Why did Sony use the Cell processor in the PS3?

[rocketpig]

MikeB said:
The RSX objectively provides more raw perfomance, so it's a matter of perspective. AFAIK the full RSX specs haven't even been published, so it's mostly just guesswork. I do however agree developers had more time to get to know the Xenos and the XBox 360 in general, which is an advantage. However on the other hand the combination Cell + RSX is extremely powerful, how it's all able to work together is greater than merely a summ of individual parts.

It's arguable that the RSX provides more raw performance. Most articles I've read call it a wash or give a slight edge to the Xenos based on its unified shader architecture. Either way, they're very close.

But you're right, the Cell+RSX combo is very powerful but difficult to harness. No one can really argue that with the plethora of information we've seen over the past year or more.

I was only arguing that the Cell CPU (a single core that clocks in around 3.2ghz) is as powerful as the Xenos (a tri-core that clocks in around 3.2ghz also) with its SPEs removed from the equation. Since the base CPUs are very similar (both designed by IBM on PPC architecture using the Power6 platform), it's kinda silly to think that the single core of the PS3 is up to speed with the tri-core 360. Of course, this is with all SPEs removed from the argument (before I get flamed by some idiot who didn't bother to read the entire post).