My XBox 360 vs PS3 comparison (mostly technical)

[sieanr]

Final-Fan said:

2. How does that take care of the rushed GPU design? The GPU in the PS3 is a nvidia G70 variant put in the console at the last moment, it was rushed. All unless what your getting at is that Sony never seriously considered 4-Cell solution; which is odd because they were working on this until a couple months before they went to Nvidia. You dont work on something for that long, with no real alternative, if you arent seriously considering it. Remember that in the past Sony had created their own graphics solutions for their consoles including systems as recent as the PSP. The move to an external vendor for the GPU is quite the change in Sony strategy.

3. It doesn't imply that it was designed to replace the GPU, although it does support the idea that they wanted a 4-cell solution.

Can you point me to some reputable, unbiased source giving a detailed history of PS3 development? That would settle most of my questions. Until then I have a hard time believing that Sony ever thought that a 4-Cell design could be remotely cost-conscious.

To respond to your reply #2: If Sony was trying to close a deal with ATI and it fell through, forcing them to turn to Nvidia at the last minute, any multi-Cell designs that may or may not have existed before the attempted ATI deal are irrelevant to the fact that the Nvidia-GPU PS3 design was rushed because of the failed ATI deal.

To respond to your reply #3: In what way is the fact that the Cell is good at things GPUs are good at evidence that a Cell or Cells was/were meant to do the job of a GPU in the PS3?

One of the higher ups at ATI had a semi-well known interview where he talked about Sonys all cell solution and some of the other things they attempted before they came to ATI. Plenty of developers at Beyond 3D have confirmed this, talking about the original specifications for the PS3. There were rumors from years ago about the PS3 using multiple Cells, for example this and hundreds of other forum post; http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=11321 

Sorry, I can't find a "reputable" source of the PS3 development history with a timeline - those things usually dont become clear until years after a system is dead. Still, Sony did think that a 4-Cell system would be cost effective and you can find various write ups talking about cost reduction with the Cell and how it would eventually reach cell phones. A big part of the Cells current cost comes from poor chip yields, which is something that can be hard to predict before you start chip production.

But keep in mind this was Kutaragi's idea of the right price - it was under his lead that the PS3 project ran hundreds of millions of dollars overbudget, and resulted in major problems from the people above him. Supposedly, he just didn't care that much about how much the system was going to cost as all he wanted to do was push his idea of the future, and thought that the PS brand would still be profitiable. Really, just look at rumored production cost of the PS3 now shows they didn't factor in production cost that much in the current model - because it wasn't a major priority of the design.

Also keep in mind that GPUs advanced faster than many people were expecting - Sony in particular.

2. Uh, ok? 

3. Its circumstantial evidence for a reason; no hard proof, but it makes sense. A multi Cell PS3 without a real GPU was rumored for ages, you have a CPU that can do GPU functions - its not rocket science.

Why the hell would you make a CPU be capable of handling GPU like functions if you intended to have a real GPU in the system - one that can do those things much better. Why have it do those functions when it comes at the detriment of AI and other CPU functions? Why not create a simpler, more convential CPU that would be easier on developers - unless you meant for those SPUs to fullfil a GPU like role. There is a certain elegance to an all Cell PS3 design, but GPUs just advanced too fast to make it competitive from a performance standpoint.