PS3 Cell CPU vs Intel i7 core 975 Extreme Edition

system irrelevant topics

PS3 Cell CPU vs Intel i7 core 975 Extreme Edition

Postby maxximuscool » 31 Jul 2009, 02:04

Hey guys this may be out of the box of YDL but I was just wandering which one is better CELL CPU or i7 975 ?
Just something to discussing and help keep people put their mind away from the problems occuring with their YDL6.2 for now lol. As for me I gave up on Bluetooth already. But hope you guys got better knowledge in CPU comparison than me.

Light me up guys. :mrgreen:
maxximuscool
ydl beginner
ydl beginner
 
Posts: 31
Joined: 14 Jul 2009, 23:48

Re: PS3 Cell CPU vs Intel i7 core 975 Extreme Edition

Postby ppietro » 31 Jul 2009, 02:48

maxximuscool wrote:Hey guys this may be out of the box of YDL but I was just wandering which one is better CELL CPU or i7 975 ?
Just something to discussing and help keep people put their mind away from the problems occuring with their YDL6.2 for now lol. As for me I gave up on Bluetooth already. But hope you guys got better knowledge in CPU comparison than me.

Light me up guys. :mrgreen:


It depends what you want to do.

For general purpose computing, the Intel wins - hands down. Especially with Linux - since it's designed around Intel architecture.

However - if you custom code for the Cell, it can do some things that are very hard to do with normal processors. In fact, the Cell resembles a graphic card GPU more than a regular CPU. For example, it can do vector mathematics quite well.

The main thing about the Cell is that it was designed for use as a game console chip. Its design criteria included the need to do some pretty complex math & physics calculations generally not handled by CPUs, low power consumption, low processing latency - although not necessarily high clock speed, and it needed to be cheap in mass production. Things important to operating systems and server applications - like out-of-order processing - were dropped. This is not the market that the i7 is aiming at.

You might wonder why Sony didn't adopt a more standard CPU/GPU architecture - especially considering they have a standard nVidia GPU, called the RSX, included in the PS3. According to "The Race For a New Game Machine" the PS3 was initially not going to have the nVidia chip. Instead, all of the graphics processing were going to be handled by the Cell, and the graphics output would have been handled by a simple frame buffer chip. Unfortunately, Sony's engineers didn't finish the graphics output chip in time, so they added an off-the-shelf nVidia design at the 11th hour.

My theory is that Ken Kutaragi - father of PlayStation - didn't expect GPUs to get as powerful as they are now. He started out at Sony as a Digital Signal Processing (DSP) engineer, so the PlayStations have this kind of "weak processor/powerful vector unit processor/framebuffer output" design.

This kind of made sense in the PlayStation 2 era - kind of - but is not necessary anymore with low power, multi-core CPUs and massively parallel GPUs.

Cheers,
Paul
User avatar
ppietro
Site Admin
Site Admin
 
Posts: 4965
Joined: 13 Sep 2007, 22:18

Re: PS3 Cell CPU vs Intel i7 core 975 Extreme Edition

Postby maxximuscool » 31 Jul 2009, 03:12

Hey paul, you're a well verse guy :)
Must admit that you knew more than I by far. But I wandering why Sony didn't order the top of the line Graphic Processing Unit? Why only use 256MB nvidia since 2007 there are the top of the line running at 768MB DDR3 is already out. Would have been better than what it is now if it was to use a better graphic, Linux would run really fine with that amount of spare RAM. I think they still made a right choice to add GPU in if they hadn't then the gaming experience would have been a disaster and cannot compete with Xbox360 at all. That is my guess.

Either way, SONY should have put more than 256MB of RAM into the machine. RAM was not an expensive part anyway, why not put it up more so the machine can be use as a PC and also the best Gaming Consoles. I understand that CPU did all the Graphical stuff calculation but without RAM it would not been possible to do intense graphic vectors and physics.

Since cell is more powerful when runing customise program but for general purpose Cell is quite slow. And to be honest Sony claimed that PS3 can be a PC but limited at 256MB RAM and Locked up GPU is really disable the full potential of the machine. I still think PS3 linux still holding back at some point. And not giving the full power yet. I frustrated when YDL6 ran out of RAM lol. :lol:


One more thing I HATE XBOX360 lol.. Disappointed with PS3 but still loving it.
maxximuscool
ydl beginner
ydl beginner
 
Posts: 31
Joined: 14 Jul 2009, 23:48

Re: PS3 Cell CPU vs Intel i7 core 975 Extreme Edition

Postby ppietro » 31 Jul 2009, 04:04

maxximuscool wrote:Hey paul, you're a well verse guy :)
Must admit that you knew more than I by far. But I wandering why Sony didn't order the top of the line Graphic Processing Unit?


Oh - that's easy. Ken still thought that the Cell would handle most of the graphics processing. "Why spend all that money on an nVidia chipset when we'll never use any of those features?", I can hear Ken thinking.

What he didn't realize is that most of the developers would be working from PC/360 architecture models, and not designing from the ground up for the PS3.

maxximuscool wrote: Why only use 256MB nvidia since 2007 there are the top of the line running at 768MB DDR3 is already out.


Cost, pure and simple. Remember - the PS3 has 512 megs of RAM. 256 Megs of RAMBUS for the Cell and 256 Megs for the nVidia. Sony is already spending way too much for the RAMBUS RAM - it's super expensive and custom. Nobody else uses it. In the Ken model, that's where you need the performance - Cell memory - not in the nVidia, since it's only doing pick-up processing.

In fact, the PS3's memory is asymetrical. The nVidia can actually use part of the 256 Meg RAMBUS memory for textures with almost no speed penalty. The converse is not true - the nVidia memory cannot be accessed at anything like a normal clock speed by the Cell.

maxximuscool wrote:Why not put... [more RAM] so the machine can be use as a PC and also the best Gaming Consoles.


Sony sells PCs - why would they want to cut into that market? VAIO, anyone? :D

maxximuscool wrote:Since cell is more powerful when runing customise program but for general purpose Cell is quite slow. And to be honest Sony claimed that PS3 can be a PC but limited at 256MB RAM and Locked up GPU is really disable the full potential of the machine. I still think PS3 linux still holding back at some point. And not giving the full power yet. I frustrated when YDL6 ran out of RAM lol. :lol:


Well - the hypervisor is interesting. On the one hand, it makes sure you can't pirate PS3 games. But on the other hand, it also makes Linux possible. The PS3 doesn't have the same chipsets as regular computers. Many of them are custom Sony designs. The hypervisor abstracts the crazy Sony hardware, and makes it look like a regular PC.

This way - you can run fairly stock Linux on it.

Sony did try the other approach once. PS2 Linux was custom as heck - and nobody supported it. :D

maxximuscool wrote:One more thing I HATE XBOX360 lol.. Disappointed with PS3 but still loving it.


I actually have a 360 as well. Here's something you may not know. The PPE in the Cell - the PowerPC portion - is identical between the PS3 and the 360. The 360 has 3 PPEs, but no SPEs. One of the interesting things about the book I mentioned is the same designer worked on both portions of the IBM design. The difference is that the 360 has a more powerful AltiVec unit on their PPE, and of course, the Cell has the 7 SPEs.

Cheers,
Paul
User avatar
ppietro
Site Admin
Site Admin
 
Posts: 4965
Joined: 13 Sep 2007, 22:18

Re: PS3 Cell CPU vs Intel i7 core 975 Extreme Edition

Postby maxximuscool » 31 Jul 2009, 09:18

Yes i know that 360 and PS3 can almost count as brother from the same mother. I just hate it because IBM sell what SONY invested in to Microsoft while it is still in a classified state. Microsoft basically got the CPU from PS3 and modified it a little. And most XBOX fans really yapping craps all over the place, Well not you of cause. I never owned an Xbox lol. Because I hate it since the first one. Ugly and Buggy. Plus it made by Microsoft. But the down side of their Xbox360 CPU is it cannot handle intense graphics that jams into one scene lol. Where PS3 has the ability to handle those sort of work loads. XBOX360 quite laggy when there are too many things happening at once.


That is what my researched told me though. May be I might be wrong. But Sony should have made PS3 much much better than it is now though. Would be the best game consoles ever if they just add another 256MB RAMBUS :D I would be running YDL6.2 smoother instead of frustration when ever my RAM is full. Anyway i'm using YDL6.2 to blogging now lol.

Trying to compile glib2 and upgrade it but somewhat it finished but could not be found while compiling Audacious 2.0.1. The new Glib2 put the files all over the place and didn't replace the old one... argggggggg... frustration. :o :o :o :evil:
maxximuscool
ydl beginner
ydl beginner
 
Posts: 31
Joined: 14 Jul 2009, 23:48

Re: PS3 Cell CPU vs Intel i7 core 975 Extreme Edition

Postby ppietro » 31 Jul 2009, 09:54

maxximuscool wrote:Yes i know that 360 and PS3 can almost count as brother from the same mother. I just hate it because IBM sell what SONY invested in to Microsoft while it is still in a classified state.


Actually - that was Sony's stupidity, pure and simple. According to the book I mentioned earlier, the contract between Sony, Toshiba and IBM that created the STI initiative allowed IBM to use their PowerPC design for any other customer - at any time. And, that's exactly what Microsoft bought. Microsoft got none of the SPE technology - only the PPE, which IBM owned completely.

At no time were any Sony secrets passed on to Microsoft and vice-versa. Sure - the IBM team would request bug fixes that didn't make sense to the Sony folks - but bugs are bugs. They were things that should be fixed - just not for the reasons Sony thought.

To be honest, Sony just didn't believe that Microsoft and IBM would ever patch up their differences. IBM and Microsoft were still angry over the lack of MS commitment to the PS/2 computer architecture and the OS/2 vs. Windows operating system war. Sony was wrong - Bill Gates himself called the president of IBM, cut through the legal red tape, and made the deal - with a *lot* of money.

maxximuscool wrote:Microsoft basically got the CPU from PS3 and modified it a little.


You should really read this book:
The Race For A New Game Machine

It will clarify a lot of your research. It was written by two of the IBM engineers that designed the PPE. It really illuminates a lot of the situation.

To start with, the original design of the PPE came from work IBM was doing for Apple. Remember the G4? Apple was unhappy with Motorola's design and implementation of that processor, and turned to IBM for help. IBM started work on a new version of the PowerPC core for Apple that got merged into the STI initiative.

Basically, it's not the CPU from the PS3 - the Cell is more than that. Sony wanted a PowerPC embedded core from IBM. Microsoft wanted a PowerPC embedded core from IBM. Nothing in the contracts prevented IBM from supplying the same embedded core to both. Remember - Sony designed the Cell's SPEs mostly themselves - IBM only designed the PPE. Sure - Sony provided most of the startup money for the project - but - that's business. IBM delivered their core on time and within specifications to both customers.

Heck - the Wii uses an earlier version of the PPE as well. The only real loser here was Apple: In order to make the schedule and keep complexity down, the PPE lost "out-of-order" processing. This made running a regular operating system slow - witness our relatively slow Linux. Apple was forced to use a different PowerPC from within IBM - the G5 - which was never able to match the power consumption of the PPE, since it was based on a POWER architecture processor from an IBM server division, not a PowerPC.

Shippy - one of the authors of the book - postulates that this is the real reason that Apple abandoned IBM and went for Intel.

maxximuscool wrote:But the down side of their Xbox360 CPU is it cannot handle intense graphics that jams into one scene lol. Where PS3 has the ability to handle those sort of work loads. XBOX360 quite laggy when there are too many things happening at once.


Not really - no. It's not that laggy at all. In some games it's better than the PS3 - in others it's worse. It's up to the programmers - as it always has been.

Think of it this way - the 360 has a triple core, hyper-threaded low latency PowerPC processor with a fairly high end ATI chip. That's 6 unified processing threads. And each pair of threads has its own Vector Unit processor - like an AltiVec - but better. Not as powerful as an SPE, but in conjunction with the more advanced ATI GPU and its shaders, it's enough.

For traditional PC programming, this is a better fit than the PS3.

Let me reiterate: I said traditional. :D

maxximuscool wrote:That is what my researched told me though.


I don't think your research is right, unfortunately. If the codebase started as a PC game, it adopts easier to the 360. Unless the production house takes the extra time to re-engineer the base algorithm, the PS3 port suffers.

For example, try The Orange Box from Valve on the PS3 & 360. 360? Smooth as silk. PS3? Stutters and pops. Valve fully admitted they had no interest in creating a PS3 version. Gabe Newell stated that he basically didn't have time to learn the PS3's architecture. There just weren't enough potential sales to justify the loss of Valve's programmers to the project. So - EA used an in-house team to do the port, and it showed.

Or - recently - the new Ghostbusters game. The framerates are close, but the PS3 version is 70% the resolution of the 360, and it's missing key graphical effects.

Again - PS3 titles can look great. Take Tomb Raider: Underworld. Much better on the PS3. Or Uncharted 2 - there's a reason that game is PS3 only. According to Naughty Dog, they're finally using the SPEs at 100% workload.

But - nowadays - you've gotta wonder - Is the PS3's strange architecture really worth it in the long run? Is the PC so ubiquitous that working away from that standard dooms you to failure? I consider the 360 and - heck - even the Wii - to be PC architecture. PowerPC CPU & ATI GPU in both units - that's a PC right there.

Cheers,
Paul
User avatar
ppietro
Site Admin
Site Admin
 
Posts: 4965
Joined: 13 Sep 2007, 22:18

Re: PS3 Cell CPU vs Intel i7 core 975 Extreme Edition

Postby ppietro » 31 Jul 2009, 10:34

Here's some suggested reading:

A different take on the race for next Gen consoles:
http://www.reed-electronics.com/CA6328378.html

Interview with David Shippy:
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3 ... rview_.php

The original Wall Street Journal article that caused the uproar:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123069467545545011.html

Cheers,
Paul
User avatar
ppietro
Site Admin
Site Admin
 
Posts: 4965
Joined: 13 Sep 2007, 22:18

Re: PS3 Cell CPU vs Intel i7 core 975 Extreme Edition

Postby Digitalgenicide » 05 Aug 2009, 02:58

i really dont understand all the complaing about the lack of ram. im running 6.1 in fluxbox with my GDM and all unnessasry services disabled, and my set up is faster then most of my friends desktops (They use Vista). True for a 400 dollar machine it really should have more Ram, but obviously ram isnt too important in the XMB. Im just happy sony openned up there system and made dual booting linux free and easy. Unlike Microsoft who nickle and dime u on every little thing. My only complaint is lack of adobe flash for linux PPC64 but there ain't a damn thing we can do about that
Digitalgenicide
ydl beginner
ydl beginner
 
Posts: 27
Joined: 25 May 2009, 00:06

Re: PS3 Cell CPU vs Intel i7 core 975 Extreme Edition

Postby ning » 08 Sep 2009, 21:47

/*
It depends what you want to do.

For general purpose computing, the Intel wins - hands down. Especially with Linux - since it's designed around Intel architecture.

However - if you custom code for the Cell, it can do some things that are very hard to do with normal processors. In fact, the Cell resembles a graphic card GPU more than a regular CPU. For example, it can do vector mathematics quite well.
*/
It is true, I am using the Cell for scientific computation, Cell's performance depends on how much I can tame it, the creature is still wild to me.
I would expect 2-digits performance over my office i7 by the end of this year though the YDLPS3 is my home computer and my boy's game machine.
Cell's OS and Office suit performance does not bother me much, I thought YDL team had done some great low level job to optimize the OS code.
I only worry about my next cell machine, can Fixstars sell the powerstation with a Cell processor rather than G5s? Or, even better, only sell Cell's motherboard (integrated even better, moderate GPU is OK), I just plug in with everything PC components :-)
Thanks.
ning
ydl lover
ydl lover
 
Posts: 55
Joined: 17 Feb 2009, 09:23

Re: PS3 Cell CPU vs Intel i7 core 975 Extreme Edition

Postby ppietro » 08 Sep 2009, 22:35

ning wrote:Or, even better, only sell Cell's motherboard (integrated even better, moderate GPU is OK), I just plug in with everything PC components :-)


Well - this isn't quite what you're looking for....

but Fixstars sells a PowerCell daughterboard for PCs:
http://us.fixstars.com/products/gigaaccel/

It runs about ~$8000.00 US - but - hey - it sure sounds cool. :D

Cheers,
Paul
User avatar
ppietro
Site Admin
Site Admin
 
Posts: 4965
Joined: 13 Sep 2007, 22:18

Re: PS3 Cell CPU vs Intel i7 core 975 Extreme Edition

Postby ning » 09 Sep 2009, 00:13

$8000? Oh no, even $800 still not very attractive, maybe just wait until Sony change the wind,
thanks.
ning
ydl lover
ydl lover
 
Posts: 55
Joined: 17 Feb 2009, 09:23

Re: PS3 Cell CPU vs Intel i7 core 975 Extreme Edition

Postby ning » 09 Sep 2009, 07:24

Paul,
1) Is it safe to update to GameOS V3.0? I mean still can boot to my YDL6.2 partition from there?
2) You mentioned in another thread that Sony does have a product like high end ps3, does it just hook up the keyboard mouse monitor to run the YDL like my fat ps3? And what is the price?

Thanks.
ning
ydl lover
ydl lover
 
Posts: 55
Joined: 17 Feb 2009, 09:23

Re: PS3 Cell CPU vs Intel i7 core 975 Extreme Edition

Postby ppietro » 09 Sep 2009, 20:00

ning wrote:1) Is it safe to update to GameOS V3.0? I mean still can boot to my YDL6.2 partition from there?


Yes - it appears to be safe. To the best of my knowledge, no one on this board has had a 3.0 Firmware related issue.

ning wrote:2) You mentioned in another thread that Sony does have a product like high end ps3, does it just hook up the keyboard mouse monitor to run the YDL like my fat ps3? And what is the price?


Well - there's the Sony Zego:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zego
http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/News/Press ... index.html

but - that's going to be expensive. Word is just under $10,000.00 US.

It's rack mount, but there must be a keyboard/mouse connector on it.

It's unclear when this is coming out - Sony dropped the listing from their site.

Also - I don't know if regular humans can get this, but Sony now sells their PS3 development kits for $2000.00:
viewtopic.php?f=13&t=5012

Cheers,
Paul
User avatar
ppietro
Site Admin
Site Admin
 
Posts: 4965
Joined: 13 Sep 2007, 22:18

Re: PS3 Cell CPU vs Intel i7 core 975 Extreme Edition

Postby ning » 10 Sep 2009, 21:41

It maybe Sony's dilemma --
the $299 slim could be a supper computer in less than netbook price, organizations may buy plenty without buying a single game DVD, even the blue-ray DVD reader makes no much sense.
The good point is Sony seems to keep on selling the fat one, which can run YDL.
I just wonder why Fixstar can make the Cell daughter board for the Powerstation, why they just simply make a Cell Powerstation that runs YDL, may be the RAM system problem, cannot use the common DD2 to fit the SPEs?

Thanks.
ning
ydl lover
ydl lover
 
Posts: 55
Joined: 17 Feb 2009, 09:23

Re: PS3 Cell CPU vs Intel i7 core 975 Extreme Edition

Postby ppietro » 10 Sep 2009, 23:08

ning wrote:The good point is Sony seems to keep on selling the fat one, which can run YDL.


Not for much longer though - once they sell through their "Phat" stock, they're gone forever:
http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2009 ... tion-3.ars

Is this the standard system moving forward?
"This will be the hardware moving forward," Koller told Ars. "Right now with the 80GB we're selling down inventory, and this will replace that model."


ning wrote:I just wonder why Fixstar can make the Cell daughter board for the Powerstation, why they just simply make a Cell Powerstation that runs YDL, may be the RAM system problem, cannot use the common DD2 to fit the SPEs?


Interesting. Poking around IBM's site, it appears the standard Cell/B.E. chip (found in the PS3) can only address 2 Gigs max. However - looking through the product specs page here: http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/bladecent ... vers/qs21/ it can take "DDR2 VLP DIMM". So - I don't think the Cell/B.E. is locked to RAMBUS XDR DRAM.

The next generation Cell - the PowerXCell 8i processor can address up to 32 GB of system memory - so that's not really an issue either.

My guess is maybe Cell licensing fees? You'd have to ask Fixstars directly, I guess. (Remember - we're not Fixstars employees - just volunteers. :D)

Cheers,
Paul
User avatar
ppietro
Site Admin
Site Admin
 
Posts: 4965
Joined: 13 Sep 2007, 22:18

Next

Return to Off Topic

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 4 guests