Cell: Future of Gaming?

[AVP]

Mwmorph, an answer to a few of your questions on price and availability is already in the article. On the first page it states: " one of the reasons for Cell's development is they want to save costs by building their own components... amount of money being spent on this project is vast, two 65nm chip fabrication facilities are being built at billions each and Sony has paid IBM hundreds of millions to set up a production line in Fishkill. Then there's a few hundred million on development - all before a single chip rolls of the production lines." And later on the fourth page: "Cell is going to be cheap, powerful, run many of the same operating systems and if all else fails it can emulate a PC will little noticeable difference, software and price will not be a problem. Availability will also not be a problem" The relative cheapness of the Cell compared to a regular PC is mentioned a few times, however its safe to say without sufficient competition the price of this thing could blow up. And yet, since the Cells are used in playstation they wouldnt charge more for it to be used in different technology right?

 

[LifeStealer]

Yea and for just 600$ you too can have a part of Sony's PS3

 

[mwmorph]

ps3 is going to either a) be scaled back or b) expensive as hell think about PSX(the loaded playstation derivitive) like prices. XB2 will probably work better. after all, it has the determination of the BIGGEST company in the world, Microsoft, backing it.

also, im not gonna hold my breath. look how many times companies promise something but dont really dleiver that huge of a performance gain. until i see some benchies with cell vs x86-64 im not gonna believe 1 guy and a bunch of sony execs and marketing people. as X said, wait till there's proof. if BEST case scenario, it works, the product rollout is smooth, and it runs windows along with all my beloved classic as well as newer games(really the only reason i have a pc at home for besides internet).

Worst case? well sony wont deliver with all these seemingly inflated specs (i mean seriously, 5x performance of opteron?? not likely) and it never really comes out and x86 still dominates and cell goes the way of the betamax.

i believe this is just marketing hype and will end up like *shudder*DIKANTANA*shudder* until i get proof not from greedy sony who wants your money but fom someone fair and balanced like Tom's Hardware or Anandtech.

think aabout it, you have to train tens of millions of programmers worldwide to learn to essentially a brand new programming language. until there is considerable market demand, it's not going to happen. it is going to be a niche product like the mac or RISC.

God i hope im wrong. i really would like to see speeds equal to a 20GHZ AMD64.

 

[sMiLeYz]

remember the Emotion engine was suppose to be the greatest thing since slice cheese? Then it came out and a 733mhz Pentium 3 owns it.

If u honestly believe the hype, Id have some dotcom stock to sell to you. First off even it is as powerful as it sounds theres no way they can take full advantage of it with the bus technology available today. Something like the cell processor requires MASSIVE bandwidth.

Second, it is a multi core processor... meaning it will be a PAIN IN THE ANUS to program for. Most companies wouldnt know how to take full advantage of it until probably third generation of games.

Of course Sony knows this, but they will contiune to hype it up the ass so more newbs will continue to say PS3 will annihlate the PC.

 

[LifeStealer]

Personally I'll always prefer content over the next gen graphics.

 

[xbdestroya]

I have to say, there is a lot of bizzarre logic going on here right now. Cell can't possibly be that good, just because five times better than Opteron sounds too good? Microsoft is the biggest company in the world? Man - confusion!!! Listen, Sony is a larger company than Microsoft by sales; Microsoft is larger by market cap. In fact, there are hundreds of companies that are technically larger than Microsoft. Go look at the Fortune 500. What Microsoft has is insane margins, making them super-profitable. But all of that is besides the point. I'm not putting all my faith in Cell, but it's going to be big no matter what you think. If it'll make the PS3 the ultimate console or not, I don't know - but it's my thought that it might.

I will tell you what though - for all the non-believers, put your 'Sony screwed us once' thinking aside and February 6th tune in to the tech news. IBM, Sony, and Toshiba will be demonstrating the Cell and explaining it's architecture in San Francisco. No matter what you feel about the projct, it should be interesting.

PS - Of course the PSP chip has enough power to simulate nuclear explosions. But put it in context. My cell phone has more computing power than the computers of a decade ago. You can be sure that the computers the military is using NOW for nuclear simulation are in a leagueof their own. For now of course...

 

[mwmorph]

psp is 333mhz. sure it CAN simulate explosions. that like saying my 486 33mhz CAN simulate explosions. it'll just take a unreasonable amount of time which is set by peferred accuracy.

xb, ill let it go since youre a newb to this forum, but read carefully before you flame! i NEVER said it's impossible. Sure, its easily possible. NEC or IBM or someone has a 100GHZ chip!
i just said that something astounding like this with only 1 source which also is, consequently, EXTREMELY biased toward themselves as taking that as fact is journalistic Suicide! you cant trust unconfirmed info form biased sources! read my second post. I specifically stated i hope it really is true but probably isn't.

 

[xbdestroya]

Mwmorph - I assure you I wasn't trying to flame you; feel free to point out the text I usedthat you considered to be flaming if that's how you feel. And either way, I apologize.

Also, don't feel you need to go easy on me because I'm a newbie.

I've been coming to Anandtech for years - just joined the forums recently to see if anyone had any information on the launch date of the E stepping of the Athlon 64.

 

[mwmorph]

np then. all is forgiven.

 

[Vee]

Originally posted by: hundesau
hmm, vee, if i read u right u saying that Intel is trying to control the pc-market with IA64? some more explanations, iam not that deep into IA64, but i read that Intel cancelled the Itanium desktop plans.


http://www.theregister.co.uk/2...5/ms_cancels_itanicxp/

-Oh, I'm so relieved! :music: I wrote that post, in a slightly upset mood, having just recieved hints that Intels next major new X86 design might have been cancelled. I may have been painting things a bit black. It makes little sense for it to be true, so it probably isn't.

 

[mwmorph]

ia64 is dead. i mean it has hardly been the revolution intel dreamed up. what is there for ia64? why would intel switch to it? it's business suicide.

 

[frootbooter]

I so posted this article yesterday in that other thread about cell...

 

[zakee00]

ok, so what if sony ISNT lying? what if cell really is this big of a deal? i mean, omg emulating x86 arcitechure with almost no performance hit? would that mean that it can run windows?

What if they ARE lying? will the Xbox2 be more powerfull? what about content?

 

[mwmorph]

if they arent lying about how fast/cheap/easy to produce it is, then BRAVO sony. ill be the first to buy one.

but my instincts say they are. xb2 wont be faster though cause sony will come out 1 year later. just look at the difference of ps2 vs xbox. that was a 1 year difference too.

as for content, it Should be hard as hell programming for a architecture like cell. but if sony is all true, then the content will follow.

 

[zakee00]

Originally posted by: mwmorph
as for content, it Should be hard as hell programming for a architecture like cell. but if sony is all true, then the content will follow.

How come?

 

[mwmorph]

the cell isnt 1 entity. it's like programming for multiple processors. you have to add calcs to distribute load as well as the new proprietary language as well as forget all you learned about x86.

 

[mwmorph]

double post

 

[daveybrat]

The gamecube just goes to show how better hardware does not mean better games (or even better looking).

Have you seen Resident Evil 4 yet?? That will show you the true power of a gamecube, and i'm not gamecube fan, i've got a PS2 myself

 

[zakee00]

Originally posted by: daveybrat

The gamecube just goes to show how better hardware does not mean better games (or even better looking).

Have you seen Resident Evil 4 yet?? That will show you the true power of a gamecube, and i'm not gamecube fan, i've got a PS2 myself

that proves abesolutely nothing. RE4 is prerendered. Only the characters are rendered in realtime. (correct my if im wrong?)

 

[Neptune3000]

I think it's all hype as well. I'm usually in support of crazy claims like these but coming from sony I know it has to be BS. why? I dunno. Before Ps2 cameout there was all this hype etc. and then Xbox cameout and killed it. As far as i'm concerned it's all hype and it would take quite some time for programmers to fully utilize sucha technology. Just imagine the best animation and special effects out in movies right now.

HYPE I SAY, HYPE!!

 

[Jassi]

The goverment is already trying to limit the growth and export in CPU's because every Tom, Dick and Harry can run programs that used to require millions of dollars in investments 15 years ago, programs involved in designing and simulating nuclear explosions. Even if Cell technology is not being hyped, the chances of it coming out are next to zilch.

 

[zakee00]

what are you talking about jassi, how can the government restrict sony from releasing Cell.
stop posting.

 

[TekDemon]

Now, while Sony does have a "creative" history with CPU specs, the cell seems at least...somewhat legit.
And apparently there are screen shots that are supposedly showing what Cell *will* look like-which is sketchy since some of them were just done in Rhino, but supposedly there are very impressive real-time demos running on Sony's GSCUBE (multiple PS2 processor based) development systems, and supposedly they're very impressive although not quite as impressive as what cell is supposedly going to be.

Or...something like that.

Of course I guess we'll see when it comes out =)

P.S. Apparently there are two generations of the GSCUBE so it's not running on the older gen one which was just like 16 PS2 chips...the new one is apparently about 125x as powerful as a PS2. Knowing sony's "1000x" claim on the PS3 and their penchant for exaggeration I'm guessing the PS3 will only be 2-5x as powerful as the 2nd gen GSCUBE and not 8x...but we'll see =)

 

[Acanthus]

It must be performing wonderfully since they had to sign on NVIDIA to put a GPU in it.

CELL IS SO POWERFUL IT CAN SOFTWARE RENDER ALL GAMES!

[tiny text] NVIDIA is making a next gen graphics chip for the console.

 

[zakee00]

NV50?