has sony done a bad job in integrating the cell processor in the ps3

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Originally Posted by Nicko01

No, the PS3 isn't 8 core at 3GHz. A 3GHz quad core costs around $1000 alone. It has one main core at 3GHz and 7 more cores for processing other things. The PS3 has a pretty nice GPU in it too.

And yes, Crysis is a hog when it comes to GPU and CPU power. Awesome game though, if you have the computer for it.
A computer that will run Crysis well will cost $1000-2000+, if you build it yourself.

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No it doesnt, the PS3 consists of 8 SPE's sure, but one is reserved for hypervisor and one is disabled totally(no idea why). All of the SPE's run at 3.2 GHz I believe, and the (overpriced) Intel Quad Core for 1000$ cannot be compared to IBM's (almost proprietary) Cell BE Engine.
I say almost proprietary because they are also found in IBMs new serverblades i believe...

As for the crysis thing, save some money and time: Grab a cheap Dual Core, OC it and get a HD4850 or 4870, then 2-4gb of ram and pick the other parts yourself, they arent that important. I run Crysis at 1280x1024 on Custom Config(UltimaRages ToD hack) at Vhigh settings with 2xAA at 43FPS On a 4850 and and E8500 running at 3.5GHz. overclocks for the win ^.^
Oh and my 4850 is running at 700MHZ/2100MHZ.
Try those settings and rig :D

The CPU on the PS3 is a bit tricky for non-devs to understand. It has only a single "core" CPU as the layperson understands the term. It is a dual-threaded PowerPC processor running at 3.2 GHz. It is a 64 bit CPU, like the G5 Apple used before switching to Intel, however, it's not as complex as the G5. IBM/Sony/Toshiba removed the out-of-order execution of instructions. That saved a lot of space, which was then used for the SPEs (I'll talk about those in a moment). Removing the OOO execution also makes the CPU run about half the speed you would think given the clock rate (the 3.2 GHz PPE is about the same as the 1.8 GHz G5). The "dual-thread" part is very similar to Intel's "HyperThreading" - the CPU pretends to be dual-core, but doesn't really run both at the same time like true dual-core. The other thread only runs when the first thread stalls or has run a preset number of cycles. This gives maybe a 10% to 20% increase in threaded tasks compared to up to 100% with true dual-core. The main task of the PPE is to run complicated code that is not easily broken into parallel or streamed computations. I.E., game logic. The PPE does have AltiVec (called VMX these days). It's like SSE on x86 based CPUs.

The SPEs mentioned above are the other "cores" included in the Cell, and are not regular CPUs as the layperson understands the term. They're vector processors meant for parallel and streamed computations - things like video or sound effects; maybe physics calculations on an array of data. The SPEs are useful for things like decoding compressed data, or altering streams of data (like 3D processing of audio samples). IBM, Sony, and other companies make libraries of useful routines that run on the SPE to offload work from the PPE. These libraries may be free and open source (many of the IBM libs are), or they may be closed and commerical (the libs used by official game developers for the PS3 are of that variety).

So think of it this way - the PPE part of the Cell is like a HyperThreaded P4: clocked really fast, but doesn't run as fast as the clock would lead you to believe; having SIMD extensions (VMX for the PPE, SSE for the P4); and the hyperthreading simulates dual-core without actually being dual-core. The SPE parts are extra vector processors added to the system (in the case on the Cell, inside the CPU itself) to help accelerate certain types of caculations. Toshiba sells a PCIe card for the PC that allows you to add these SPEs to your PC. It's not as good as being built into the CPU, but it's better than not having the SPEs at all. :)