My XBox 360 vs PS3 comparison (mostly technical)

[Final-Fan]

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.

2. The thrust of the point I had made which you had been arguing was that the multi-Cell design didn't have to exist for the GPU design to be rushed. That's all I was trying to say.

3. The Cell is not designed exclusively for the PS3, correct? Perhaps the GPU-like qualities of the Cell are simply a natural result of the processor's novel take on CPU design. It would be plausible to say that that property would cause Sony to consider a Cell graphics solution, but not to say that the intention to use it for such is necessarily the reason why the Cell was designed the way it was.

And GPUs aside, wouldn't a 4-Cell (or EIGHT-CELL, as the thread speculates) design have been prohibitively expensive? Look at how much one Cell cost! "PS3 is expected to sport multiple Cell chips" -- I can easily interpret that as being the result of people taking the fact of the Cell's existence and basically speculating the PS3's design by saying "how would I use this to build an awesomely powerful console?" That may not be so, but nothing about that post tells me it's not. In fact, for all I know, it could be the result of someone misunderstanding the PPU/SPU design!

From Ars Technica: "each SPE is like a very small vector computer, with its own "CPU" and RAM." It wouldn't be hard for someone to misinterpret that comment and others like it.
http://arstechnica.com/articles/paedia/cpu/cell-1.ars/2
http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=1727

Please try again, I really want to settle this question of multi-Cell design, I won't be sad to be proven wrong.

Regarding the ATI interview you mention: I presume you mean this one: "With the PS3 my understanding of what happened is that they had three different internal hardware solutions - at one point, for example, as I understand it there was a proposal to use multiple Cell processors just to handle the graphics. And towards the end of the process, as the story goes, they took a look at the three internal tenders and decided than none of them would actually do".

That is entirely consistent with my theory that the multi-Cell design was an early idea that got thrown out because it was impractical -- one of many proposed designs, but not one that necessarily made it very far into the design process. The ATI guy probably used that example because it was memorable and remarkable.  And ATI had no reason to love Sony at that point.