The Cell Processor....

[joeorc]

bardicverse said:
That's some pretty sweet processing, 8 cores at 3.2 ghz. That makes me appreciate the engineering for keeping the system cool. That can make for some serious overheating if done wrong.

Part of the issue with multicore gaming is that some devs are lazy and don't make full use of it. If a game is designed to only use a core or 2, you have 6 cores sitting around doing nothing.

This does make for an interesting theory though - If multiplat HD games (360+ PS3) are similar in function and design, just easily ported over, then the most cores these games will make use of is 3, since that is the 360 max. If this holds true, every multiplat game that comes to the PS3 only uses 3 cores, with 5 cores doing nothing.

This must put high end developers in a tough spot, as the only way to fully use the PS3 power is to make an exclusive title, but the market shows that this isn't a wise investment.

I wonder if there will be a PS3 game that will use all 8 cores.

yes it is quite a bit of computeing power like the xbxo360 all the cores that's each core run's at 3.2 ghz, so yea it get's plenty hot...

as for all 8 being used..developers only have access to 6 that are free, the "8th spe core is disabled to Developer's" it's used for meshed era redundancy developer's have no access to that 8th core, as for the 7th SPE its used for OS functions and tied closely with the 8th disabled SPE core.So Developer's are not very likely to ever be able to use even the 7th because it's pretty much going to be very bizzy all the time in computeing cycle's.

so that will leave just the PPE+6 SPE cores that developer's can use for praticle purposes