READ THIS. IT'S OBJECTIVE, HAS PROOF FROM IBM THEMSELVES AND WELL ACTUAL PROOF RATHER THAN SPECULATION. I PUT THIS TOGETHER FOR YOU ALL WHO ARE LOST IN SONY LAND.

Whew.  I'm glad you used caps.  I might have missed this post otherwise.

Here's further proof of the 360's superiority to the ps3:

According to IBM’s white pages, the cell processor being used in the ps3 is considerably less powerful than what it has been hyped up to be.
Sony officially revealed the PS3 and for the first time at E3 2005, and claimed that their Cell processor would be capable of 200 GFLOPS.
One may wonder how they got that figure?  IBM's own white pages:

http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/power/library/pa-cellperf/?ca=drs-#table4

As seen from the link (in Figure 5) the Cell has a theoretical peak of 201 GFLOP’s– running 8 SPE’s at 25.12 GFLOP’s apiece (Table 2). This is where Sony gets their 200 GFLOP figure from.

When physically tested however, only 155.5 GFLOP’s were actually achieved (see Table 4) with a total efficiency rate of 75.9%.

Because of manufacturing yield issues, the PS3 will only use 7 SPE’s with the theoretical peak for the PS3’s Cell processor being reduced to 176 GFLOP’s, each running at 25.12 GFLOP’s. Utilizing the same 75.9% efficiency, it is easily interpolated that the PS3’s Cell CPU will only be capable of 133.6 GFLOP’s.

The Xbox 360 has 3 general-purpose 2-threaded CPU's, which generates a proven ("proven" oh? link?) 115.2 GFLOP’s which is dramatically easier for developers to utilize (dramatically is it? so objective!  link?). By now it should be pathetically obvious that sony is no where near as far ahead as they try to lead you to think (keep in mind they claimed that the ps2 was more powerful than the original xbox, but were proven wrong publicly, since the xbox was indeed twice as powerful (side issue, but you're stretching it, to claim a P3-733, one of the slowest per-cycle processors of recent history, is "twice" as powerful as a 300 MHz MIPS with 2 VUs.  Does it whallop the original 400+ MHz Broadway PPC as well?). The ps3 will, once you have taken into account thetotal amount of resources that will be used by their respective operating systems, end up with less CPU power available for graphical and physics processing than the 360.

So, the Xenon's core can reach greater than 76% of its theoretical peak, in actual tests?  I think you must have forgotten that link.  Otherwise your statement is merely implying that.


http://ps3.qj.net/Inside-the-PS3-s-Operating-System-/pg/49/aid/21047

According to the (unbiased) site above, the PS3 will also constantly reserve 1 SPE** for running its operating system. Now that there is actually one less SPE reserved for gaming purposes, it is definite that the ps3’s cell will only be capable of 114.4 GFLOP’s for the purpose of game processing.

**SPE’s are floating point processors, they are also called DSP’s, and SPU’s. These floating point processors are NOT to be confused with cores, cores have far more prediction and calculation braches than floating point processors. As stated earlier, the 360 has 3 cores, each running at 3.2GHz, with 2 threads each. The cell also runs at 3.2GHz, but is the one and only core that the ps3 has.

So... you believe that the Xenon PPC cores have decent branch prediction, and out-of-order instruction/multiple instruction pipelines, do you?  You should... do a little more research.

On a side note, "SPE"s are the processors themselves.  "SPU"s are the processors, and their local store, and their DMAs, all together as a unit.  And um, no one who works on them calls them "DSPs", that I know of.

Back to subject:
The 360’s OS on the other hand uses only 3% of its CPU time on Cores 1 and 2, while Core 0 is free altogether, and 6.25% (32mb) of its 512mb RAM, this means that the 360 has more processing power available for in-game graphics and physics. Meanwhile, the ps3’s OS…
“In the case of the PS3 this equates to 12.5% of the available Cores on the CPU always reserved, an additional 12.5% sometimes taken by the OS, 12.5% of the available RSX memory and 25% of XDR Cell memory. Balancing these out, one could argue that Sony has removed up to 25% of the available CPU power and 18.75% of RAM for these features as well as others that are not mentioned here or will be added in future updates to the PS3 Operation System.”
Wow, 18.75% (96mb) of the ps3’s 512mb of total RAM, vs. 6.25% (32mb) of the 360’s 512mb RAM, say, that means the ps3 has 416mb RAM left vs. the 360’s leftover 490mb RAM for graphics…
I could be wrong, but isn’t 490mb greater than 416mb???

Wow, if this info came from "sources", I would go looking for some smarter people to base your statements on.  The PS3 OS uses that 7th SPU, and takes slices from one of the two hardware PPU threads.  It doesn't take up arbitrary memory resources.  That second italicized bit came right from the author's... no-sunlight place, if you get my meaning.  Hm interesting -- look at the dates.  The articles are theoretical, being published before the PS3's release... worst-case guesswork.  Who could have guessed?!?

Sources:
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060413-6600.html

http://ps3.qj.net/Inside-the-PS3-s-Operating-System-/pg/49/aid/21047

Now, the GPU (Graphics Processing unit). The 360’s Xenos GPU is also slightly more powerful for running current graphics engines and, in terms of complying with Windows Graphic Foundation 2.0 (compatible with future versions of Direct X, shader models, etc.) is a full-generation ahead of the RSX. "One of the key ideas behind a unified architecture is to move the GPU from a rendering only processor to a complete compute processor. Right now all the GPU does is render 3D and displays it on your screen (yes it does more like 2D, video etc... but for the point of this article we are talking about 3D). With a unified architecture the GPU becomes more. It becomes a processor that can do almost anything that needs code processed. This means the GPU can take on more functions like physics, AI, animation and many other processes that can benefit the gaming experience. DirectX 10 and a unified GPU architecture helps a video card become an all-in-one Swiss army knife of game processing. Those are the ideas at least, how it all works out is up to the game content developers"
http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTA0NSwzLCxoZW50aHVzaWFzdA. According to this article, the unified memory of the 360 and the unified shaders, developers have the ability to use the vector processing power of the GPU, which is a big plus as it allows the developer to use the shaders when they need extra processing power.

Sony could be in a lot of trouble considering the ps3 is much more expensive than its superior rival that is using long proven technology, while the ps3 is using technology that still has yet to be proven, and has been giving sony one problem after another, causing game delays.

The 360’s Xenos GPU is slightly more powerful for running current graphics engines and, in terms of complying with Windows Graphic Foundation 2.0 (compatible with future versions of Direct X, shader models, etc.) is a full-generation ahead of the RSX. "One of the key ideas behind a unified architecture is to move the GPU from a rendering only processor to a complete compute processor. Right now all the GPU does is render 3D and displays it on your screen (yes it does more like 2D, video etc... but for the point of this article we are talking about 3D). With a unified architecture the GPU becomes more. It becomes a processor that can do almost anything that needs code processed. This means the GPU can take on more functions like physics, AI, animation and many other processes that can benefit the gaming experience. DirectX 10 and a unified GPU architecture helps a video card become an all-in-one Swiss army knife of game processing. Those are the ideas at least, how it all works out is up to the game content developers"

"However, using Sony's claim <***>, 7 dot products per cycle * 3.2 GHz = 22.4 billion dot products per second for the CPU. That leaves 51 - 22.4 = 28.6 billion dot products per second that are left over for the GPU. That leaves 28.6 billion dot products per second / 550 MHz = 52 GPU ALU ops per clock.

*** Using sony's own claim against it. If sony really didnt make this claim, they most certainly would have taken legal action against MS, that is only fact.

It is important to note that if the RSX ALUs are similar to the GeForce 6800 ALUs then they work on vector4s, while the Xbox 360 GPU ALUs work on vector5s. The total programmable GPU floating point performance for the PS3 would be 52 ALU ops * 4 floats per op *2 (madd) * 550 MHz = 228.8GFLOPS which is less than the Xbox 360's 48 ALU ops * 5 floats per op * 2 (madd) * 500 MHz= 240 GFLOPS."


ps3 GPU stands at 228.8 GFLOPS
360 GPU stands at 240.0 GFLOPS

I could be wrong, but isn't 240.0 GFLOPS higher than 228.8 GFLOPS???

In general, I agree with this part.  The flexible GPU on the X360 *is* better to develop with than the RSX.  However, the numbers here are just plain bogus in the real-world.  If you use the flexible pipelines to do a load of vertex processing, sure its gonna beat the balanced RSX for verts.  If you use them all for textures, yep, its gonna outperform the balanced RSX for texel fill.  

How about you use them in a balanced way, like, you know, a game would do?  Generally the flexibility still allows the GPU of the X360 to be "tuned" to the game which is using it... fillrate trouble?  More pixel pipelines, les vertex.  Vertex processing trouble?  More vertex pipelines, less pixel.  On average, I'd say that gives the X360 the edge, but in some cases suited to the RSX, its just not possible for the (very cool) X360 GPU to keep up.

I have shown actual evidence and provided easy to follow logic. I'm sorry MikeB and co but you cant argue with fact some spin.

I fixed that part for you.

@Groucho: Are you seriously telling us that PS3's OS/API doesn't take up any RAM?

Of course it takes up RAM.  Don't be so literal.  Do you believe that the flavor of Linux that the PS3 uses, eats up 25% of the PS3's RAM?  Or that Windows can be streamlined tighter than Linux can?

"It doesn't take up arbitrary memory resources." is misleading, that's all I'm saying.

Does PS3 run linux when games are running?? I thought linux was simply something they ported to the console for people to "play" with.

The PS3's OS is a custom version of Linux.  You can put your own Linux on it, as well, however.

Of course it takes up RAM.  Don't be so literal.  Do you believe that the flavor of Linux that the PS3 uses, eats up 25% of the PS3's RAM (and VRAM, or whatever that wacky article claimed)?  Or that Windows can be streamlined tighter than Linux can?

Doesn't that mean Sony would have to publicly release the source code to their version of Linux according to the terms of the GPL license?