I'm wondering right now if the PS2 is more powerful than the Nintendo 64 :P

 Off cource it is. The ps2 is about >or= to psp, the psp>ds>n64.

first off you are full of it!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Progressive_Scan_PS2_Games

Just so you know if your using a standard tv with yellow red and white cables standard for most consoles!  your running the game in interlace mode! thats 30 fps regardless what system your using or 480i! if you have an enhanced tv or hdtv you can run it in 480p which the original xbox offered out of the box!

PS2 offered it latter and gamecube took forever to offer component cables! Component is red green blue then it displays on your tv at 480p which is 60 fps!  the wii needs component cable to run in progressive scan other then that if your playing a game in interlace its 30 fps! I dont care about native resolution its misleading because its converted to the scan availible on your tv!

also the 360 and PS3 with component can run in 720p to 1080i and hdmi  1080p! these are your display resolution for instance halo 3 native resolution is 640p with a double buffer but the 360 can upconvert it to 1080p which is even cleaner!

But the GC could not run games like FFX or FFXII or GTA:SA without going to more then one disc, and i don't think people would like to play GTA on more then one disc.

I don't quite understand the confusion you have going on there. Interlaced/progressive is one thing, 30/60 fps is another one... Interlaced/progressive refers to which/how many lines you update in each frame, 30/60 fps refers to how many frames per second the console calculates.

@sc94597: I hope you're being as sarcastic as I was ;)

[edit] Technical specifications
This section does not cite any references or sources. (January 2008)
Please improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed.

The specifications of the PlayStation 2 console are as follows, with hardware revisions:


Emotion Engine CPU
Graphics Synthesizer GPU
ASIC that incorporates the EE, GS, and system memory (found in silver slim PS2s. Model SCPH-79000)
I/O Processor (PlayStation 1 CPU) I/O BusCPU: 64-bit/128-bit "Emotion Engine" clocked at 294 MHz (299 MHz on newer versions), 10.5 million transistors
System Memory: 32 MB (MiB) Direct Rambus or RDRAM
Memory bus Bandwidth: 3.2 gigabytes per second
Main processor: MIPS R5900 CPU core, 64 bit
Coprocessor: FPU (Floating Point Multiply Accumulator × 1, Floating Point Divider × 1)
Vector Units: VU0 and VU1 (Floating Point Multiply Accumulator × 9, Floating Point Divider × 1), 128 bit, at 150 MHz.
VU0 typically used for physics and other gameplay type things
VU1 typically used for polygon transformations, lighting and other visual based calculations
Floating Point Performance: 6.2 gigaFLOPS (single precision 32-bit floating point)
FPU 0.64 gigaFLOPS
VU0 2.44 gigaFLOPS
VU1 3.08 gigaFLOPS (with Internal 0.64 gigaFLOP EFU)
3D CG Geometric transformation(VU0+VU1 parallel): 66 million polygons per second
3D CG Geometric transformations under curved surfaces: 16 million polygons per second
3D CG Geometric transformations at peak movements/effects(textures)/lights(VU0+VU1): 15-20 million polygons per second (dependant on if series or parallel T&L)
Actual real-world polygons (per frame):500-650k at 30fps, 250-325k at 60fps
Compressed Image Decoder: MPEG-2
I/O Processor interconnection: Remote Procedure Call over a serial link, DMA controller for bulk transfer
Cache memory: Instruction: 16 KB (KiB), Data: 8 KB + 16 KB (ScrP)
GPU: "Graphics Synthesizer" clocked at 147 MHz
Pixel pipelines: 16
Video output resolution: variable from 256x224 to 1280x1024 pixels
4 MB (MiB) Embedded DRAM video memory bandwidth at 48 gigabytes per second (main system 32 MB can be dedicated into VRAM for off-screen materials)
Texture buffer bandwidth: 9.6 GB/s
Frame buffer bandwidth: 38.4 GB/s
DRAM Bus width: 2560-bit (composed of three independent buses: 1024-bit write, 1024-bit read, 512-bit read/write)
Pixel Configuration: RGB: Alpha:Z Buffer (24:8, 15:1 for RGB, 16, 24, or 32-bit Z buffer)
Dedicated connection to: Main CPU and VU1
Overall Pixel fillrate: 16x147 = 2.352 Gpixel/s (rounded to 2.4 Gpixel/s)
Pixel fillrate: with no texture, flat shaded 2.4(75,000,000 32pixel raster triangles)
Pixel fillrate: with 1 full texture(Diffuse Map), Gouraud shaded 1.2 (37,750,000 32-bit pixel raster triangles)
Pixel fillrate: with 2 full textures(Diffuse map + specular or alpha or other), Gouraud shaded 0.6 (18,750,000 32-bit pixel raster triangles)
Multi-pass rendering ability
Four passes = 300 Mpixel/s (300 Mpixel/s divided by 32pixel = 9,375,000 triangle/sec lossed every four passes)
Audio: "SPU1+SPU2" (SPU1 is actually the CPU clocked at 8 MHz)
Number of voices: 48 hardware channels of ADPCM on SPU2 plus software-mixed channels
Sampling Frequency: 44.1 kHz or 48 kHz (selectable)
Output: Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround sound, DTS (Full motion video only), later games achieved analog 5.1 surround during gameplay through Dolby Pro Logic II
I/O Processor
CPU Core: Original PlayStation CPU (MIPS R3000A clocked at 33.8688 MHz or 37.5 MHz)
Sub Bus: 32 Bit
Connection to: SPU and CD/DVD controller.
Interface Types:
2 proprietary PlayStation controller ports (250 kHz clock for PS1 and 500 kHz for PS2 controllers)
2 proprietary Memory Card slots using MagicGate encryption (250 kHz for PS1 cards, up to 2 MHz for PS2 cards)
Expansion Bay (PCMCIA on early models for PCMCIA Network Adaptor and External Hard Disk Drive) DEV9 port for Network Adaptor
Modem and Internal Hard Disk Drive
IEEE 1394 (only in SCPH 10xxx – 3xxxx)
Infrared remote control port (SCPH 5000x and newer) — IEEE 1394 port removed and Infrared port added in SCPH-50000 and later hardware versions.
2 USB 1.1 ports with an OHCI-compatible controller.
Disc Drive type: 24x (PlayStation 2 format CD-ROM, PlayStation format CD-ROM), 4x (Supported DVD formats) — Region-locked with anti-copy protection. Can't read "Gold Discs" i.e., normal CD-ROMs.
Supported Disc Media: PlayStation 2 format CD-ROM, PlayStation format CD-ROM, Compact Disc Audio, PlayStation 2 format DVD-ROM (4.7 GB), DVD Video (4.7 GB). Later models are DVD-9 (8.5 GB Dual-Layer), DVD+RW, and DVD-RW compatible.

wikpedia Gamecube specs

[edit] Hardware specifications
The GameCube's model numbers, DOL-001 and 101, are a reference to its Dolphin[3] codename. All of its official accessories and peripherals have model numbers beginning with DOL as well. Also, many other types of Nintendo hardware before and after the GameCube has its developer's codename as a model number. Another Dolphin reference, "Flipper" is the name of the GPU for the GameCube[4].

Some benchmarks provided by third-party testing facilities indicate that some of these specifications, especially those relating to performance, may be conservative. One of Nintendo's primary objectives in designing the GameCube hardware was to overcome the perceived limitations and difficulties of programming for the Nintendo 64 architecture; thus creating an affordable, well-balanced, developer-friendly console that still performs competitively against its rivals.[citation needed]


[edit] Central processing unit
Main article: Gekko (microprocessor)
486 MHz IBM "Gekko" PowerPC CPU.

PowerPC 750CXe based core.[5]
180 nm IBM copper-wire process. 43 mm² die. 4.9 W dissipation.[5]
Roughly 50 new vector instructions.[5]
32-bit ALU. 64-bit FPU, usable as 2x32-bit SIMD[5]
FPU:1.9Gflops
64-bit enhanced PowerPC 60x front side bus to GPU/chipset. 162 MHz clock. 1.3 GB/s peak bandwidth.[5]
64 KiB L1 cache (32 KiB I/32 KiB D). 8-way associative. 256 KiB on-die L2 cache. 2-way associative.[5]
1125 DMIPS (dhrystone 2.1)

[edit] System memory
43 MB total non-unified RAM

24 MB MoSys 1T-SRAM (codenamed "Splash") main system RAM. 324 MHz, 64-bit bus. 2.7 GB/s bandwidth.[5]
3 MB embedded 1T-SRAM within "Flipper"". [6][dead link]
Split into 1 MB texture buffer and 2 MB frame buffer.[6]
10.4 GB/s texture bandwidth (peak). 7.6 GB/s framebuffer bandwidth (peak). ~6.2 ns latency.[5]
16 MB DRAM used as buffer for DVD drive and audio. 81 MHz, 8-bit bus. 81 MB/s bandwidth.[5]

IBM PowerPC "Gekko" processor486 mhz
[edit] Graphics processing unit (GPU) and system chipset
162 MHz "Flipper" LSI. 180 nm NEC eDRAM-compatible process. Co-developed by Nintendo and ArtX.

8Gflops
4 pixel pipelines with 1 texture unit each[5]
TEV "Texture EnVironment" engine (similar to Nvidia's GeForce256 "register combiners")
Fixed-function hardware transform and lighting (T&L). 12+ million polygons/s in-game.[7]
648 megapixels/second (162 MHz x 4 pipelines), 648 megatexels/second (648 MP x 1 texture units) (peak)
Peak triangle performance: 20,250,000 32pixel triangles/sec raw and with 1 texture and lit
337,500 triangles a frame at 60fps
675,000 triangles a frame at 30fps
8 texture layers per pass, texture compression, full scene anti-aliasing[8]
Bilinear, trilinear, and anisotropic texture filtering
Multi-texturing, bump mapping, reflection mapping, 24-bit z-buffer
24-bit RGB / 32-bit RGBA color depth.
Hardware limitations sometimes require a 6r+6g+6b+6a mode (18-bit color), resulting in color banding.
720×480 interlaced or progressive scan
Integrated audio processor: Custom 81 MHz Macronix DSP
Instruction Memory: 8 KiB RAM, 8 KiB ROM
Data Memory: 8 KiB RAM, 4 KiB ROM
64 channels 16-bit 48 kHz ADPCM[9]
Dolby Pro Logic II encoded within stereophonic output

PS2
3D CG Geometric transformation(VU0+VU1 parallel): 66 million polygons per second
Gamecube
Fixed-function hardware transform and lighting (T&L). 12+ million polygons/s in-game.[7]

actually I think the 20 million came from this! 

Peak triangle performance: 20,250,000 32pixel triangles/sec raw and with 1 texture and lit

I was into these systems when they launched when compared head to head they may be PR #'s but the PS2 at launch killed everything with its 66 million triiangles per second until a year latter and nvidia's Gpu in the xbox!

all kinds of tech guys broke down the hardware and the numbers that stuck in my mind were polygons per second ! tomshardware anandtech and other sites back in the day!

@Griffin

Why would people care about playing on more than 1 disc?

For a long game like the ones you mentioned, you could be talking about 40+ hours of gameplay, with 1 single swap of a disc (or potentially a few) within that. So at worst you might get 1 disc swap per 10-15hours of playtime. I doubt anybody would complain about that.

Super Mario Galaxy couldn't be handled by the original Xbox.