IBM's Radical Cell Processor

Rouslan Solomakhin writes "Forbes has recently posted an article on IBM's new revolutionary Cell processor. Cell is going to enable PS3 developers to create movie-quality games with blazing-speed graphics. Applications in other areas are also considered." From the article: "Some techies say PlayStation 3, which may debut by midyear and could end up in 100 million homes in five years, will usher in the next microchip revolution. The Sony system owes its prowess to a microprocessor called Cell, which was cooked up by chip wizards at IBM (with help from Sony and Toshiba) at a cost of $400 million over five years."

Comments

IBM really needs to prove themselves

[Vivek Jishtu]

With Apple no longer buying chips from them, they really need to prove themselves.

Re:IBM really needs to prove themselves

[talornin]

Acutaly, no.


Much of the reason Apple switched to Intel was because IBM didnt want to make the chips Apple watned.
Apple has for a long time made demands of their chip producers to make this and that chip with this and that feature, then they order a wery low volume at first to ensure they dont get stuck with an overflow should the product flop in any way.
Then they make new, larger, orders if the product is a hit and the chip producer runs into supplying dificulties. Apple blames the chips vendor.
This happened with the 68k, G4 and G5. When Apple wanted new CPU's IBM basicaly told them to get lost because they just wasnt a big enough client to justify the demands they made.

IBM managed quite well before the G5 deal and will manage quite well after.

(Just for the record: This was posted from my darling PowerBook! I am a Mac user and an Apple fanatic! So this is _not_ Apple-bashing, just a statement of facts!)

Re:IBM really needs to prove themselves

[thatguywhoiam]

*patpatpat*.. just lay your little head back down, don't you fret none... *patpatpat*

The detail you seem to have missed is: those of us who have not taken to resting a Power5 server on our laps have managed to keep our balls.

Seriously, a condescending server nerd is never a pretty sight. How's that working out for you?

Emotion Engine!

[fussili]

**Outside the Sony Booth being handed fisherman's waders**
[Gabe]: What are these waders for?
[Tycho]: My guess? All the bullshit

It's not that I don't think this chip might be as fantastic as everyone says but since Sony has basically lied out its ass for its past 3 consoles, I'm not giving it the benefit of the doubt with the PS3 and god save any journalist who gets sucked into their schilling.

Movie Like Games

[sirstar]

So, does this mean the PS3 will have more games based on movies?

Radical cell?

[Anonymous Coward]

Forbes has recently posted an article on IBM's new revolutionary Cell

Damn, the enemy within. I can't believe they've infiltrated IBM. Is nowhere safe?

oh really?

[mustafap]

>Cell is going to enable PS3 developers to create movie-quality game

hum...

more like:

Rumours and hype about playstation 3 intended to reduce sales of Xbox 360.

nothing to see here...

Movie Quality?

[FinchWorld]

Cell is going to enable PS3 developers to create movie-quality games with blazing-speed graphics.

Really? Just like the PS1/2 could do on the fly Toy Story quality graphics? Or did you just get around that by saying movie quality games, rather than games that look like movies, but still implied it?

I have no doubt the cell is going to be impressive, but we are quite along way away from an affordable processor than can replace a render farm (I believe thats what there refered as).

On the Cell Processor from the source

[javaDragon]

More information about the Cell processor directly from the source : The Cell project at IBM Research

PS3 not best example

[Azreal]

I'd say almost everyone is in agreement that the Cell processor is a very powerful design, but I don't believe the PS3 will be the best example of what it can really do.
    Sifting through what I've read about the PS3, the Cell processor is bottlenecked by a few things including but not limited to memory bandwidth, and a fairly generic pc graphics solution from nvidia (by generic I mean, one of their standard pc products tweaked slightly for use on the PS3).
    The "movie quality" games that I'm assuming the article is referring to are the demos shown at places such as e3, which are nothing more than either pre-rendered movies or carefully programmed, high end pc demos (Epic demo with high end pc and 7800 sli config).
    I'm not trying to disparage the ps3, nvidia, or IBM. Frankly, I'm a fan of Nvidia and the Cell processor and I truly believe (drm jokes aside) the ps3 will be a solid console, but I think saying that the PS3 with Cell, "...is going to enable PS3 developers to create movie-quality games with blazing-speed graphics" is misleading, ignorant and sensationlist journalism.

30 hour movies?

[Excors]

Movies take several years to generate two hours of content. Games are often ten times that long, with a much smaller budget. How can they possibly be of comparable visual quality? and why do people try?

I would much rather have games that concentrate on art instead of graphics. (Rez and Darwinia come to mind as examples of visually impressive games with non-realistic styles. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to work well in terms of sales...)

I N F O

[MrEcho.net]

If you want to read more about the CELL heres a link for you...
http://www.research.ibm.com/cell/home.html

First Cell product already shipping

[Cybro]

Since the first cell product is already shipping. http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS3591350722.html we should be able to benchmark the processor pretty soon and find out if it is all a hype or this really is the second coming :-)