 
Sazar said:
Read between the lines. M$ helped with some of the tidbits there so think pinch of salt and taking.
I don't know that much indepth about hardware but I've read posts about people that commented about "pathways" and such leading to bottlenecks. I don't blame you for doubting anything with MS $ behind it though, as they do have alot of companys doing "studies" that have them coming out golden.
 
Unwonted said:
What's M dollar sign? Could it also be written M£ or M¥?
Indeed. Though being a US company the "$" makes more sense.
 

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