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Booh! on 19 March 2010
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Garcian Smith said:
Booh! said:
Garcian Smith said:

If the four-year-old Cell found in a $299 game console can outperform a $1000 Core i7, then why aren't people using the Cell for CPU-intensive tasks instead of the i7?

They are: 

For physics, graphics related and signal processing tasks, the cell processor, being a vector processor, can crush any modern scalar processor (like the i7).

I'm not talking about a few isolated incidents of people utilizing a bunch of Cells in a supercomputer array. I'm talking normal consumer use. According to reports, Sony are now turning a profit on the PS3 at $299, so the implementation of the Cell in the PS3 can't cost much to manufacture. Why haven't Cells replaced Core-i5s and Athlon IIs in gaming computers if they're so powerful? More than that, why didn't they in 2006 when people were still paying several hundred dollars for Core 2 Duos? By all rights, if what jhuff394 said is true, then Sony and IBM should be multi-billionaires with a monopoly over the CPU market by now.
  1. Those examples are not incidental, IBM sells cell-based supercomputers (the ibm roadrunner it's the second fastest and the fourth most energy-efficient supercomputer in the world). Cell was mainly developed for such tasks, not just for the ps3.
  2. The cell is a specialized processor, it's not a processor for pc, where you have lots of low demanding tasks running in background. It's very good at doing a few hard tasks, not at doing many simple tasks.
  3. People needs software on their pc and there isn't much software designed for the cell (besides physics simulator and mathematical libraries), nor fancy OS's like MacOSX or Windows.