Which is of course total shit because it was already explained that only 6 can be accessed by programers.

The 32 figure is for a CELL running at 4GHz, the one in the PS3 runs at 3.2 so the same calculation shows us the following:

3.2GHZx4x2=25.6

25.6x6=153.6GFLOPS.

That's why the SPE's have loads of registers so they can unroll loops fast, coupled too a very fast EIB. So data goes in and out of the 256Kb very fast.

Both in the real world are underpowered - known fact.

Neither are matched well to their graphical abilities, theoretically the Cell is more powerful, but much like 5 wimps are more "powerful" than 1 strong kid in school...The planning and time needed to pull off an assault on the 1 strong kid by the 5 pussy boys made it so that in practise they'd still get a kicking.

(I was an elementary school bully...haha...then it all went wrong in secondary or high school or whatever they call it these days...so got a taster for both sides)...

Basically the skills needed to get the best out of the Cell isn't financially viable imo (no sources just my gut feeling from a couple of years of reading news\posts\info) to a developer. EVEN IF they have "learnt" how to use its strengths it still takes longer and costs more and is pointless in effort Vs output...

As has been proven time and time again, devs have had the ps3 for about 3 years now and if they haven't "learnt" it by now they never will....But I think they have, its just the extra power isn't actually useable most the time (parellel processing can't be used everywhere, I also don't believe it can be used to perform GPU functions realistically and I know a thing or two about this personally).

So its either useless most the time, or takes to much $$$ to use in time, or both.

360 CPU on the other hand, is basic, easy to program and is "pretty" fast. Fast enough anyway, haven't seen any 1st party PS3 games put it to shame.

edit

Retrasado 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. 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.

the OS doesnt effect base processing due to it being ran by 1 SPE period. Meaning for games its 6 SPEs and the PPE. The only negative effect is that there is 10- less MBs of ram to use for games.

Sorry my post appears very stupid after reading some of the others...still its a practical viewpoint

Go Fishie, the voice of reason :)

 No they are not

Which is better? Neither.

They each have their advantages and disadvantages over the other. Going beyond that is technical and confusing for the average person and not really necessary beyond the simple statement I just made.

ssj12 said: Retrasado 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. 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. the OS doesnt effect base processing due to it being ran by 1 SPE period. Meaning for games its 6 SPEs and the PPE. The only negative effect is that there is 10- less MBs of ram to use for games.

The SPE`s can do JACK and SHIT without the PPC core(and I think Jack just left the room) so they DO take cycles away from it.

@Fishie - Have you even read this article. Or can't you help been a total plank.

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

http://forum.beyond3d.com/showthread.php?t=23854

http://www.bit-tech.net/gaming/2007/03/30/sony_playstation_3/3