The Cell Processor....

[joeorc]

Soleron said:

joeorc said:

Soleron said:

 

 

"the Cell is also a GPU...the Cell is a hybrid CPU/GPU so yes it does indeed make game look better if you as a developer design a game to use the Cell Processor's GPU functions..and as for the PPE being there to control the SPE's , once again that is not 100% true the SPE's are and can be used without the need of the PPE to direct them, does that mean the SPE should..no because you indeed get better result's from the PRE-call file system of the PPE to the SPE's. but the SPE's can do DMA commands without the need of the PPE."

That claim is marketing speak only. The Cell is clearly a CPU, however you are right in that it has much higher FP performance per core than a normal CPU. But it doesn't have any fixed-function hardware that a GPU does and it has very few parallel threads compared to a GPU. I said it can perform some pre- and post-rendering effects to the graphics, but if you were to make it do shaders it would be 10-100x slower than the PS3's GPU.

umm no its not..that is for sure not marketing speak,since when is 30 billion shader ops/sec is marketing speak because that is what the Cell has been already benchmarked at with its terrain rendering..that's without needing the GPU...the Cell is infact a hybrid CPU/GPU yes it does indeed get better results while working in tandum with the GPU but the Cell is infact also a GPU ..that's not marketing speak it is what it is.

Yeah, and you can use a standard desktop quad-core to do software rendering too, and it looks about as good as that Cell rendering demo (i.e. rubbish compared to modern GPUs) You'd still call Intel's quad-cores CPUs, right? To qualify as a GPU it has to be massively parallel, have some fixed-function hardware to accelerate setup, and support a graphics API. Not one commercially available product using the Cell uses it for rendering like a GPU.

yes the Quad-core can also be used for rendering too, but it is not designed as a HYBRID CPU/GPU the Cell processor is.

"To qualify as a GPU it has to be massively parallel"

That's like saying the GPU's 10 year's ago are not GPU's because they were not "massively parallel" or shader programming was not as well developed..!

come on man..I respect you and all but your claim is bogus, you know better than that.

those GPU's back then were still GPU's....by today's standards they are no way near as capable as today's upto date card's but it does not take away from the fact they are what they are.

The Cell is a Hybrid CPU/GPthat is 100% a fact..nothing changes that..the Quad core is not a hybrid CPU/GPU that is a fact nothing changes that.

as for Not One product uses the Cell to render as a GPU..why would it..think about it it would be very expensive to use the Cell to replace the functions of a dedicated GPU because the GPU is right now cheaper because its 100% dedicated as a GPU and its cheaper to use the existing API's that many GPU's that are already mature for dedicated Graphic's cards anf graphic's chip's in in embedded systems. the very fact that ,AMD ,ATI, Nvidia,Intel and now IBM along with sony and toshiba are all gearing up and all making HYBRID CPU/GPU type CHIPS. the dedicated GPU in embedded systems may be going the way side in the fact that these Hybrid chips are cheaper and more than capable to do GPU functions without the need of a dedicated GPU.Now this is mainly toward Embeded systems and not the mainstram PC Desktop market but for the fact that these processor's are not bought as "quote"

Not one commercially available product

just because you cannot buy the Cell Processor over the counter at a computer supply store does not mean it cannot be used for Graphic's functions. for instance the Cell makes a great GPU accelerator chip for graphic's..which Toshiba already has done with some Laptop's they already have on the market. like for example the Toshiba's qosmio-g50.