So there's no way PS3 CPU is getting more than one PE~Cell?
- Thread starter Megadrive1988
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basically think of it this way.
I have X dollars to spend to make the fastest graphics chip I can, I can go faster by adding more ALU's than I can by making "fast" ALU's. Which one do I pick.
The clock speed it a design decision, chips are designed to run at a particular clock speed (or rather in some range), you don't just make it and then work out how fast it runs.
I have X dollars to spend to make the fastest graphics chip I can, I can go faster by adding more ALU's than I can by making "fast" ALU's. Which one do I pick.
The clock speed it a design decision, chips are designed to run at a particular clock speed (or rather in some range), you don't just make it and then work out how fast it runs.
The main (and we might also say only) thing that prevent actual high end GPUs to go faster is their architectures.nelg said:
Simply put, a "high-speed" architecture is created as such and asks for much more work "on each transistors" than an architecture that aims for reasonable clockspeed.
Memory bandwidth is undoubtedly a factor as well. External DDR-type RAM scales poorly, maybe if they switched to XDR...nelg said:Inquiring minds want to know.
Which brings up a thought...
If Sony is going to 65NM with Cell for the PS3. That will allow for more geography of their Cell packageing; thus more performance. From this they could: 1. keep the 1PE model and add more SPU's possibly 10-16.
" Future versions of Cell chips could have more or fewer processing units depending on what device and software designers require, Kahle said. "There are a number of different ways to implement parallelism on the chip," he said. "
Source: cnet.com
Or 2. Keep the 1PE model increase clock and add fewer SPU's.
"The first version of the chip will run at speeds faster than 4GHz. Engineers were vague about how much faster, but reports from design partners say 4.6GHz is likely."
or 3. 2PE model.
This seems as the most likely scenerio, IMO.
Question: What would be the differnce IF you had a 1PE with 16 SPU's versus 2PE with 16 SPU's? Is there a point where the more SPU's you add you would need a PE ?
Mythos said:
There sure is a point where those SPU`s do their work faster than 1 PE could feed all of them, but thats not the Prob.
The bigger issue IMHO is that the XBox2 CPU could (should) be more powerfull than 1 PE (assuming you dont use the SPUs). It will take time until a broad tool and library support for SPU`s is available, some tasks cant even be split upon the SPUs and then the PE also has to serve the SPUs. 2PEs would IHMO make sure there are no general-purpose bottlenecks comparing it to XBox2 (just think about Multiplattform Games).
I think 8SPUs are fine, but I still hope PS3 will have 2 PEs and 8-16 SPUs...
Megadrive1988
Veteran
Mythos said:
you mean a point where the additional SPUs/SPEs would need a PU/PPE to give them orders, right?
Right.
Let me also clarify point 2. Keep the 1PE model increase clock and add fewer SPU's. [1PE model= 1:8, + higher clock, plus 2-4 SPU's.]
"The first version of the chip will run at speeds faster than 4GHz. Engineers were vague about how much faster, but reports from design partners say 4.6GHz is likely."
Source: cnet.com
Let me also clarify point 2. Keep the 1PE model increase clock and add fewer SPU's. [1PE model= 1:8, + higher clock, plus 2-4 SPU's.]
"The first version of the chip will run at speeds faster than 4GHz. Engineers were vague about how much faster, but reports from design partners say 4.6GHz is likely."
Source: cnet.com
BOOMEXPLODE
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Does it strike anyone else that this is probably all still up in the air....I'm sure the version of Cell they introduced at ISSCC 2005 is being used in early dev kits right now, and what makes it into the retail PS3 machine will be dependant upon their manufacturing capability.
Re: So there's no way PS3 CPU is getting more than one PE~Ce
If Sony/Toshiba are far along on the "floating body cell" edram, they could use that instead of the 6-T SRAM. Under this scenario, the "CELL" based PS3 CPU may clock lower, but the saving of space in die area would make it more feasible to more than one PE. With all the SRAM a PE has, the advantage of using eDRAM without a capacitor would be huge.
I'm very optomistic that when Sony unveils their PS3 CPU, it will be very aggressive. They've got to much to loose by being timid at this point.
Megadrive1988 said:
If Sony/Toshiba are far along on the "floating body cell" edram, they could use that instead of the 6-T SRAM. Under this scenario, the "CELL" based PS3 CPU may clock lower, but the saving of space in die area would make it more feasible to more than one PE. With all the SRAM a PE has, the advantage of using eDRAM without a capacitor would be huge.
I'm very optomistic that when Sony unveils their PS3 CPU, it will be very aggressive. They've got to much to loose by being timid at this point.
He thinks bigger numbers = always better like with cylinders in a car engine; he's american after all. They think like that.
I don't expect there to be an amazing amount of pixel pipes in console GPUs, it's not plain textured fillrate they need lots of when running at TV resolutions. Instead there'll be more emphasis on shading.
I don't expect there to be an amazing amount of pixel pipes in console GPUs, it's not plain textured fillrate they need lots of when running at TV resolutions. Instead there'll be more emphasis on shading.
cybamerc said:
..Or 640x480 with industrial quantities of AA, like most people will play at.
If you're still using a 480p SDTV/EDTV in 2006-2011, you're a loser. 720p sets will exist at the sub-$1000 price point by then, and 1080p sets will be sub-$2000
IMHO, with HD-DVD and Blu-Ray supporting 1080p, and all major manufacturers moving to 1080p, designing a next-gen system to support anything less than 1080p framebuffers as standard is a big mistake.
720p sets will exist at the sub-$1000 price point by then, and 1080p sets will be sub-$2000IMHO, with HD-DVD and Blu-Ray supporting 1080p, and all major manufacturers moving to 1080p, designing a next-gen system to support anything less than 1080p framebuffers as standard is a big mistake.
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