By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close

Forums - Gaming - Xenon vs Cell Which one really is better ??

Fishie on 09 July 2008
Fei-Hung said:
Fishie said:
MikeB said:

PS3 Cell of course. Much much better (8 independent processors vs 3 cores at same clockspeed, the SPEs can do a much better job than the PPE or a 360 can at well designed tasks for them to accomplish) and not only that, the way it's implemented in the PS3 architecture counts also. The Xenon has to share its L2 cache amongst all three cores and access to main memory provides far less bandwidth as it has to share the bus with the GPU and the PS3's XDR Ram provides much lower latencies.

 

Here you go again talking shit about stuff you dont understand. The SPE`s are NOT 8 independant processors, they are instead part of the processor and furthermore there might be 8 of em but only 7 of em work and only 6 are available for the games.

 

@ Fishie actually all 8 of them work but 6 are designated for games. In fact the only detail he got wrong there is 8 independent processors  (although many people have phrased it the same throughout various articles about both the 360 and the ps3 saying they have 3 processors working as one or 6 processors working as one). Even then, all it was is just wrongly phrased rather then to be talking 'shit' as you would say. does this mean you talk shit to? c'mon people calm down for gods sake. Or do you guys have nothing better to do then to make mountain out of mole hills?

Nope only 7 work.

 



Around the Network
Retrasado on 09 July 2008
MikeB said:

@ Retrasado

Mike. he's right. Although the Cell has 8 SPEs, for the PS3, they manufacture the chips with one SPE designed to not work.


Yes, just like I stated 8 processors. Let's count:

1 PPU
7 SPUs

Makes 8 processors. Otherwise with 8 enabled SPEs and 1 PPE it would have been 9. (8 + 1 makes 9)

One SPEs like I stated endless times here on VGChartz is used by the OS.

A question for people who don't understand this. What does the 360 OS run on?

Answer: On a processor core, eating up CPU cycles as well.

Anything the PS3 OS does on this SPE won't take CPU cycles from the PPE and the other SPEs. Sony can do more and more on this SPE without this really affecting the software running on the PS3. However Microsoft cannot change much, as it would impact the games negatively which are sometimes designed the get every last ounce of performance out of the CPU.

Really it can be a good thing to do! Especially if you have so much power as the Cell has.

No. You said the Cell has 8 independent processors:

PS3 Cell of course. Much much better (8 independent processors vs 3 cores at same clockspeed, the SPEs can do a much better job than the PPE or a 360 can at well designed tasks for them to accomplish) and not only that, the way it's implemented in the PS3 architecture counts also. The Xenon has to share its L2 cache amongst all three cores and access to main memory provides far less bandwidth as it has to share the bus with the GPU and the PS3's XDR Ram provides much lower latencies.

This is totally false. Also, the PS3's OS does indeed negatively affect the system's performance while running a game in the same way as the OS on the 360 does because the SPEs are NOT seperate processors. Why can you not get this simple fact through your head? What do we need to do? get the guy who designed the Cell in here to tell you that?

Edit: btw, if this will help you to believe me: I really do not like M$ or the Xbox very much, (you can ask Madskillz or gebx if you don't believe that either) so I am most certainly NOT being blinded by fanboyism in this case.



Not trying to be a fanboy. Of course, it's hard when you own the best console eve... dang it

Fishie on 09 July 2008
dbot said:
@Fishie - Tell me more. Where did you find the specs for the PS4. I can't wait to see them.

 

 LOL, nice one.

Simple fact remains CELL was too costly for Sony and last year they dropped out of the project.

Their single remaining chip plant was sold of to Toshiba and they stepped out of further R&D for CELL. You WONT see CELL in the next Playstation just like you didnt see their last megalomaniac venture(Emotion Engine and Graphics Synthesizer) in the PS3.



Fishie on 09 July 2008
MikeB said:

@ Retrasado

Mike. he's right. Although the Cell has 8 SPEs, for the PS3, they manufacture the chips with one SPE designed to not work.


Yes, just like I stated 8 processors. Let's count:

1 PPU
7 SPUs

Makes 8 processors. Otherwise with 8 enabled SPEs and 1 PPE it would have been 9. (8 + 1 makes 9)

One SPEs like I stated endless times here on VGChartz is used by the OS.

A question for people who don't understand this. What does the 360 OS run on?

Answer: On a processor core, eating up CPU cycles as well.

Anything the PS3 OS does on this SPE won't take CPU cycles from the PPE and the other SPEs. Sony can do more and more on this SPE without this really affecting the software running on the PS3. However Microsoft cannot change much, as it would impact the games negatively which are sometimes designed the get every last ounce of performance out of the CPU.

Really it can be a good thing to do! Especially if you have so much power as the Cell has.

 

 Wrong again, the OS on PS3 DOES take cycles from the PPC core.

The SPE`s are WORTHLESS without feeder from the PPC core since it has to constantly tell them what to do and monitor what they are doing.



MikeB on 09 July 2008
Fishie said:
MikeB said:
@ NJ5

The biggest problems are his inaccurate statements about stuff he doesn't understand.


May I remind you how often you have repeated your genuinely bogus crap...

 

 You keep mentioning 8 SPE`s for instance when I have mentioned several times before and even articles you yourself link to talk about 6.

You talk about theoretical limits based on 8 SPE`s while there are only 6 and even then theoretical limits can NEVER be reached simply because they are not standalone processors, memory and data has to be fed and cheked from the PPC core etcetera.

 

Quote me then, I said the PS3 Cell has 8 active processors (1 PPE and 7 SPEs). I may sometimes refer to a research document which does tests with all 8 SPEs used, but then I clarify its relationship with the PS3's Cell. And the one SPE used by the OS is not useless or something, it's active and is used for OS related workload.

It's easier on the Cell to reach near its theoretical limits than it is for the Xenon for a varierty of reasons already discussed multiple times over. If you don't agree, take it up with an IBM technical specialist.



Naughty Dog: "At Naughty Dog, we're pretty sure we should be able to see leaps between games on the PS3 that are even bigger than they were on the PS2."

PS3 vs 360 sales

Around the Network
Mifely on 09 July 2008
Fishie said:
MikeB said:

@ Deneidez

Btw, have you ever even programmed anything?


Yes.

Do you know what kind of projects games are today?


Yes.

Tell me what can you do with your programming knowledge with cell after ps3 leaves the market?


Be more efficient on other CPUs as well, extensive knowledge of multi-threading, better understanding of how the underlying hardware operates, etc. I strongly believe by extensively working with the Cell, it will do wonders for people's resume as a coder in the future.

However the Cell will see new versions and more products based on this technology, most likely including the PS4.

 

 Sony dropped CELL, you wont see CELL in the next Playstation.

How is that for showing confidence in a product you spearheaded and invested billions of dollars in?

 

 Um... link?



Fishie on 09 July 2008
Fei-Hung said:
Fishie said:
MikeB said:

@ Deneidez

On heterogeneous platforms, yes, but there isn't many of those when it comes to games. :)


The basic principles remain the same. It's not like if you have been doing one or the other your hands will be tied in terms of competence. Just use the Cell a little on a PS3 running Linux, you have absolutely nothing to be afraid of.

I am quite sure that PS4 will be homogeneous one.


Very unlikely, a heterogeneous design provides significant benefits with regard to performance and efficiency. IMO by the time the PS4 launches the bulk of current PS3 developers will be fully accustomed.

Because of current design sony has lost more money it might never get back during the lifetime of PS3.


The Cell has already been developed in co-operation with Sony and IBM will further the design. The Cell isn't that expensive as a component for Sony (other than the initial R&D) and it provides a superior performance per Watt ratio. The PS3 is expensive to build due its many out of the box cutting edge technology and other onboard features other than the Cell, not the least the default Blu-Ray drive.

WOW so CELL provides superior performance over a 35watt C2D T9800 processor?

Must be why Pixar just anounced they are switching their renderfarms to all CELL, oh wait no they didnt they just anounced they went all Intel.

You clearly are insane.

 

 

erm he clearly didn't say that, so does that mean you are actually bullying someone and picking on them for no good reason? shame on you!

Well he did say this: it provides a superior performance per Watt ratio

 



Retrasado on 09 July 2008
Fishie said:
dbot said:
@Fishie - Tell me more. Where did you find the specs for the PS4. I can't wait to see them.

 

 LOL, nice one.

Simple fact remains CELL was too costly for Sony and last year they dropped out of the project.

Their single remaining chip plant was sold of to Toshiba and they stepped out of further R&D for CELL. You WONT see CELL in the next Playstation just like you didnt see their last megalomaniac venture(Emotion Engine and Graphics Synthesizer) in the PS3.?

Ok, so they pulled out of R&D for it. How does that mean they are not going to use it ever again? Just curious...

 



Not trying to be a fanboy. Of course, it's hard when you own the best console eve... dang it

MikeB on 09 July 2008
Fishie said:
MikeB said:

@ Retrasado

Mike. he's right. Although the Cell has 8 SPEs, for the PS3, they manufacture the chips with one SPE designed to not work.


Yes, just like I stated 8 processors. Let's count:

1 PPU
7 SPUs

Makes 8 processors. Otherwise with 8 enabled SPEs and 1 PPE it would have been 9. (8 + 1 makes 9)

One SPEs like I stated endless times here on VGChartz is used by the OS.

A question for people who don't understand this. What does the 360 OS run on?

Answer: On a processor core, eating up CPU cycles as well.

Anything the PS3 OS does on this SPE won't take CPU cycles from the PPE and the other SPEs. Sony can do more and more on this SPE without this really affecting the software running on the PS3. However Microsoft cannot change much, as it would impact the games negatively which are sometimes designed the get every last ounce of performance out of the CPU.

Really it can be a good thing to do! Especially if you have so much power as the Cell has.

 

 Wrong again, the OS on PS3 DOES take cycles from the PPC core.

The SPE`s are WORTHLESS without feeder from the PPC core since it has to constantly tell them what to do and monitor what they are doing.

I said, what the OS does on this SPE. Parts of the OS runs on the PPE and parts on one SPE. What it does on the SPE does not take potential from the other processors.

What fanboys often do is this:

One SPE is reserved for the OS

=> So the PS3 Cell only has 6 SPEs! (What kind of logic is that? And still that would be twice as many SPEs than the Xenon has cores)



Naughty Dog: "At Naughty Dog, we're pretty sure we should be able to see leaps between games on the PS3 that are even bigger than they were on the PS2."

PS3 vs 360 sales

Marty8370 on 09 July 2008

@Fishie

Synergistic Processor Elements (SPEs)

Each Cell contains 8 SPE's(7 SPE'sfor PS3)

An SPE is a self contained vector processor which acts as an independent processor. They each contain 128 x 128 bit registers, there are also 4 (single precision) floating point units capable of 32 GigaFLOPS* and 4 Integer units capable of 32 GOPS (Billions of integer Operations per Second) at 4GHz. The SPEs also include a small 256 Kilobyte local store instead of a cache. According to IBM a single SPE (which is just 15 square millimetres and consumes less than 5 Watts at 4GHz) can perform as well as a top end (single core) desktop CPU given the right task.



*This is counting Multiply-Adds which count as 2 instructions, hence 4GHz x 4 x 2 = 32 GFLOPS(PS3 Cell runs at 3.2GHz)

32 X 8 SPE's = 256 GFLOPS
32 X 7 SPE's = 224 GFLOPS(PS3 Cell)


Like the PPE the SPEs are in-order processors and have no Out-Of-Order capabilities. This means that as with the PPE the compiler is very important. The SPEs do however have 128 registers and this gives plenty of room for the compiler to unroll loops and use other techniques which largely negate the need for OOO hardware.

http://www.blachford.info/computer/Cell/Cell1_v2.html