i really have my doubts about CELL!

[borntosoul]

i dont know about u guys but now that the dust has settled im feeling abit iffy about the cell cpu claimed performance.
i have no evidence to back this up--its just a feeling.
correct me if im wrong but if cell was such a great cpu design then wouldnt apple use a modified version of it instead of going to intel? i know intel offers a lot more than just performance. im just saying considering its hype u think it would be a shoe in for future apple design. there is so much we dont know about this CPU so i apologize in advance for any ignorance. i cant see how cell will be more powerful then a top end AMD chip in late next year that will be priced 5x more than it - economy of scale would surely point to AMD as well. just wanted to know what you all are thinking about cell.

 

[rabidrabbit]

Intreger performance

 

[Andy]

I think it's unfair to compare Cell to a PC CPU. You ask why didn't apple use it, perhaps apple wanna compete head on with Microsoft for the OS market and not so much the hardware market anymore. Perhaps Cell isn't too useful for running a fully-fledged OS and applications like Office, databases etc. but well suited for running games, and other graphical programs.

On that note, I think your fears are somewhat justified. My main fear is the gaming industry as a whole, just like anything else has a cycle, and I fear we are headed for a huge slump. Are my fears unjustified? Perhaps, but then if we look at Japan at present, the gaming industry sales have declined quite considerable.

 

[London Geezer]

i dont know about u guys but now that the dust has settled im feeling abit iffy about the cell cpu claimed performance.
i have no evidence to back this up--its just a feeling.
correct me if im wrong but if cell was such a great cpu design then wouldnt apple use a modified version of it instead of going to intel? i know intel offers a lot more than just performance. im just saying considering its hype u think it would be a shoe in for future apple design. there is so much we dont know about this CPU so i apologize in advance for any ignorance. i cant see how cell will be more powerful then a top end AMD chip in late next year that will be priced 5x more than it - economy of scale would surely point to AMD as well. just wanted to know what you all are thinking about cell.

PC and consoles need different chips as they target different tasks.

Cell is a very good console processor. Intel/AMD do very good PC processors.

The reason Apple is going to Intel has nothing to do with the performance Cell will have in the applications it will need to run. Or else you could say the same thing about the XCPU. They could have stayed with IBM. Intel obviously made them happier than IBM, that's all.

 

[one]

i know intel offers a lot more than just performance.

Intel Inside sticker?

 

[Titanio]

Intreger performance

Specifically "general purpose" processing (mathematical integer performance on Cell should be pretty much as good as floating point). Cell isn't designed for the demands of PC computing - being able to run absolutely anything you could want, large static datasets etc. It's designed for a subset of applications (games, digital media), and should do those very well indeed. That's why you don't see its adoption in PCs (although hardware aside, there's obvious software hurdles anyway - x86 is pretty entrenched).

 

[London Geezer]

Also, Cell doesn't need to worry about trying to run 20-year old programs.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

That's why you don't see its adoption in PCs.

Well we don't see Cell's adoption in anything yet save PS3 I think we really have to wait a while before we see what Cell does and does not end up in.

 

[borntosoul]

i was just talking about the chip itself, not the format in runs on
for eg wonder what a 2x dual core x64 chip would do in a ps3. not that i would think its a good idea, just as example for pure power of the cpu itself.
i sure hope CELL ends up being as fast as they claim, i guess we will know next year. new design so anything could and can happen.

 

[London Geezer]

i was just talking about the chip itself, not the format in runs on
for eg wonder what a 2x dual core x64 chip would do in a ps3. not that i would think its a good idea, just as example for pure power of the cpu itself.
i sure hope CELL ends up being as fast as they claim, i guess we will know next year. new design so anything could and can happen.

Well that's where you have to be very careful what you expect. Read all the endless Cell threads on this forum, the ones with real information, cause if you just look at the pretty videos (Killzone comes to mind) and expect that kind of thing as standard to "show the power of Cell", you'll be sorely disappointed.

 

[borntosoul]

i can tell you now that i was less than impressed with the pre rendered demoes at e3, meaning that i think it was a load of crap! really id love the ps3 to be that powerful but somehow as i mentioned above i have my doubts and big ones.

 

[London Geezer]

i can tell you now that i was less than impressed with the pre rendered demoes at e3, meaning that i think it was a load of crap! really id love the ps3 to be that powerful but somehow as i mentioned above i have my doubts and big ones.

Good for you then. There's lots and lots of mostly undecipherable (for us) info on these boards. Look it up.

 

[nAo]

Don't troll here please

 

[sonycowboy]

The reason Apple is going to Intel has nothing to do with the performance Cell will have in the applications it will need to run. Or else you could say the same thing about the XCPU. They could have stayed with IBM. Intel obviously made them happier than IBM, that's all.

IBM also hasn't been particularly good to them for some time. They've been late on just about every CPU promised, charge alot, and then they turn around and sell the game systems CPU's below cost while Apple pays a pretty penny.

 

[TTP]

Don't troll here please

You stole my words.

 

[scooby_dooby]

I think it's a valid opinion, just because someone doesn't imediately bow-down in awe to the power of cell doesn't make them a troll.

Does anyone remember the CNN article on the "super-computer" like processing power of the emotion engine? it was a fun read, I can't find it, but I found some others.

"The Emotion Engine can perform 6.2 gigaflops (6.2 billion operations) per second, which is about twice as many as a state-of-the-art personal computer like Apple's top-of-the line G4. "
- CNN
http://archives.cnn.com/2000/TECH/computing/10/21/playstation.techno/index.html

In the end the EE was owned by a 733 Celeron.

Considering this IS sony we're talking about, and there have been no true benchmarks of this processor, and all the info has been released by Sony or IBM, which are in effect salesmen trying to sell a product, I see every reason to be skeptical of the "power" of CELL.

here's another great quote from 2000:
"SCEI offered no more details on the plan, disclosed at a Tokyo press conference on Thursday, except to say that it plans to sell the PS2 chipset -- the brain of the PS2 machine -- externally in the future. The plan could see a range of consumer electronics products, including televisions and set-top boxes, doubling as PS2 consoles in the future."
-CNN
http://archives.cnn.com/2000/TECH/computing/06/05/ps2.chips.idg/index.html

lol.....history repeating itself?

 

[borntosoul]

u guys need to chill a bit, calling people for trolling. this is a forum and i dont think im out of line.

 

[Alpha_Spartan]

That's why you don't see its adoption in PCs.

Well we don't see Cell's adoption in anything yet save PS3 I think we really have to wait a while before we see what Cell does and does not end up in.

I remember way back when the "Emotion Engine" was supposed to be the Intel killer...we all know how that turned out. We won't see Cell outside of the PS3 or maybe a couple of rendering farms.

 

[N00b]

i dont know about u guys but now that the dust has settled im feeling abit iffy about the cell cpu claimed performance.
i have no evidence to back this up--its just a feeling.
correct me if im wrong but if cell was such a great cpu design then wouldnt apple use a modified version of it instead of going to intel? i know intel offers a lot more than just performance. im just saying considering its hype u think it would be a shoe in for future apple design. there is so much we dont know about this CPU so i apologize in advance for any ignorance. i cant see how cell will be more powerful then a top end AMD chip in late next year that will be priced 5x more than it - economy of scale would surely point to AMD as well. just wanted to know what you all are thinking about cell.

The reason why cell is actually a good choice for a gaming console but not for Macs or PCs is simple:
The x86 cpus from Intel and AMD are optimised for general purpose workloads. That means you throw just about any program at them and you will usually get good or at least acceptable performance.

Cell is a cpu that is optimised for a very specific workload: running programs that require lots of single precision floating point performance but not so much general purpose (ie. integer) performance and which workloads can be parallelised into multiple parallel-running tasks. To unleash the power of cell programmers will have to write their software pretty close to the cell hardware.

Since the majority of software running on PCs or Macs do not have these workload characteristics and most software companies usually do not have the time and/or the ability to optimize their software to take advantage of the rather unusual cell architecture, it is obviously not a good choice for Macs or PCs at the moment. (The point here is that there is no good abstraction (OS and Programming) of the cell architecture that lets everyday programmers use its power for everyday tasks.)

Although I can imagine that Intel or AMD may pick up an idea or two from cell in the future.

 

[London Geezer]

I think it's a valid opinion, just because someone doesn't imediately bow-down in awe to the power of cell doesn't make them a troll.

Does anyone remember the CNN article on the "super-computer" like processing power of the emotion engine? it was a fun read, I can't find it, but I found some others.

"The Emotion Engine can perform 6.2 gigaflops (6.2 billion operations) per second, which is about twice as many as a state-of-the-art personal computer like Apple's top-of-the line G4. "
- CNN
http://archives.cnn.com/2000/TECH/computing/10/21/playstation.techno/index.html

In the end the EE was owned by a 733 Celeron.

Considering this IS sony we're talking about, and there have been no true benchmarks of this processor, and all the info has been released by Sony or IBM, which are in effect salesmen trying to sell a product, I see every reason to be skeptical of the "power" of CELL.

here's another great quote from 2000:
"SCEI offered no more details on the plan, disclosed at a Tokyo press conference on Thursday, except to say that it plans to sell the PS2 chipset -- the brain of the PS2 machine -- externally in the future. The plan could see a range of consumer electronics products, including televisions and set-top boxes, doubling as PS2 consoles in the future."
-CNN
http://archives.cnn.com/2000/TECH/computing/06/05/ps2.chips.idg/index.html

lol.....history repeating itself?

The XCPU didn't trump the EE in any way.

The XCPU+NV2A however was a more powerful configuration (in most things) than the EE+GS, and it bloddy well should have been, after 18 months. Oh and double the memory with double the main bandwidth helped too.

So, now that MS are actually releasing earlier than Sony, history will not repeat itself.

Now go back to your cave.