What are the chances PS3 will have two separate CELLs?
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BOOMEXPLODE
Regular
I think you'd have better chances of winning the lottery hehe
I doPC-Engine said:Paul said:Heh.. another week or so and you'll see
You think SONY will release full specs at E3? :?
... heck, there have even been rumours that there will be a few playable games there, too
..also, this E³ may be the last E³ before launch, if the rumours of the early 2006 launch turn out true
although.. even after they reveal the specs, the exact specs may change beween the time they reveal them and the PS3 's launch
The GameMaster
Newcomer
Cost and heat wise it may not be very likely the PS3 will have 2 or more Cell CPUs. The PS3 will not even get that 4.6ghz 8 SPE Cell CPU they showed off at the CES, but it will get a version of that has at least 4-6 SPEs and probably clocked around 3-3.5ghz. Keep in mind a lot of this REALLY depends on what exactly they are doing with the GPU and if the PS3 is anything like the PS2 (which it is) then I would suspect the CPU will have some graphics related duties such as geometry rendering and perhaps pixel shaders being doing on one or more of the SPEs.
I have two different thoughts on how the PS3 could end up looking like spec wise... one is what I believe it will be and the other is what it needs to be in order to be competitive to the XBox2 graphically speaking.
My expected Playstation 3 specs, based on what I believe are realistic expectations...
3.5ghz 6 SPE Cell CPU
128MB of RAMBUS XDRAM
Sony/nVidia GPU with 32MB of eDRAM
Dragon Processor EE/GS (For PS2 backward compatibility)
NOTES:
*The Cell CPU will be responsible for normal game tasks (AI/physics/etc) as well as certain graphics related functions (shaders/vertex rendering)
*The GPU is a Sony made GPU with assistance from nVidia to improve certain things between the Cell CPU and the GPU, this GPU would only handle texturing and framebuffer.)
My expected Playstation 3 specs, based on what I hope the PS3 specs will generally look like...
Dual 3.5ghz 6 SPE Cell CPU
256MB of RAMBUS XDRAM (128MB for each Cell CPU)
Sony/nVidia GPU with 16MB of eDRAM
Dragon Processor EE/GS (For PS2 backward compatibility)
NOTES:
*Two Cell CPUs instead of one with each having it's own bank of 128MB of RAM.
*The first Cell CPU would only handle game related tasks (AI/physics/etc) and the second Cell CPU would be connected to the GPU via the FlexIO bus, the second Cell CPU would handle vertex rendering and shader processing solely and then passed to the GPU via the FlexIO bus.
*The GPU is a Sony made GPU with assistance from nVidia to improve certain things between the Cell CPU and the GPU, this GPU would only handle texturing and framebuffer.)
Ideally the PS3 would benefit the most from a full fledged GPU from nVidia, but chances are and considering the rhetoric from Sony the GPU will not be a full fledged GPU like the one in the XBox. Two Cell CPUs would benefit the PS3 a lot more if this is the case, performance wise... you do NOT want your main CPU having to deal with graphics related tasks... this would be a repeat of some of the same problems in the PS2. Additionally two Cell CPUs would help get the PS3 256MB of RAM cheaper as RAMBUS RAM is not cheap... the 512Mbit XDRAM is a lot more expensive than the 256Mbit XDRAM.
I do expect the PS3 to share a lot of things in common with the PS2, but there are certain things I hope it does not share. In the end I believe things will come down to what the GPU is going to look like in the PS3, but there are other things having one or two Cell CPUs will influence in the PS3's final specs. Bottom line is that I do hope the PS3 has two Cell CPUs and not one, of course I would perfer a full fledged GPU... but I am hedging my bets and will hope for two Cell CPUs instead.
The GameMaster...
I have two different thoughts on how the PS3 could end up looking like spec wise... one is what I believe it will be and the other is what it needs to be in order to be competitive to the XBox2 graphically speaking.
My expected Playstation 3 specs, based on what I believe are realistic expectations...
3.5ghz 6 SPE Cell CPU
128MB of RAMBUS XDRAM
Sony/nVidia GPU with 32MB of eDRAM
Dragon Processor EE/GS (For PS2 backward compatibility)
NOTES:
*The Cell CPU will be responsible for normal game tasks (AI/physics/etc) as well as certain graphics related functions (shaders/vertex rendering)
*The GPU is a Sony made GPU with assistance from nVidia to improve certain things between the Cell CPU and the GPU, this GPU would only handle texturing and framebuffer.)
My expected Playstation 3 specs, based on what I hope the PS3 specs will generally look like...
Dual 3.5ghz 6 SPE Cell CPU
256MB of RAMBUS XDRAM (128MB for each Cell CPU)
Sony/nVidia GPU with 16MB of eDRAM
Dragon Processor EE/GS (For PS2 backward compatibility)
NOTES:
*Two Cell CPUs instead of one with each having it's own bank of 128MB of RAM.
*The first Cell CPU would only handle game related tasks (AI/physics/etc) and the second Cell CPU would be connected to the GPU via the FlexIO bus, the second Cell CPU would handle vertex rendering and shader processing solely and then passed to the GPU via the FlexIO bus.
*The GPU is a Sony made GPU with assistance from nVidia to improve certain things between the Cell CPU and the GPU, this GPU would only handle texturing and framebuffer.)
Ideally the PS3 would benefit the most from a full fledged GPU from nVidia, but chances are and considering the rhetoric from Sony the GPU will not be a full fledged GPU like the one in the XBox. Two Cell CPUs would benefit the PS3 a lot more if this is the case, performance wise... you do NOT want your main CPU having to deal with graphics related tasks... this would be a repeat of some of the same problems in the PS2. Additionally two Cell CPUs would help get the PS3 256MB of RAM cheaper as RAMBUS RAM is not cheap... the 512Mbit XDRAM is a lot more expensive than the 256Mbit XDRAM.
I do expect the PS3 to share a lot of things in common with the PS2, but there are certain things I hope it does not share. In the end I believe things will come down to what the GPU is going to look like in the PS3, but there are other things having one or two Cell CPUs will influence in the PS3's final specs. Bottom line is that I do hope the PS3 has two Cell CPUs and not one, of course I would perfer a full fledged GPU... but I am hedging my bets and will hope for two Cell CPUs instead.
The GameMaster...
The GameMaster said:
I agree with this.
The GameMaster said:
Pixel shading won't happen on the CPU.
The GameMaster said:
1) There'll be at least 256MB of main system memory.
2) You really think Sony roped in NVidia to provide a texturing-only unit? Why would Sony need NVidia's help integrating their own graphics chip with Cell? NVidia has no previous experience with Cell. Furthermore, NVidia have little experience with eDram. What, exactly, would Nvidia be contributing to this setup?
I think Sony/Toshiba could handle coming up with a simple texturing GPU by themselves! There'll at least be pixel shading on the GPU, if not more. The GameMaster said:
Sony needs two cell chips to be "competitive" with X360? Hehe, no. You're severly underestimating the GPU side of things - what makes you think there won't be a "fully fledged" GPU in PS3? What Sony rhetoric are you talking about? The latest rumours regarding the dev kit put it at having a 6800 Ultra or 2 6800 Ultras in SLI (and apparently that even "doesn't scratch the surface of the final chip")..that should tell you something about the GPU. I believe David Roman of Nvidia has indicated on a number of occasions now that the GPU will be nvidia's most feature-rich and powerful when it is released - a simple texturing unit wouldn't really qualify. At the very least it'll handle all pixel shading in a "fully fledged" manner, with vertex processing on the CPU. Which as far as I can see would be a very nice setup indeed..
I don't think they are going to go with dual cell chips . Costly and it may end up putting them in a worse situation than with one bigger chip. As instead of say 2 million 1x8 cell chip they will need 4 million 1x4 cell chips . Not only that but they will need more costly boards as there will be more lines as the cpus will need to talk to each other they will need to talk to the gpu and ram also . Making the insides messier . I would think they would go 1x8 and eat the yields so in the long run the design is easier to shrink .
I think some of you are expecting way to much . I would also think 2 cells , 1 next gen gpu would need alot more than 256 megs of shared ram otherwise your going to get some pretty small res textures
I think some of you are expecting way to much . I would also think 2 cells , 1 next gen gpu would need alot more than 256 megs of shared ram otherwise your going to get some pretty small res textures
JF_Aidan_Pryde
Regular
Anyone predicting non-to the power of two SPE numbers are just not reading SCEE's president's words correctly.
Is the 'power' the exponent? If so to what 'base' is it referring to? Is it a geometric series? etc. etc...
IIRC, I don't think it was explicit to SPE's or CELL...just generic, so I read that as 2, 4, 8, 16, 32 etc... all apply to whatever KK was referring to. Though I would'nt expect more than one CELL 1:8.
However, if the FlexIO is 45 GB/s OUT (CELL) and 32 GB/s IN (GPU + IO), what if the 'IN' didn't come from the GPU? It could be the 'IN' from another CELL...or 'something else'...?
IIRC, I don't think it was explicit to SPE's or CELL...just generic, so I read that as 2, 4, 8, 16, 32 etc... all apply to whatever KK was referring to. Though I would'nt expect more than one CELL 1:8.
However, if the FlexIO is 45 GB/s OUT (CELL) and 32 GB/s IN (GPU + IO), what if the 'IN' didn't come from the GPU? It could be the 'IN' from another CELL...or 'something else'...?
Meaning? You seem to be saying JF_Aiden_Pryde doens't realise 4 SPEs is a power of two, where he's obvously talking to the likes of The GameMaster who's talking of a 1:6 config. Unless you're going to follow with '6 SPEs is a power of two, just not an integer power of 2'
JF_Aidan_Pryde said:
I think he's referring to manufacturing, more than anything else there. Manufacturing with a power of 2 # of SPEs doesn't mean we'll get a power of 2 number of SPEs. That recent Nikkei article talked about the number of SPEs always being even, rather than a power of two.
I think 6 SPEs (effectively) is very possible for PS3's CPU.
Shifty Geezer said:Meaning? You seem to be saying JF_Aiden_Pryde doens't realise 4 SPEs is a power of two, where he's obvously talking to the likes of The GameMaster who's talking of a 1:6 config. Unless you're going to follow with '6 SPEs is a power of two, just not an integer power of 2'
Huh?
Are you talking to me? I wasn't replying to anyone in particular here...just making a 'play' on the word 'power'....some of you guys need to chill...
I'd like to know the logic behind manufacturing chip 20% larger then necessary and then keeping those extra transistors disabled.
The PS3 isn't some low-budget/low-volume offshot of main Cell production like 386SX was for 386...
Moreover we're talking about a console, not some PC workstation.
And unless I'm terribly mistaken - disabling 2 random SPUs on a ring bus would have random effects on internal bus latencies.
That's akin to having CPU document stating stuff like "MADD latency is 4-8cycles, randomly changing from one CPU to the next". :?
2 is a power of 2. Cell with 2 SPEs!!!1!1
Cell with 2 SPEs!!!1!1Similar threads
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