Playstation 3 CPU Almost Finished?

dnxthx writes "According to this ZDNet article the design of the Playstation 3 chip is nearly complete. The PS3 chip will have near "supercomputer capabilities" --- including 1 TFLOP. Reportedly, this chip is being engineered with Linux in mind."

Comments

Cell ??

[TheKubrix]

Aww crap he's back again?! Where the hell is Goku?!!

Re:Cell ??

[lugonn]

...and if you put it near an Xbox or Gamecube, it will absorb them to become Perfect Cell.

"I don't see the problem. When the reporters come, I'll just destroy them!"

Hrm..

[qurob]

The PS3 chip will have near supercomputer capabilities --- including 1 TFLOP.

Wasn't the old PS2 a supercomputer, and there were export rules on it?

Saddam was rumored to buy some to control missles or something?

Thats it?

[bytor4232]

By the time 2005 comes around, everyone will have a Terraflop of processing power in their toaster. Comon Sony, cant you do better than that?

Re:Thats it?

[Lord_Slepnir]

Have you played the new Unreal 2003 demo yet? People already have toasters in their computers, so computers in their toasters isn't that far off.

You saw it here first: The FIRST TOASTER VIRUS

if(Toast_Present == 1)
{
Turn_On_Coils();
While(Toast.OnFire() = 0)
{
if(Lever.Manual_Eject() == 1)Lever.Jam();
if(Power.Unplug() == 1)Power.Source = reserve_battery;
}
Eject_Flaming_Toast_At_User();
}

lara?

[edrugtrader]

until they can get a 3D lara to give me a lap-dance, i'm not impressed.

Re:lara?

[IvyMike]

until they can get a 3D lara to give me a lap-dance, i'm not impressed.

Now there's an interesting tie-in with the "force feedback controllers" article.

Must be a good thing

[JohnCC]

A large international company trusted by millions can only be a good thing for the linux community...

Like tricorders!

[Winterblink]

You just connect a bunch of them together and you can do anything! Realign warp fields, degauss tachyon emitters, and render fighting games with big bouncy breasted women. Now THAT's a good use of a teraflop or two -- accurate breast bounce.

Three words:

[PD]

"Enron Linux Distribution"

Re:Linux?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Reportedly, this chip is being engineered with Linux in mind."

Why?

Err.. because Linux is all powerful, and any chip engineers who design a processor without building it specifically for Linux would be dumb. Especially if the chip is designed to run a gaming console, since Linux is amazingly good at running games, because it is all powerful.

It is generally a good idea to let an operating system's design dictate a physical prosessors design, since abstraction and encapsulation is for wussies, since you can get a little tiny bit more preformance that way while only loosing a humungeous amount of maintainability -- and since linux is amazingly good and will solve all problems.

In short, using Linux will salve all of your problems, including hardware design.

Re:1 TFLOP?

[Anonymous Coward]

> 1 trillion triangles is high end nowadays

Yeah, 80,000,000 Terabytes of storage is pretty high end as well. That's why noone has either right now.

Re:1 TFLOP?

[WWWWolf]

So, PS3 will be as fast as 50,000 GeForce 4's running in parallel?

And people will be plugging this thing to a TELEVISION?

O tempora, o mores...

I don't think the news writers worked on this

[sgtsanity]

For example:

While the processor's design is still under wraps, the companies say Cell's capabilities will allow it to deliver one trillion calculations per second (teraflop) or more of floating-point calculations. It will have the ability to do north of 1 trillion mathematical calculations per second,

This was obviously from Zdnet's Division of Redundancy Division. It happens to be listed twice on the organizational chart.

Re:A terraflop?

[guttentag]

You misunderstood. A "terraflop" is a finishing combo in a top secret street fighter game that will be released with the PS3. This is different from the "teraflop" which refers to floating point ops.

Re:export controls?

[Lord_Slepnir]

create a crude missile guidance system.

Actually, the atari 2600 had this. It was called missile commander i do believe.

Re:Programming for the PS3

[Anonymous Coward]

I think cars & highways should be redesigned. And the wheel? Puh-leeze, lets kill that antiquated device off.

"It is the year 2000, but where are the flying cars?"

Re:If you think the PS2 architecture is weird

[Phil Wilkins]

Testify brother Atari, testify!

Now let me hear it from the vector display programmers out there... Someone give my Tempest brother some love!