The CELL project at IBM Research

[AtariAlum]

T&L?
pixels shaders?



Shifty seems to be the only one with a clue in this thread.

Home computer/workstation GPUs are hideous hacks. Nothing more than archaic artifacts of the bus architecture of the original IBM PC. Their time is coming to an end, thankfully. Cell is the first glimpse of the future. It's no wonder NVidia's CEO has been lavishing praise on Sony over the past couple of years and not the other way around. He knows which way the industry is heading.

 

[pahcman]

hi atari alum,

any new secret next gen info from your friends at EA?

 

[a688]

hi atari alum,

any new secret next gen info from your friends at EA?

When AA posts, I don't know if I should laugh or cry.

 

[Gubbi]

hi atari alum,

any new secret next gen info from your friends at EA?

When AA posts, I don't know if I should laugh or cry.

Then laugh so hard you cry.

Cheers
Gubbi

 

[passerby]

Hey! DM finally gets an opposing counterpart!

How about this request - a special thread on the forum is created and only AA and DM can post there. That will be some awesome entertainment!

 

[David_South#1]

Point is, whatever the capabilities of Cell as a processor, doesn't mean all those capabilities were targetted solely for PS3.

You're right, IBM is using Cell for some of their server solution. When that's out, we will see some official benchmark of it, that you won't get with PS3.

Those benchmarks will be different in use to what the PS3 intends.
Panajev shared an IBM interview with me a while back.
In it the Cell processor would be used for media servers with the Power5 as the primary processor. Also Cell will be limited to two of IBM's middle market servers. I think it was the E and P series.

Anyhow I still haven't been able to understand the real usefulness of a Cell processor. Just of list of things it might be able to be used in. In many ways to me it is a vast improment on the EE of the PS2 but limited usefullness in the same respect. NVIDIA is needed to create a new GS, but are they needed for a whole (PC like) GPU? If they are then the number of SPE IMO doesn't need be very many.

 

[V3]

Those benchmarks will be different in use to what the PS3 intends.

True, but it will probably the only thing we get publicly, that aren't quite PR number. And you can compare it to other processor. Not PS3 per say, just the cell processor. After all that's what I was talking about.

Anyhow I still haven't been able to understand the real usefulness of a Cell processor. Just of list of things it might be able to be used in. In many ways to me it is a vast improment on the EE of the PS2 but limited usefullness in the same respect. NVIDIA is needed to create a new GS, but are they needed for a whole (PC like) GPU? If they are then the number of SPE IMO doesn't need be very many.

Cell would be over engineered if you just chained a couple SPE in there. Heck I feel it was over engineered, if Sony is only going to put in one cell in PS3.

 

[Devourer]

You see, some people just feel better believing in the "OMG Cell is not as powahfull as Sony thought so they had to get NVIDIA at the last minute to make PS3 more powerful!!1!eleven!!" stories.

Well, that's Dave Baumann story, if I remember correctly.

 

[Michael Walter]

Because you don't want a GPU in your mobile phone and TV! That's overkill.

Yeah..do you want a full PPE + some SPEs in your cell phone and 3 kg batteries pack?

CELL phone ^D

 

[nAo]

CELL phone ^D

It's nice to know thare is someone who likes my jokes at least

 

[version]

http://www-306.ibm.com/chips/techli...C2D/$file/MPR-Cell-details-article-021405.pdf