To ask a question like this is sometimes hard to even understand the answer you're gonna get. I hope you're ready to swim in a sea of jargon.

Well your wrong, as 'Cell' can have very good performance for games as well. Really depends on who's programming it. But the true power in 'Cell' comes from the other 7 cores(SPE).

lol this thread still alive ?? i think its done.

The cell is far more powerful. You don't hear any stories about 360s being linked together to act as budget super computers (there are several instances of the PS3s being used that way). The PS3 is way more then 10% more powerful, its just a question of harnessing the power.

The PS3 is a lot like a 8 CPU computer. It can run a lot of threads simultaneously and create huge gains in power (compare a 3.0 Ghz Pentium 4 with a 3.0 ghz core 2 duo for instance) but only if its utilized. Obviously splitting tasks between 8 processors is harder then just leaving the task to be done by one processor, but if you do it the results are vastly superior.

Of course games need to be designed for the PS3 for them to look better. A great example of the difference between using the PS3 like a 360 and using it as a multi core system is found in comparing PS3 only games like MGS4 or Uncharted with multiplatform games on the PS3. The PS3 only games use the cell more efficiently and look loads better. Square has talked about being able to render CG in real time using the PS3, which doesn't seem too far off from the truth.

The cell processor is the most powerful processor on the market and is used in many new and upcoming super computers. It is also the hardest to design things for since it requires a vastly different outlook. As games increasingly show though, its worth learning to work with the new distributed computing paradigm since that is clearly the future (look at videos of intel demoing 8 CPU 0 GPU systems that also render CGI in real time.)

PS3 has crud for ram. lol. Yet it's better, XDR(3.2Ghz) ram that runs alot faster than 360's GDR(700Mhz) ram does.

@Impulsivity I think any of the Power6 cpus from ibm would like to have a word with you. cell is powerpc based as is the 360s, but neither would make a good desktop cpu to much stripped out of them.

why they are good budget supercomputers is their floating point counts, always been better on the powerpc than x86, and floating points are very good for science shit, look at VT super computer all g5s.
however just because its a good science super computer dose not make it a good chip for general work or even a preferd chip for gaming

@all 

honestly most of the posters should just go read the history of power alliance on wikipidia, most of the stuff is pretty indepth and covers all we have talked about both cpus get their own artical and articals for the rest of the family

In my opinion Xenos is better... because it warns the xbox with 3 (that's 3 more rings than the PS3 and the Cell) rings of death before it explodes into oblivion. The PS3 on the other hand makes a great george forman grill.

the only real answer is the cell, by a sizable margin. The CELL is used n the worlds strongest super computer, xenon is not, enough said. it doesnt depend on anything other then effort put in to both. Yet the CELL still goes fartger.

The Xenon is the best for real-world performance in actual games; the Cell has the highest theoretical performance on certain workloads. For a sane amount of investment, you get better performance out of the Xenon.