Andy said:In terms of processors such as Sony & Toshiba's Emotion Engine and IBM's Gekko, which are both 128bit processors, are the 64bit processors, (Cell, Hollywood and the X360 processor) being put into the next gen consoles, in anyway a step backwards? Or are the 128bit processors of this current generation not true 128bit processors?
Andy said:Or are the 128bit processors of this current generation not true 128bit processors?
aaaaa00 said:Andy said:In terms of processors such as Sony & Toshiba's Emotion Engine and IBM's Gekko, which are both 128bit processors, are the 64bit processors, (Cell, Hollywood and the X360 processor) being put into the next gen consoles, in anyway a step backwards? Or are the 128bit processors of this current generation not true 128bit processors?
Ugh, not this again.
"Bitness" has long since become completely useless as a measure of the power of a processor, ever since 32-bits in a GPR/address has become more than enough to do what you want.
The interesting operations that all these processors implement all work on 128-bit packed vectors of numbers.
Andy said:aaaaa00 said:Andy said:In terms of processors such as Sony & Toshiba's Emotion Engine and IBM's Gekko, which are both 128bit processors, are the 64bit processors, (Cell, Hollywood and the X360 processor) being put into the next gen consoles, in anyway a step backwards? Or are the 128bit processors of this current generation not true 128bit processors?
Ugh, not this again.
"Bitness" has long since become completely useless as a measure of the power of a processor, ever since 32-bits in a GPR/address has become more than enough to do what you want.
The interesting operations that all these processors implement all work on 128-bit packed vectors of numbers.
That wasn't what I was asking. I never really cared about bit-size, I am just trying to understand for my sake a little more about processors in general. All I wanted to know was what difference does it make from the 128bit processors of todays consoles compared to the new 64bit processors of tomorrows consoles? Are todays consoles truly 128bit or are they say 4x32bit, 2x64bit etc.?
That would make R5900 128bitGubbi said:Bitness of a CPU is defined as the size of the integer registers
Fafalada said:That would make R5900 128bitGubbi said:Bitness of a CPU is defined as the size of the integer registers
R59k is probably a case that undermines virtually all accepted definitions though. It uses 32bit pointers, 128bit GPRs, and fully supports only 64bit integer math (actual 128bit arithmetic only supports a few ops).