it have the perfomance to do decent graphics, even better than wii cpu+gpu

 here the cell broadband engine doing a small primite ray tracing, rasterization it's faster. but ray tracing awesome lighting, shadows details.

here is using linux and cell to do 3d graphics , RSX is restrict on linux.

sony original plan was to have 2 cell broad band engines to get over 400gflops of perfomance and do ray tracing for  graphics. thats actually still not enough for full ray tracing either the demo above uses the ibm cluster of cell

but that turned to be too expensive and it would be impossible for sony get third party support. since the games are not coded but rather made using engines.

cell also got cut in half only 4 spu and clocked 1.6ghz and removed PPE to do the spurs engine, which is AWESOME for interface, it can stream tons of HD TV streams at the same time. i wish my tv had a spursengine it's just that awesome channel switching FAST and with tons of animations.

sadly the use of engines and not optimized code (even a sin sony falls into) prevents ps3 from truely shine.

spursengine also can do facerecognition with easy, mp4 H264 transcoding without sweating , and motion recognition using webcam and thats even more cut of cell.

completely sexy =).

Sorry XoJ, what you said is mostly false or misleading ...

Most of the real time ray-tracing demos for the PS3 involve multiple PS3s networked together and get worse performance than most single or multi-GPU real time ray-tracers that have been produced since the PS3 was released. Sony did originally play to have 3 Cell processors in the PS3 but they scrapped that when they realized that a (comparatively) cheap off the shelf GPU would provide better performance than 2 Cell processors dedicated to graphics.

Game developers do focus on middleware rather than implement large peices of code, but in most cases the middleware gives you access to the source code allowing you to make huge modifications if you decided to. On top of this, companies like Epic, id and Crytec would port their engines to the cell; and it is likely that Sony would port popular APIs (like OpenGL) to run on the Cell processor in order to make porting easy.

Thirdly, all major game engines are highly optimized code bases that were developed by the most experienced (and some would say best) game programmers in the world. Certainly, it is possible for really good developers to develop a higher performance engine that Epic, id, Crytec or Valve if they were to focus on developing it specifically for the PS3; but you're talking about a 5% to 10% boost in performance at a cost of tens of millions of dollars after you have implemented the engine and all of the tools (like importers and level editors) which are the primary reason people moved over to licenced engines.

yea let's see, where is your PHD...yea let's all agree you know more than the people that designed the d@mn chip.

the facts are:

THE  CELL IS FOR A FACT A HYBRID CPU/GPU no matter how much you want to say it is not it is what it is.

THE CELL PROCESSOR'S SPE's are in fact Full blown processing CORES no matter how much you want to say it is not it is what it .

is.

even with 100% proof you still have people such as yourself that refuse to say you were wrong.

this is getting rather silly. 

have fun with your AGENDA 

Whenever you're dealing with the classification of something where there is no "solid" characteristics that are used to determine how to group things together it becomes very much open to debate ... and even the designer of something doesn't have a more authoritative opinion on the matter. The Cell processor lacks the ability to handle shader effects at a decent level, which means that it can not really be classified as a GPU in the modern sense.

From what I have seen, you have as large (or larger) agenda of anyone in this thread, and you seem unwilling to listen to other people who have a better understanding of how processors work, what is important, and how to classify them. Your opinion is so trapped in the marketing and hype surrounding the Cell that you can not accept that it is not amazingly powerful when it comes to being a CPU for a videogame console.

o'l please your trying to claim your OPINION on something is more correct than the people with PHD's who ONCE again designed the D@MN CHIP..YEA GOTCHA.

yea because the Cell cannot handle shader effects at a decent level that make's it not a GPU..god that's like saying because 3 cycle engine is not as fast as a v8 is not an engine.. yea gotcha

better understanding of how processor's work...OK you program for what type of processor's.? and your the end all be all on all type's of processor's.

My AGENDA..my AGENDA please if anyone has AGENDA'a it's the people such as your self you have no problem in asking for proof what something is but when it's posted you then come out and say well that's not what it need's to be classified as. Even when it's 100% proof + that it is. it is you and other's that are clear on their AGENDA

I think joeorc has been fair with his arguments, and posted non-wiki links to support his claims...

He's perfectly willing to listen but so far people have not supported their claims, they only deny his claims. As it happens people are more willing to believe something negative then something positive and so he hasn't been given much support despite providing interesting information.

If someone has some information they can provide that isn't simply stating your definition is incorrect, or you're wrong because that's just how it is, then they should post it.

thank you, hey i am more than willing to listen to any and all argument's for or against something no problem. but the very fact that some people on here who are more than willing to ask for proof and are .Then have been so willing to choose to ignore the statement's from the people with the PHD's who have designed the Cell processor itself and stated what the Cell is. Than that's getting rather silly is it not.

It just seem's that some think PHD's are found in the bottom of cracker jack boxes. and that even with their chip design experience that some programmer's on here know more about the processor than the people that made the chip itself.

just sayin...

^^ Again, SPEs are not cores, its said before the PS3 launched before 06'and hundreds of time after....jeez.

You can believe what you want to believe, if that makes you happy than good..

Cell is a hybrid cpu/gpu?    SPEs are full blown cores? whatever.

What else,  the Cell has a magnetic field that will protect the earth in the future?

If the Cell is what you claim it is, Than the pity Xenon with its Tri core and 2 symmetric hardware threads on each core proccessor is giving the Cell a hell of a run for its money..

Think about this:

The Cell : is a car with a 8.0 liter V12 engine with 1,000 hp, weighs 5,000lbs..

Xenon: is a car with a 5.0 liter V8 twin turbo engine with 600hp, weighs 2.200lbs..

I learned in Forza, power is not everything..    Ha,.. I think I'd make this my new sig..

Seriously man, say it don't spray it. 

I've looked at that PDF, and it seemed to me that it was saying that the Cell was a step in the direction of CPU/GPU hybridization, not that it was full-blown already at the destination. 

In any case, tone it down and stop putting apostrophes everywhere a word ends in "s"!