Agreed, however if theres a really big difference in similar games then you can say something about performance too. Like if you would compare this gen games with last gen games, you wouldn't get it wrong even if you wouldn't know system specs or know anything about consoles. And this isn't the case with current gen except of course the fact that PS360 look much better than wii games, which makes it quite clear that wii is inferior in 'power'.

Well, Carmack is the 'father' of current 3D games. His words shouldn't be taken lightly either, but I agree too that he surely isn' biased. :)

Agreed about differences between generations or between HD and non-HD games.  But when the capabilities are within the same league, using subjective measurements can be very tricky.

About Mr. Carmack... the guy is amazing, and I certainly don't take what he says lightly.  ID basically took the FPS shooter into the mainstream.  But he sometimes gets on a rant about something that he feels strongly about. 

These threads are so awesome, in a train wreck sort of a way. Occasionally they throw up some genuine technical interest, but mainly they would appear to be as uninformed as could be backed by excessive opinions.

You know at the end of the day, as I think Fallout 3 and comparisons of each version and the PC version showed rather well, both are actually pretty similar and a game well optimized for each will look good (which Fallout 3 actually wasn't) - but it will always trail any PC version by a fair bit.

ps3 can do better grafix than 360................another fail thread!

Gears of War 2 is here, i think you may try it. IMO nothing cant beat this...

To answer all the "these figures are from 2005 arguements".

Firstly the figures from IBM are correct till the day PS3 stops production they will never change.

Second @ anyone wondering if the PPE is included in the overall 155.5GFLOPS the answer is yes. The test with 8 SPE's cannot be done without the PPE as they cannot be tested all together without it. They need the PPE. So yes the 155.5GFLOPS IBM figure is for the whole CELL processor. As I said bear in mind that the Cell in PS3 will only ever use 6 SPE's for games as 2 are perminantly taken out of game programmers hands. So as I said the Cell for games is not using 155.5 GFLOPS.

thirdly, yes the Ram figures have changed for the OS instead of 96mb usage it currently at the last checkpoint went down to 86mb usage.

certain people claim that Gears 2 is not the best looking game to date. They are allowed their opinion. But the figures of the consoles are not opinion. Yes the ram situation in PS3 can get better but that is the only thing that can and will change. The rest are that way for the rest of the gen. So lets not split hairs on figures which were released by IBM in 2005.

So no I havent been owned in any way. I find it very funny that still people argue with clear facts (I'll give you the ram arguement though). But the name of the article is about the Cell, something that will NEVER change inside the PS3. And something which Sony has very cleverly hid the truth of. The fact of the matter is for games the Cell inside the PS3 is about half of the GFLOPS that Sony stated the Cell was capable of according to IBM.

And thats why people saying one game is better than the other is a major flaw as a guage. The reality is in performance numbers the PS3 and 360 are EXTREMELY close in capabilities. So when the gens end arrives the difference will be basically nothing. I could sit here and argue that no 360 game has been optimized for the console. What you say? Well the 360 is multithread as well. But because the 360 is so easy to use as a single thread game machine even the mighty Gears 1 only uses 1 core. There is plenty of growth. Sony seem to have had dedicated teams working on games using multithreads, whereas 360 hasnt had ANY!(although I need to check on Gears 2.) But that arguement is pointless.

Hence why showing raw power of both systems in figures shows they are extremely close, much closer than Sony hid the fact of.

In regular terms, yes they are, but once the blu-ray Hi res texture method is put into play for the PS3 no, not by a longshot.

But since only like what? ONE game has done this i wont go on because not many has even given any effort to learn this style of Res and graphics control.

But when they do, i'll let you be the judge once a game or IF a game like that for the PS3 comes out.

IBM is not lieing even they put ps3 over the 360 LOL

the 360 doens't run all full effiency either.

cell theorical maximum around 200gflops

xenon therocial maximum around 115gflops

ps3 is more powerful than the 360 either way.

and ibm already show cell outputting 194gflops using parallel processing. 8 spu.

without the PPE .

So the cell doesn't have a PPE, the 360 CPU runs at 100% efficiency and Sony haven't updated the PS3 OS since launch? Oh wait...

opinion:

PPE is like a CPU it syncs SPE and offload works SPE can't do. it's also mutithreaded  , meaning you only need 4-5 SPE not in 100% used also  to match 360 100% theorical power power.

it real task the ps3 may probably be only around 35% more powerful than the 360 but still more powerful than the 360,

since everyone was ignoring this.

My point here is that PS3 games, at least initially, are not going to use all five or six available SPEs (remember, of the eight SPEs, one is disabled for yield purposes, a second is reserved for the system, and a third allegedly can be taken over by the system if it's needed). And when games do get around to using all the available SPE power, they won't be using all of it in the same way. Some SPEs will do some types of things, and some will do some others. If one SPE gets taken out of play by the OS, its work will shift to another SPE; the impact that this will have on any one game depends on what task that SPE was running and how the task was rescheduled.

So the idea that Sony's removal of two SPEs can reasonably be characterized as a 25 percent reduction in CPU horsepower is nonsense. The performance impact all depends first on how many SPEs each game uses, and then on what the workload mix is like, and finally on how the work gets redistributed by the game when that extra SPE goes offline. In short, there's no way to give an easy answer to the question of the kind of impact this will have on game performance in general.

in general ps3 can get any 360 game, and if numbers don't lie, 4 SPE + PPE match 50% - 66% of Cell power., the tri-core xenon 100% in output power that actually doens't run at 100% either.

I think many of you are forgeting one very important thing. When a developer says that the PS3 is more powerful, that does not equate to "The PS3's graphics are vastly superior to the 360's". There are much more important things in the background that the PS3 simply does better.

I have yet to see a game on 360 that produces as many enemies on screen as Heavenly Sword with as few graphical glitches as it does. You literally can see 400 enemies on screen rushing towards you, each with their own corresponding AI. From what I hear, L4D is good.........but not THAT good. Resistance 2 yields 60 multiplayer matches with almost zero lag(at least not becuz of the number of players). Gears of War 2 is said to have blank number of enemies on screen at one time, yet from what I have seen the game sacrifices draw distance for high res textures(whether that is good or bad is up to you).

The PS3 is simply more powerful. This is said by many developers, the people who are putting these machines to the test in the first place, over and over again. Regardless of whether the 360 can produce a equally superior as far as graphical game as the PS3, or the PS3 might have a slight edge in graphics that does not warrent a decisive winner. The fact remains that.....
-360 cannot play a game that is 50gb big. It is simply impossible with the medium that MS chose for it. It is also not practical to use multi discs with everything. Even if you say MGS4 can be put on multiple discs for 360, that still means that the PS3 could hold more content for the game and then sum. Imagine when games are as big as 2BD discs. What will happen then?
-Developers are actually TAKING AWAY content to suite the smaller format and capabilities of the 360's hardware, ala RAGE. The game was cut to 1/3rd its original size because the company did not want to deal with outrageous number of discs for the 360 system when the PC and PS3 versions would suffice with one BD disc (doesn't matter how many discs the PC version is).
-Developers, when discussing this particular matter, say one of two things. They are both EQUAL OR the PS3 is more powerful. I cannot think of one instance where a developer has ever said the 360 is more powerful. That means the spectrum of which is powerful is in the middle or towards the PS3's side. That means on average the PS3 is superior to the 360's hardware. Mind you that this bodes nothing on the quality of the games produced on both(besides the obvious).
-Lastly, RROD. The 360 crumbles under the pressure of its own hardware. That is not the making of a superior system, that is just simply FACT!

So regardless of the statement that IBM has made on the Cell, the PS3 has proved it to be superior hardware in comparison to the 360. With Equal to better graphical capabilities, Unmatched game medium allowing unlimited space, and hardware that is fully functional and a solid as a rock, it cannot be denied.

P.S.
I still must commend you for a very well executed article showing sources of your info and the like. Very well done. I wish more people would do so before spouting off at the mouth on crap like this.