Does Cell Have Any Other Advantages Over XCPU Other Than FLOPS?

[Vince]

How many nvidia chips will be made based off the rsx design ?

If its a g70 modified as many believe then you will have alot more of those made than cell.


Lets see for every cell in the ps3 u have one rsx . Then you have the graphics market then u have niche markets.

You are retreading an issue which I already addressed in my previous post (which you quoted... uh). The RSX is disassociated from the rest of nVidia's PC GPU production and has no influence upon it. The 100,000,000 RSXs that OTSS and Sony's Nagasaki facilities will produce will have no effect on the production cost of an nVidia IC destined for the PC marketplace. Yet, the 100,000,000 Cells produced for the PlayStation3 will have a profound effect on the cost of the 100,000,001st Cell that is produced for another reason.

Where is the cell going to be used outside of the ps3 ? Niche markets at the moment and no real prospects for moving into a secondary market as big as pc graphics .

Again, we're retreading anoher issue i already addressed as I quoted John Peddie whose recent report on the state of IGPs stated that the market for discrete, high-end, GPUs in the PC marketplace stands at between 25-30M users. I believe a plurality, and perhaps a majority, of 3D accleration in PC sales is from IGPs of which Intel currently controls 72% of the market (as of Q1'05). If you extrapolate current Centrino adoption rates forward, Intel will control >70% of the entire GPU marketplace having reduced the discrete market to <10% by 2010 (courtesy of J.Peddie); which is unlikely, but interesting nevertheless considering the topic at hand.

I just don't see how the discrete, high-end, GPU market is so much bigger.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

SPE (single vector processor):
25.6 Gflops ...
from 14.5 Sq. mm = 1.77 Gflops/Sq. mm
from 21m transistors = 1.22 Gflops/million transistors

Xenos (as vector processor, no edram):
192 Gflops ...
from ~200 (?) Sq. mm = .96 Gflops/Sq. mm
from 232m transistors = .83 Gflops/million transistors

That's not a fair comparison by any stretch, due mostly to the representation of Float Ops. Otherwise why aren't Sony using a Cell for their GPU?

 

[aaronspink]

I was only showing that in terms of actual vector calculation capability, from standpoint of die-size, SPE has ~85% more, and from transistor standpoint, ~45% more, than Xenos GPU.

You aren't comparing apples to apples. The Xenos die has significant additional functionality beyond just the GPU portion.

Aaron Spink
speaking for myself inc.

 

[aaronspink]

I just recently read a report by Jon Peddie on IGPs which pegged the discrete, high-end, graphics market at 25-30M users. The PlayStation2 userbase is approaching 100M users; exactly how is the latter a "niche," yet the former is not?

PS2 is a niche as is high end graphics hardware. There are orders of magnitudes more people running PCs as their are PS2s.

OTOH, graphics hardware IS available on all those PCs and gets ever faster and more capable every year.

Aaron Spink
speaking for myself inc.

 

[aaronspink]

Please show what is RSX GPU and also please show how it is hack job.

From all available data, the RSX is a quick and dirty proliferation of the G70 design utilized as a backup strategy when the primary strategy of using a derivitive of CELL or CELL itself as the graphics engine didn't pan out.

Also is it not very high bandwidth to CPU something new and providing new and interesting possibilities for CPU-GPU interaction?

maybe, maybe not.

Aaron Spink
speaking for myself inc.

 

[nAo]

From all available data, the RSX is a quick and dirty proliferation of the G70 design utilized as a backup strategy when the primary strategy of using a derivitive of CELL or CELL itself as the graphics engine didn't pan out.

Yeah, the other day I've seen Elvis Presley, he shown me his CELL based GPU Sony guys gave him as a gift.

 

[!eVo!-X Ant UK]

From all available data, the RSX is a quick and dirty proliferation of the G70 design utilized as a backup strategy when the primary strategy of using a derivitive of CELL or CELL itself as the graphics engine didn't pan out.
.

I would hardly call a 3 year development process qucik and dirty

 

[aaronspink]

And yet, the SPE does exactly that, and you are against it. You sing a completely different tune in your comments about the RSX compared to your comments on CELL. You should try to be consistant. That is why I am suspicious of your motives here.

I'm suspicious of your reading comprehension, so we're even. I'm not against the SPE. I merely believe that it won't fullfill some of the promises people in this forum are making for it. For the point product of the PS3 it will be sufficient if somewhat complicated. Beyond that I'm not a big fan of its long term future.

Why begrudge people their excitement over CELL? Why care that someone actually likes the potential of this powerful hardware?

Read the forum header. This is the technical forum. This is merely a technical discusion. In any technical discusion both sides of the issue need to be stated and argued.

I'm only bringing that up, as it matches your opinion on the matter. You say that SPE's are too stripped down, but anyone can use that to argue about the PPE inrespect to G5/Athlon 64/Pentium 4. More is always better right?

Water is good for you right? Why don't you drink 5 gallons of water as fast as you can.

Aaron Spink
speaking for myself inc.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

From all available data, the RSX is a quick and dirty proliferation of the G70 design utilized as a backup strategy when the primary strategy of using a derivitive of CELL or CELL itself as the graphics engine didn't pan out.

The available info isn't at all clear on that, and doesn't point to such a solution. That the 'original idea' (of which we can't be sure there was one and maybe Sony were open to one of two or three alternatives) was a failure and nVidia stepped as backup, is not the only reason for chiising an nVidia part, not is it supported by real evidence. Until we actually see RSX and what changes have or have not been made, it's too early to say if it's an off-the-shelf solution. And even then, that won't confirm if it was a last minute emergency solution either.

 

[London Geezer]

From all available data, the RSX is a quick and dirty proliferation of the G70 design utilized as a backup strategy when the primary strategy of using a derivitive of CELL or CELL itself as the graphics engine didn't pan out.

And that's bad? If anything, it's obviously better, if it was chosen over the Toshiba idea. Lovely to see people still arguing about this "quick hack"or "second choice", when, for all intents and purposes, the RSX will create amazing visuals whatever happens. Especially considering how the 35GB link direct to Cell (on top of the 24GB or so to memory) is something that will not happen on PCs for years. The GPU might be a PC part off the shelf for all we know, but the way it will be used is hardly something one can call an "hack" or disappointing.

 

[Fafalada]

when the primary strategy of using a derivitive of CELL or CELL itself as the graphics engine didn't pan out.

From where I'm standing the so called Cell GPU(or Cell derived GPU or whatever) has been a proliferation of FUD mostly coming from somewhat annoying posters online(including some with high degrees of education and industry experience).
But maybe I should talk to Elvis like nAo and I'll see the light.

 

[Gubbi]

Until we actually see RSX and what changes have or have not been made, it's too early to say if it's an off-the-shelf solution. And even then, that won't confirm if it was a last minute emergency solution either.

Considering it was announced last summer I think it's fair to say that the RSX is a contingency solution.

But a rather good one.

Cheers
Gubbi

 

[rabidrabbit]

I wonder how many projects start with initial plan(s) that are changed en route when noticed there are better, cheaper alternatives that do the job as well or better.
I bet quite a many. Is "Xenos" exactly what MS had in mind when they first started thinking of xbox360, did they think from the beginning to use a three core IBM CPU?

What if it was the "Cell" that was the backup plan for PS3 GPU? What if they really weren't sure if it would be the best choice for PS3 GPU from the beginning, but kept the alternative open in case the "Cell" development would go the direction it would also be the best for the gpu/rasterizer.

I just don't get it. Just because it's Sony, it's bad design practice to change plans as you go if things don't advance quite as fast the direction it was originally visioned?.. please.
"Cell" might be in their visions a general "do it all" chip for graphics, music, as general cpu... but it's obvious it's not that quite yet, at least for the projected PS3 spring launch.

Wouldn't it have been quite an amazing feat of engineering if "Cell" indeed would have turned out to be the best for all computing tasks!
Actually it would have been almost an impossible mission to accomplish, and had STI succeeded (or was it their plan in the beginning at all?) it would have been the most significant advancement in processor history for a long time.

 

[Panajev2001a]

Yeah, the other day I've seen Elvis Presley.

What ? I knew Elvis was alive... now you got his dating tips and there will be no women left for the rest of us especially if the Faf-ster gets to learn from the King as well... .

 

[London Geezer]

What ? I knew Elvis was alive... now you got his dating tips and there will be no women left for the rest of us especially if the Faf-ster gets to learn from the King as well... .

Just as long as he doesn't take his dieting tips too literally, he'll be fine.

 

[dskneo]

Considering it was announced last summer I think it's fair to say that the RSX is a contingency solution.

But a rather good one.

Cheers
Gubbi

Not exactly....

Last year (around december) they announced Sony-Nvidia were working together for the last
2 years on the PS3 GPU.

that makes 3 years in development this december. I have links for that, its not bullshit.

my guess, cell "gpu" must have been dropped around 2002, the year they started working with nvidia (its oficial... i already posted links in this forum, i have to search for them again)

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Considering it was announced last summer I think it's fair to say that the RSX is a contingency solution.

This is a topic for another thread and has been discussed elsewhere on this board. But in brief, it's possible Sony were evaluating several solutions. The idea of a Cell GPU came mostly from a Patent, but as we all know Patents are not blueprints. It was never stated AFAIK by Sony that PS3 would use Cell for everything. But yeah, this is a topic for eother threds where it's been covered before.

 

[Carl B]

Considering it was announced last summer I think it's fair to say that the RSX is a contingency solution.

But a rather good one.

Cheers
Gubbi

Gubbi if I can find the link readily I will direct you to where this has been discussed to death, but suffice to say that in 2003 it seems NVidia approached Sony on the idea of using an NVidia chip in their upcoming console. Now, there's no hard evidence when in that time span - from Summer '03 to December '05 - they started working together, but I think if I had to guess, I'd go with closer to summer '03. That's not to say that RSX is still not a derivative G70 design, simply though that Sony had planned for it's inclusion for some time, and had been working with estimates of it's eventual power and built the PS3 around that architecture as the GPU.

But let's stick to the Cell talk for now!

 

[Gubbi]

Off topic. But anyway.

NV is a publically held company. There's no way NV management could have been sitting on a Sony contract for 2 years without their shareholders being informed.

Especially considering how NV tanked in 2003 after the NV3x fiascos.

So while the GPU (G70) that became the RSX has been in development for 3 years, RSX has only been a reality for 1 year.

Cheers

 

[MrSingh]

Gubbi if I can find the link readily I will direct you to where this has been discussed to death, but suffice to say that in 2003 it seems NVidia approached Sony on the idea of using an NVidia chip in their upcoming console. Now, there's no hard evidence when in that time span - from Summer '03 to December '05 - they started working together, but I think if I had to guess, I'd go with closer to summer '03. That's not to say that RSX is still not a derivative G70 design, simply though that Sony had planned for it's inclusion for some time, and had been working with estimates of it's eventual power and built the PS3 around that architecture as the GPU.

But let's stick to the Cell talk for now!

According to sources within Toshiba and SCEJ, the decision to use an Nvidia solution came at the 11th hour. Just be happy Sony didn't choose the Toshiba GPU (or a PowerVR solution ).