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More Cell Processor Details And First Pictures

Posted by timothy on from the never-a-good-time-to-buy-a-computer dept.

slashflood writes "After reading two articles on slashdot about the Cell architecture and another one that criticizes the extensive roundup of the STI patents, I found the first pictures of the Cell core. It seems that at least some predictions were true. Seeing is believing." mtgarden points to this ZDNet article which says that the "first version of the chip will run at speeds faster than 4GHz. Engineers were vague on how much faster, but reports from design partners say 4.6GHz is likely. By comparison, the fastest current Pentium PC processor tops out at 3.8GHz." (More below.)

Hack Jandy writes "Anand Shimpi has some details about the upcoming Cell processor (PS3) in his personal blog. According to Anand, "Rambus announced that the new Cell processor uses both Rambus XDR memory and their FlexIO processor bus. Because Rambus designed the interface for both the memory controller(s) and the processor interface, the vast majority of signaling pins are using Rambus interfaces - a total of 90% according to Rambus." Hasn't Rambus been showing up a lot again recently? The fact that Cell uses XDR has been widely speculated, but the fact that it will also use the Rambus bus signalling is something completely new."

3 of 535 comments (clear)

  1. Speed isn't everything by leathered · · Score: 5, Insightful

    While 4.6 GHz sounds impressive, I thought we were getting away from the notion that clock speed = performance. The Pentium 4 killed off clock speed comparisons.

    I must admit the specs are impressive, but show me the benchmarks!

    --
    For all intensive porpoises your a bunch of rediculous loosers
  2. The Sony hype machine strikes again by Laconian · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Remember how the Emotion Engine worked us all into a lather five years ago? And when it came out, it was just merely competitive with contemporary processors? Sony is great at churning out nerd fetish tech, but they have a terrible track record of living up to their promises. Let's hope it's different this time.

  3. Re:PS3 by AssFace · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The GHz figures mean nothing at all in terms of performance expectations unless you are comparing within the same processor family.

    4GHz cell != 4GHz P4 != 4GHz Opteron != 4GHz G5

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    There are some odd things afoot now, in the Villa Straylight.