scottie said:
Hmm, maybe I wasn't entirely clear. I wasn't saying that the PS3 isn't a good machine - it clearly is.
My point was that the PS3 has a much better processor than it does RAM, whereas for gaming you traditionally need alot of RAM, but the processor isn't as important. And I was using that to explain why in pretty much all PS3 games, only 60% or whatever of the SPE will be used, but that we will never see games that do use 100% because of the insufficient RAM |
Although I would agree that both systems could utilize more RAM, as we move to a multi-core/thread environment the amount of memory is no longer the only design factor. The increase in excecution cores in the traditional pc design brings an increase in memory latencies due to limitations with the bus architecture and more importantly the speed of the memory. This is why the comparisons between the xenon and the cell don't necessarily work. If you look at the specs of each using the standard metrics of amount of memory, core frequency, and clock speed both systems would look similar. If you take into account the overall design including bandwidth and memory speed, the cell would be viewed more favorably.
In short the amount of memory becomes irrelevant if the access mechanics are not adequately sized.
Thanks for the input, Jeff.