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.

It's point (2) that I'm getting at. Gigaflops are not a useful or accurate measure of a CPU's capability, and including the Cell in the PS3 rather than a traditional CPU was clearly a gimmick on Sony's part. Many games on PS3 struggle to even reach a steady framerate at 1280x720: BioShock, Modern Warfare 2, Ghostbusters, GTA4, Guitar Hero 5, Marvel UA2, MGS4, Prototype, every PS3 Ratchet & Clank game, Saint's Row 2, Star Ocean 4, and Tekken 6, among others, actually have to render at a lower resolution and upscale to 720p. Many of these games have PC ports that can swing 30+, and in some cases 60+ FPS at true 1080p on a modern mid-range gaming system, with graphical effects and AA that the PS3 could never dream of. And these are games developed on an open hardware platform, as opposed to the PS3's closed, proprietary system that the developers are free to optimize to their heart's content.

To those saying that the PS3 is more powerful than a modern gaming PC: Tell me why, for example, Modern Warfare 2 needs to run at an upscaled 1024x600 w/2x AA on the PS3, while a system sporting a $200 Core i5-750 (linked benchmarks use an i7-920, but there's no practical difference between the two for gaming) plus a Radeon 5770 (a mid-range card that can be had for about $150) can pull a steady 60 FPS on the same game at 1920x1200 w/4X AA and max settings? Keep in mind that this is affordable, mid-range hardware too - I'm not even touching what, say, a Radeon 5870 could do for the same game.

I am pretty sure RAM has a huge thing to do with that. a HUGE thing. Also video card effects the FPS then the processor. I have an I7 quad core and I can't get more then 40 FPS out of crysis on high settings. Because my graphics card is meh. Who knows how well the PS3 would perform with 4 gigs of ram and a graphics card that is on level with that.

So the Cell isn't powerful enough to sort out the performance shortfall then which is what everyone pro PC has said in this discussion. 

PS3 < modern gaming PC

Honestly, it's madness to even try and pretend otherwise, my PC is nearly 2 years old and would obliterate a PS3.  It doesn't matter what the Cell could do with more RAM and a better graphics card, that's not up for debate so stop moving the goal posts trying to squirm out of accepting a simple fact. 

Where did I say anywhere that a PS3 beats a modern gaming PC? I am just saying. A lot of the performance shit could be limited based on RAM above all else. I mean if you take my I7 and give it 256 MB of ram. I am pretty certain it will do shit compared to my current 4 gigs.

Sigh, I see we have the resident PC fanboy. I am a PC gamer, have been since 1983. Pc is technically way more poweerful, yes.

Problem. How many devs are utilizing the PC's power? Crytek were the last, and that was 2007, is that a thing to brag about? One game in 2007? Crysis technically is the most impressive looking game technically, buy, graphics are a lot more then that.

No game out is as impressive to look at as GOW 3. Crysis does not have the epic scale, battle, art direction, presentation, animation, epic score,  and gameplay all tied in one awesome package. Sorry, Crysis is great, but overall, no game has as many jaw dropping moments as GOW 3. No amount of technical graphics features changes the fact that no one is making games liek GOw or Uncharted that have top notch presentation, art direction, level design on PC.  Crysis's art direction was very poor, none of the levels were interesting or really made you ake notice, very generic. Outside maybe inside the alien ship, which was impressive.

Pc is by far the most powerful platform, problem is its being abandoned, barely anyone is using it to make games look better. Its sad when my Core i7 PC, is out done in pure jaw dropping moments where family members even comment on it by my Ps3. We mainly get ports with only higher resolution options, when we should be getting epic scale like GOw 3. Graphcis are a lot more the shiony textures, and technical etails, it is how all the parts are used and go together.

On topic, crysis 2 does not look any better then current AAA console games. We all know the PC version will be the best, crytek at least seem to still utilize PC the way it should be.  Crysis 2 PC will be great looking, but a multi-plat title wont look any better then current AAA console games, which all look good. Way too much focus on graphics as usual.

This is Cryteks frist ever time developing for consoles, and they are not the GODS some make them out to be, THey said Crysis would utilize 64 bit, and run much better on quad core, neither really ended up being true as 64 bit was a mess, and faster dual cores ran crysis better. it was also buggy, and ran like arse if your LCD had a native res higher then 1280 X 1024, barely anyone could run it with AA on making it a jaggy mess.

Crysis 2 doesnt look any better then a year old PS3 shooter, and I doubt will top GOW 3 impressive scale. Looks like a more linear crysis 1 with worse graphics. i dount crytek can make use of the cell like Sony can, crytek are new to consoles, sony knows cell better then anyone.

Lets not get into the fact the first game while good, certainly was not great at all. it was more Linear then advertised as well.

I miss the days devs made games for PC and utilized them as the powerhouses they are, instead it is becoming a place for mainly ports with very few exclusives utilizing its power. At least I still get better FPS then on consoles, lol.

The cell isn't a gimmick (the pentium3 of the xbox was a gimmick tbh), it's a specialized CPU for a specialized machine, not a general purpose CPU for a general purpose machine. It's good at what it is supposed to do, that's all.

Back on topic, is Killzone 2 comparable to Crysis? IMO yes, animations are better on killzone and crysis uses some gimmick that make it looks strange (while the art direction of killzone 2 is more uniform). About Crysis 2, since the strong points of the Crytek engine  are resolution and number of polygons, I don't think that its console versions will look better than killzone.

I agree, Crysis 2 is not all that, at least not on console. Crytek already made the game smaller and linear due to the consoles, the animation in crysis was poor as well. Compare the animation, presentation, art direction and level design, games like UC2 and especially GOW 3 are a lot more impressive watching in motion.

Thank you this is a very important statement...I say ps3 will have better looking games than the pc now and down the road... Not only because of comparable hardware, but because of first party developers that FOCUS DAY IN AND DAY OUT ON THE CELL/RSX COMBO...

PC developers make their games for any general set of any computer hardware that will run it.. They dont specifically design software to take advantage of a certain hardware configuration..

Two more points to make..PC games will never have a budget of 44 million dollars like god of war 3 or anything remotely close to any PS3 exclusive..The budget represents the amount of effort, time, and technology that will be implemented in the game...

The final point...Blu-ray... God of war 3 is 35 GB, you will not see a pc game this large anytime soon...This 35 GB is not for length of the game either (the game is not that long).. So its obvious that this data is put into the detail and tech for the game..

With all this being said I do NOT see a pc game topping a high quality ps3 exclusive in the graphics department..atleast not for quite a while.