Inside the Cell

Bilinear scaling on the PlayStation 3 (Cell Broadband Engine). This is a demonstration movie.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• PS3
• Cell
• Broadband
• Engine
• PlayStation
• SPE
• PPE

[TriMenToR]

Hi MastRyo,

The project was finished at the end of March. So there were more cool things done with the Cell. Now I'm developping neural networks on the Cell processor (handwriting recognition). It's hard to program applications (learning curve) on this architecture but there is enough documentation available to do it (IBM resource center).

To be honest the PS3 is more powerful than the 360 ever 'll be. It's an extremely powerful machine and in a few years we 'll see more of his strength.

[shady0890]

i have a 360 and it sucks i am selling it to get a ps3. Sony is the leading technology in our time. Microsoft doesn't even have that good games. i wasted money on it i regret having 360 its all bull crap.

[hardkoregamer1981]

PS3 just has the edge over 360 's hardware which i know hasn't fully lived up to it yet but I feel that ps3 has just barely got started. Alot of developers clearly stated at sony's press at E3 08 that they have just barely scratched the surface of ps3's protentail & expect to achive alot things that they aren't able to do with any other platform this generation.

[NewLynxChannel]

@madlh24 Like HenryHenriquez mentioned, DDR3 memory can achieve much higher clocks than DDR3-1333. For example, DDR3-2133 achieves up to 34.13 GB/s in dual-channel and 51.2 GB/s (exactly twice the XDR's bandwidth) in triple channel. For DDR3-2400, it's 38.4 and 57.6 respectively. So actually DDR3 is ahead here.

He also menioned GDDR5, but I don't really think that comparision is needed since GDDR5 easily achieves over 5 times the XDR bandwidth.

[NewLynxChannel]

@henryhenriquez My pleasure.

[henryhenriquez]

@NewLynxChannel tell them ddr3 tripple channel 2200MHz and gddr5 please ^^

[madlh24]

@NewLynxChannel kk i get it now....still better than ddr3 though...

[NewLynxChannel]

@madlh24 PS3's XDR RAM runs at 400 MHz, but since it tranfers 8 bits per cycle (1 Hz), its effective data rate is 8 * 400 = 3200 MT/s (3.2 GT/s). Similarly, DDR3-1333 RAM runs at 666.66 MHz, but since it tranfers 2 bits per cycle, it's 2 * 666.66 = 1333.33 MT/s.

Also, in this case both both frequency and data rate are irrelevant, you must look at the bandwidth. It's 25.6 GB/s for the XDR, 22.4 GB/s for the GDDR3, and for comparision, 21.33 GB/s for dual-channel DDR3-1333.

[madlh24]

@NewLynxChannel well in many places they state that the xdr runs at 3.2ghz but i read something and it says the system clock is 400mhz but the data bus runs at 3.2ghz.....sooo idk im confused now

[NewLynxChannel]

@madlh24 The XDR RAM on the PS3 is clocked at 400 MHz, not 3.2 GHz. Since it transfers 8 bits per cycle, that makes 3.2 GT/s (gigatranfers per second) and a bandwidth of 25.6 GB/s, which is only slightly better than the 700 MHz GDDR3 at 22.4 GB/s.

You should not confuse frequency and data rate. PS3's XDR is clocked at 400 MHz and makes 3200 MT/s (3.2 GT/s). A frequency of 3.2 GHz would be absurd.

[madlh24]

@MegadrixfireZ yeah so the RSX has 256mb of dedicated gddr3 ram running at 700mhz and the CELL has 256mb of shareable(with RSX) XDR ram running at 3.2ghz....still ALOT better than 512mb of shareable gddr3 ram running at 700mhz

[MegadrixfireZ]

@madlh24 oh ok thanks.

[madlh24]

@MegadrixfireZ uh..actaully its backwards...the 256mb of ram that runs at 700mhz is dedicated to the gpu...the 3.2ghz ram is the one that is shared with the cell AND the rsx...think about it...3.2ghz ram on a gpu that runs at 550mhz....the XDR ram is shared because its the one the cell uses...since the cell runs at 3.2ghz and the xrd ram runs at 3.2ghz, so there is no lag...but since the cell is very fast, it doesnt need that much ram, so whatever the cell doesnt use of the 256 mb goes 2 the rsx