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Cell Hits 45nm, PS3 Price Drop Likely to Follow
Septimus writes "At this weeks ISSCC, IBM announced that the Cell CPU used in the PlayStation 3 will soon make the transition to IBM's next-gen 45nm high-k process. 'The 45nm Cell will use about 40 percent less power than its 65nm predecessor, and its die area will be reduced by 34 percent. The greatly reduced power budget will cut down on the amount of active cooling required by the console, which in turn will make it cheaper to produce and more reliable (this means fewer warrantied returns). Also affecting Sony's per-unit cost is the reduction in overall die size. A smaller die means a smaller, cheaper package; it also means that yields will be better and that each chip will cost less overall.'"
Whatever you do make sure its one that plays PS2 games. For the time being thats where the value is as you can get dozens of good games for next to nothing as opposed to four good games at full price. While some of the better PS2 games are quite scarce where I live, for anyone in those NTSC regions you shouldn't have too much trouble.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_3#Retail_configurationsWikipedia has a list of different models for comparison. Preferable you want a model with PS2 support in hardware as those have better compatibility with PS2 software.
I disagree totally.
PS2 functionality can be had for very little by simply getting a PS2. They retail for 130$ new, and it's so hard to get a 60gb model that you are probably a lot better off with one of the more energy efficient newer models. I'd wait until these new ones come out, because I think there will be a price drop before April (MGS4 + Home time).
You can put your seperate PS2 in another room (with your old TV, perhaps). You can put off the purchase for a while, saving you some money.
Hell, if you are really really wanting to play PS2 games, forget the PS3 for a year or so and you have plenty of cheap games to enjoy. You'll save a ton in the long run. But I find that once I had my PS3, I really didn't want to play PS2 games, becauze they were generally kinda ugly, and graphics actually do matter a lot to game enjoyment.
While I wish all PS3's had emotion engines built in, the fact is that it's not that big a deal when PS2 are still being made. The main problem is that many customers will expect the functionality and be rudely surprised.