So you're comparing a high end expensive CPU from 2006 to a console CPU from 2006? You're comparing an 8800GT to a 7800 console GPU.
Well, according to Sony, the "Cell" was a "super computer on a chip" and "Faster than anything else".
Even "low end" processors from 2006 were faster, such as Athlon64 X2s.
Don't forget that the actual 7800 series was a high end PC product at the time as well.
The SPUs are very powerful, and Cell gets over 200 GFLOPS for things like physics and video processing. It's a 2006 console CPU designed to a price point.
Designed to a price point? Sony dumped over a billion dollars into the Cell's development. It's probably the most expensive CPU design ever. Which makes things even funnier, considering its just a PPC with a bunch of co-processors.
Also, Sony is the only company to ever claim 200GFLOPs of performance. Neither IBM nor Toshiba, co-developers of the Cell, have come out and said such a thing. Sony has also removed all but one reference to that kind of processing power from the Playstation3 website. It's buried back in the old original press release for the PS3 from 2005. But Sony has been known to remove press releases if they point out product shortcomings. Back when the PS2 HDD was released, there was a big stink at the forums as to why the HDD was lacking all of the features Sony promised. The forum posters grabbed all of the press releases where Sony promised the world and posted them asking why we didn't get those features. Sony's response? Remove the press releases.
Sony also made outrageous claims regarding the RSX in the PS3 that nvidia has never backed up. If you were to believe Sony's claims, the RSX should be almost as powerful as the GeForce GTX 295 when it comes to FLOP performance.
No, it's a GeForce 7800.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSX_'Reality_Synthesizer'
That's why your PC is faster, it's got a GeForce 8800, which was a far faster GPU when it came out than the 7800.
Actually, no. The RSX is based on the technology, but not even nvidia backs up those specs.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GeForce_7_Series nvidia's 7800 and 7900 series specs are quite a bit different than Sony's claimed specs, which have also been removed from the Playstation3 website.
If you look at those specs, it actually seems to be a cross between the 7600GT and 7800.
But real world performance would suggest it being closer to the 7600GT, considering the PS3 couldn't even run GTA4 at a solid 30fps at 1024x640, with lower resolution textures than the Xbox360 version and the patented Playstation Vasoline Effect smearing it all.
Most developers say that both consoles are fairly equal overall, with pros and cons, basically the 360 could look a bit better, but the PS3 game could have better physics.
Every single multi-platform developer interview I have ever seen has stated that the Xbox360 is the better overall platform and far more capable.
Well now this is really getting off topic, but it's pretty clear both from actual game and developer comments that the PS3 can look better, but is harder to code for (and if care isn't taken it can look worse).
Thats false. Developer comments have stated otherwise.
Plus the games themselves prove it as well. Again, GTA4. Case in point. Runs at 1024x640 versus 1280x720 on the Xbox360, plus the Xbox version has higher resolution textures and no blurring effect.
But yeah, the PS3 uses basically a 7900 class GPU.
Actually, Sony's former comments were that it was based on 7800 technology but shares more in common (looking at the specs) with the 7600GT than the 7800 series.
But just like with the Cell specs, Sony has retracted all but one buried comment regarding the PS3's power.
This is really the same situation we've always seen-at best consoles are roughly equivalent to PC hardware when they launch, and then quickly fall behind.
Well, equal PC hardware at the time of the PS3's launch could at least push UT3 at 60fps at the same resolution as the PS3, but higher detail settings.
It took several months after the launch of the Xbox 1 before there was a significantly more powerful GPU available on PCs, and the 733mhz Celron was pretty solid for when it launched.
Actually, the CPU in the Xbox wasn't a "Celeron". Many people mistakenly called it a "Celeron" or a "Pentium/Celeron hybrid". Most people fail to realize that, at that time, the Celeron WAS a Pentium 3. The difference was that the Celeron had half the amount of cache as the Pentium 3, disabled either by choice or by defect, but the cache ran at full chip speed. The Pentium 3 had double the cache but ran at half chip speed. Other than that, the processors were exactly the same. Intel would just take that P3 with the defective cache, disable the defective half, run it at full speed, and put a Celeron sticker on it. The Xbox CPU just had the full system cache running at full chip speed.
The Xbox GPU was just a GeForce 3 with an extra pixel shader unit. The GeForce 3 Ti 500 was available before the Xbox and more powerful.
Plus 2001 saw the "Thunderbird" based Athlons running at 1.4GHz. When the Xbox launched in late 2001, we already had Athlon XPs running at 1.5GHz and the GeForce Ti 500, so we had PCs then that were considerably more powerful than the original Xbox itself.
(In the case of the 360, the Geforce 7800/7900 series was already out, in the case of the PS3, the 8800 series was already out.
According to ATI (and Microsoft hasn't changed or removed specs, like Sony has), the Xbox360 GPU is more powerful than the 7900 series (and real world game performance backs that up). ATI also claims that the Xbox360 GPU has "some DirectX 10 features".
Okay, this is where your argument falls apart. As that other guy mentioned, it's basically a 7900GTX, and while it's not a unified architecture, it's higher end than the 360's GPU.
Actually, no its not. Again, Sony's own specs (which have since been recanted and removed, also linked earlier in the thread by another poster) claim its based on the 7800. But if you go to the wikipedia links for the GeForce 7 series and the RSX link and look at the two, you'll find that its in-between the 7600 and 7800.
Off hand I can think of Bioshock, Mercenaries 2, Burnout Paridise, and Grand Theft Auto 4 (there's some debate with that one, but I'm going by IGN's review).
Grand Theft Auto 4? Are you kidding me?
http://www.gamespot.com/features/6202552/p-4.html GTA4 on the PS3 looks absolutely TERRIBLE.
Bioshock?
http://gamevideos.1up.com/video/id/21388 Xbox360 has better coloring, but otherwise looks the same. Plus it also came out what? A full year after the Xbox360 version did. Just like Oblivion, it had an extra year in development.
Mercenaries 2?
http://www.gametrailers.com/player/39321.html take a look for yourself (HD video) The Xbox360 version has noticeably better color definition.
Burnout Paradise?
http://www.gametrailers.com/player/29926.html?r=1&type=wmv The Xbox360 VGA connection (no HDMI at that time) looks significantly better all around.
Plus if you look at PS3 exclusives, and even first generation PS3 games versus first generation 360 games, it's pretty clear it does have more potential
Really?
Gear of War was a first generation game for the Xbox360 and exclusive. It looks FAR better than Resistance.
Halo 3 looks better than Resistance 2, despite being a year older.
Gears of War 2 looks better than Resistance 2 and KillZone 2. KillZone 2 doesn't even look as good as many of the games out there, and it has so much Playstation Vasoline that you can't even really get a clear look at anything. It doesn't even look half as good as the trailer from 2005, which the developers finally admitted was not in-game footage.
What else is there? Lair? That game was a slideshow. MGS4? It looks no better than what we've seen in average games for years now. In fact, it has lower resolution textures than most average games.
Gran Turismo 5? Sure the car models look fantastic, but you still have those 2 polygon trees and the environmental detail is so low that even GRID running on my MacBook on medium settings has significantly higher environmental detail than that game.
(I suspect a lot of developers initially were just dumping 360 code deigned to run on three CPUs onto the PS3's single main CPU-which would pretty much be exactly in line with the performance difference we saw in some early multiplatform games).
CPU code has nothing to do with the fact that games like GTA4 run at 640p on the PS3 compared to 720p on the Xbox360. Thats just a weaker GPU. Thats a difference of roughly 350,000 pixels you know. Absolutely nothing to sneeze at.
And no more taking this thread off topic
Thats it on the whole PS3 discussion.
