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[God's Hand]

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1768416,00.asp

"IBM Micro[electronics] may be trying to entice Apple to get involved," said Kevin Krewell, editor in chief of In-Stat MDR's Microprocessor Report, based in San Jose, Calif. "It would be fairly easy to recompile Mac OS X to run on Cell, but optimizing the OS would be a lot of work."

"Even though it runs at over 4GHz, the Cell is has much simpler core than the G5," said Krewell. "Apple might not be happy with the simpler core. The higher clock rate may not buy them much."

For instance, the Cell processor does not perform out-of-order execution, a feature found in most processors designed in the past decade. This type of execution shuffles instructions, executing them without regard to the order in which they were programmed. Cell's core also issues fewer instructions.

"The core in the G5 can issue eight instructions at one time," said Krewell. "The Cell's core only issues two."

The PowerPC architecture, currently expressed in 970 family, on the other hand, is designed to run the varied tasks required in a personal computer. Krewell said the first-generation of Cell processors looked ill-suited to running a desktop or mobile PC.

"As a general-purpose processor, the Cell might run ten times slower than what IBM is claiming," he said.

Okay, so we have people in the industry who actually know what they're talking about saying that CELL is pretty much a crudely designed processor that can't handle the job of an OS. If Apple doesn't use it, CELL's use is limited. All the hype from Sony leading up to the unveiling seems to have backfired.

Let's keep in mind that CELL is an inanimate object, Panajev. You don't have to love it no matter what. But what's your take on this? If PS3 is using a version of CELL that supposedly is not even first-gen, and these guys are correct, how is it going to do as a gaming processor?

 

[Dr_Cogent]

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1768416,00.asp




Okay, so we have people in the industry who actually know what they're talking about saying that CELL is pretty much a crudely designed processor that can't handle the job of an OS. If Apple doesn't use it, CELL's use is limited. All the hype from Sony leading up to the unveiling seems to have backfired.

Let's keep in mind that CELL is an inanimate object, Panajev. You don't have to love it no matter what. But what's your take on this? Is CELL still the greatest thing since sliced bread?

I'll believe its the greatest thing when I see it in action. Show me, don't tell me.

 

[ThirdEye]

:lol
Do you attempt to run Windows on BlueGene/L? That's the answer.

 

[God's Hand]

You can.

 

[sonycowboy]

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1768416,00.asp


Okay, so we have people in the industry who actually know what they're talking about saying that CELL is pretty much a crudely designed processor that can't handle the job of an OS. If Apple doesn't use it, CELL's use is limited. All the hype from Sony leading up to the unveiling seems to have backfired.

Uh, I think we've seen an absolute flood of people in the industry absolutely drop their jaws over the CELL and gush over it's technical abilities. Then we've had some level headed people that say it's great for the intended usage which is to churn out FLOPS like never seen before in a consumer chip. Then we've had people like you, who try to portray it as an absolute flop and use 2 or 3 articles as their defense when there are many more articles that don't support your argument.

Nothing we haven't seen with every other major technology release.

 

[Blimblim]

Cell is not a general purpose design. It will great where lots of math power will be required (so PS3 / TVs for example) but there is no real reason to have 8 PE on a workstation CPU.

 

[Pug]

God's hand nowhere in that report does it say that Cell is underpowder. What it says is that for some apllications there are more suitable CPU's on the market. Remember a cpu like the G5 is a powerful bit of silicon but its not clear at this point if Cell is going to be pushed at that type of market. A 1-8 cell working with a next next gen Nvidia GPU will be a powerful bit of kit, as will a dual/3 core PPC and the next gen ATI GPU in XB2 and as will the the Nintendo revolution.

 

[Enigma]

I'm curious whether Cell lives up to the hype, but this whole article is old. All of the articles at the unveiling stated it wouldn't be some magical bullet for Apple to use. This has zero impact on a custom designed video game system, however.

 

[mrklaw]

Okay, so we have people in the industry who actually know what they're talking about saying that CELL is pretty much a crudely designed processor that can't handle the job of an OS.

It can, it just isn't focussed on that level of general performance, so it won't be as capable of a similarly clocked general CPU.

Its aim is to excel at a specific subset of computing, namely handling huge streams of data coming through it in a relatively ordered way, and manipulating it very quickly.

Nowhere do they say its a *bad* chip, that is just an inference you've made

 

[Axsider]

Uh, I think we've seen an absolute flood of people in the industry absolutely drop their jaws over the CELL and gush over it's technical abilities. Then we've had some level headed people that say it's great for the intended usage which is to churn out FLOPS like never seen before in a consumer chip. Then we've had people like you, who try to portray it as an absolute flop and use 2 or 3 articles as their defense when there are many more articles that don't support your argument.

God's Hand
Nintendo Forever
(Today, 03:39 PM)
Reply | Quote

Enough said.....

 

[tahrikmili]

2 instructions per cycle? :lol:

By simple math, 8/2 = 4..

So a CELL proc. with 1 PPC core and 8 CELL cores will perform similarly to a Xenon proc. with 3 PPC cores. Excellent. Sony am doomed

 

[Pug]

tahrikmili, you did that on purpose to get Panajev into another debate!

 

[DonasaurusRex]

what does this matter sonys not in the desktop market.

 

[gofreak]

There's a difference between the number of instructions issued and the number of instructions processed per cycle. Everything in that article has already been known and accounted for - there are no revelations there.

How Cell performs in a desktop is of little relevance to us. Don't most of us really only care about PS3? Cell looks to be ideal for a videogames console, imo.

 

[kaching]

God's Hand, this is very old.

http://www.ga-forum.com/showthread.php?t=34290

 

[Datawhore]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but out-of-order execution isn't important for a specific-purpose console processor like the Cell. OOO execution is more relevant for general purpose code, like on PCs, right? It was my belief that a good compiler can make up for the lack of OOO execution within the Cell chip. (I'm no engineer though)

 

[Folder]

God's Hand
Nintendo Forever
(Today, 03:39 PM)
Reply | Quote

Enough said.....

Agreed.

 

[The Faceless Master]

i'm definitely no sony fanboy, and even i don't care how the cell performs outside of the ps3...

i mean, seriously, who does?

 

[Endymion]

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1768416,00.asp


Let's keep in mind that CELL is an inanimate object, Panajev. You don't have to love it no matter what. But what's your take on this? If PS3 is using a version of CELL that supposedly is not even first-gen, and these guys are correct, how is it going to do as a gaming processor?

Keep in mind that CELL is an inanimate object, God's hand. You don't have to hate it no matter what. Above all, don't manipulate old articles to come to stupid conclusions. Your life can get better than this.