Intel's Montecito CPU has around 1.7 billion transistors. it is a dual core CPU. eventually, derivatives of it will make their way down to the desktop level. if not other multi-core designs.
I thought Sony said a long time ago that they would attempt to totally displace Intel by surpassing Moore's law or something. that Playstation3 would have a CPU of at least half a billion transistors. well, the Cell CPU shown at ISSCC is only 234 million transistors right? less than half of what was originally predicted for PS3. the talk is that PS3 will, at most, have a CPU with 8 SPEs, thus roughly matching the Cell shown at ISSCC. but there is also talk of a less complex CPU with 4-6 SPEs, which would obviously bring the transistor count down from 234 million. This is NOT the kind of talk we would be hearing from SCEI 4-5 years ago. Also to add insult to injury, Cell has NO eDRAM at all. just more local storage memory and L2 cache for the general purpose PowerPC core.
how can Intel produce a 1.7 Billion transistor CPU and not STI? this Montecito is not an multi chip package (MCM) it is a single die, as far as I know. Montecito is made from two extra-efficient Madison (Itanium2) cores.
and beyond Montecito, Intel is working on something even more advanced, the Tanglewood CPU. this beast is going to be a fresher design, with 4-16 cores. this sounds awfully Cell-like to me.
So the point is, my question is, why can't Sony stuff more than one ~234 transistor Cell into PS3, if Intel can do a monster 1.7 billion transistor CPU (Montecito) and is also working on something that will no doubt have even more transistors and more cores (Tanglewood).
and I am not saying that Sony isn't going to do just that, but all the talk lately is of a much more modest PS3. the current Cell that was at ISSCC is *smaller* than the first Emotion Engine was. and that Cell was on 90nm. at 65nm, it will be conciderably smaller. I would be shocked if we don't see the equivalent of a 2 PE Cell CPU in PS3.
I thought Sony said a long time ago that they would attempt to totally displace Intel by surpassing Moore's law or something. that Playstation3 would have a CPU of at least half a billion transistors. well, the Cell CPU shown at ISSCC is only 234 million transistors right? less than half of what was originally predicted for PS3. the talk is that PS3 will, at most, have a CPU with 8 SPEs, thus roughly matching the Cell shown at ISSCC. but there is also talk of a less complex CPU with 4-6 SPEs, which would obviously bring the transistor count down from 234 million. This is NOT the kind of talk we would be hearing from SCEI 4-5 years ago. Also to add insult to injury, Cell has NO eDRAM at all. just more local storage memory and L2 cache for the general purpose PowerPC core.
how can Intel produce a 1.7 Billion transistor CPU and not STI? this Montecito is not an multi chip package (MCM) it is a single die, as far as I know. Montecito is made from two extra-efficient Madison (Itanium2) cores.
and beyond Montecito, Intel is working on something even more advanced, the Tanglewood CPU. this beast is going to be a fresher design, with 4-16 cores. this sounds awfully Cell-like to me.
So the point is, my question is, why can't Sony stuff more than one ~234 transistor Cell into PS3, if Intel can do a monster 1.7 billion transistor CPU (Montecito) and is also working on something that will no doubt have even more transistors and more cores (Tanglewood).
and I am not saying that Sony isn't going to do just that, but all the talk lately is of a much more modest PS3. the current Cell that was at ISSCC is *smaller* than the first Emotion Engine was. and that Cell was on 90nm. at 65nm, it will be conciderably smaller. I would be shocked if we don't see the equivalent of a 2 PE Cell CPU in PS3.
since they can get the same performance by buying more cheaper chips and clustering them.