Graphics Capabilities: Xbox 360 vs. PS3 - A tale of the tape

[staticneuron]

LordTheNightKnight said:

So those may be another couple of things, but at that article you linked stated: "As one of the designers noted in a previous article on the Cell, the kind of bandwidth they'll need to make this work probably can't be provided by any bus technology currently in existence."

That's because real-time graphics don't just go through the CPU. It needs all the other parts. The Cell is f*cking fast from what I've seen, but the rest of the PS3 is of a design that can't take full advantage of that. It could be another ten years (hopefully less) before bus speeds are fast enough to do what the Cell can do in real time, in a system the mass market can afford.

Each of these elements inside the cell are clocked at 3.2GHz and are connected on a 4 ring Element Interconnect Bus(EIB) capable of a peak performance of ~204.8GB/s. Every processing element on the bus has its own memory flow controller and direct memory access (DMA) controller. Other elements on the bus are the memory controller to the 256MB XDR RAM, and two Flex I/O controllers.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cell_microprocessor#Element_Interconnect_Bus_.28EIB.29

if everything is connected to the EIB there is no reduction of system perfomance as you are mentioning. There certain penalties incurred, for example... the cell writing to the RSX's local memory. But that would be rare for a developer to do and is entirely dependant on their situation. And that would be a prime example off methhodolgy being applied without understanding.

EDIT: just in case this isn't clear enough.... the cell is fast 3.2 ghz but the XDR ram is also 3.2 ghz and so is the EIB. between the RSX, the cell and the ram I am not sure what else would be imprtant enough to somehow hamper the system. Even the prehipherals come in over the high speed I/O channels which are connected to the EIB.

 

Maybe I am missing something?