7x SPE's why?

[Gegenki]

Why?
there are 8x SPE's and ken kutaragi said the last one would be inactive. Why would they do that?

[Lumine]

incase one of the ones you are using breaks, you have a backup. Check the tech specs, it says one is there for "redundancy."

[Gegenki]

thats what redundance means.... thats cool then. Added warrenty

[Lumine]

Yep, being redundant just means that you double up the same thing twice

[GodZeRo]

Redundant for the fabrication step, not once it's packaged.
Basically it's to increase yields.

[KKS]

I've read in an interview with ken kutaragi that IBM originally wanted CELL to have 6 SPEs but he insisted on 8 for it being a power of 2. Its not surprising the yield is low.

[xbdestroya]

Redundant for the fabrication step, not once it's packaged.
Basically it's to increase yields.

Exactly - fab-wise if they produce 8 SPE Cell chips but spec-wise aim for seven, they´re able to increase yields quite a bit. If you consider that the majority of the die area is taken up by the SPE´s, you realize that if there´s a die defect, it will probably be on one of those SPE´s. Thus, by fabbing a chip of which one of it´s SPE´s will be locked out anyway, you are able to increase your yields to further include all chips with a die defect on a sole SPE.

By the way, at an Internet cafe in Mexico today, so I was just able to catch up on the PS3 news and specs today. Awesome! 8)

[Z]

may be they left one for the OS?

[haggisns]

Will developers be instructed to code their programs to use only the 7 SPEs,

What if a chip actually has 8 SPEs without defects? If a developer does not explicitly limit the program to running 7 SPEs, some consoles theoretically
be more powerful?

[Schmeh]

Will developers be instructed to code their programs to use only the 7 SPEs,

What if a chip actually has 8 SPEs without defects? If a developer does not explicitly limit the program to running 7 SPEs, some consoles theoretically
be more powerful?

No, there won't be any PS3's that are more powerful than others. The Cell chips that don't have any defects, will have the 8th SPE turned off before it is ever put in the PS3. It is alot like what Intel did with the Pentium 4. All Northwood versions of the P4 have Hyper-Threading built into the chip, but Intel only turned it on in the chips with 800Mhz FSB.

[Ibanez32]

Besides I thought one of the main features about coding for this chip was that you didn't have to spend time assigning code to each of the SPE's the chip did that itself.

[Z]

yes, it is all automated. that is the beauty of it. Epic said they only worked for two months to get Unreal PS3 demo up and running!

[saxdawg00]

yes, it is all automated. that is the beauty of it. Epic said they only worked for two months to get Unreal PS3 demo up and running!
Exactly, and imagine what a company like them or Guerrilla Games can come up with after a full development cycle!

[Fahad145]

dont worry about the 8 cell processor. im sure there will be hackers with modchip that'll have ability to activate the 8th spei. maybe even softwares who knows... but what's the difference??? and i hope my shit dont burn.. lol.

[The_One]

yes, it is all automated. that is the beauty of it. Epic said they only worked for two months to get Unreal PS3 demo up and running!
Exactly, and imagine what a company like them or Guerrilla Games can come up with after a full development cycle! I don't want to imagine considering how it took Guerrila 7 months to get the tech demo running... At the last minute too! :roll:

At this rate, it'll probably take 6 years just to make Killzone 3 on the PS3 :roll:...

[makeitlookreal]

I just read online that "Gears of War" (the Demo version for the PS3) was rendered real time without using *any* of the 7 SPU's in the cell chip. Only the main cell processor core and the GPU was utilized.

Just imagine when this game is finished, and just imagine what other games are going to come along.

However, I still hope that Sony boosts the system's specs up as high as possible before they start mass producing the system.

[Schmeh]

dont worry about the 8 cell processor. im sure there will be hackers with modchip that'll have ability to activate the 8th spei. maybe even softwares who knows... but what's the difference??? and i hope my shit dont burn.. lol.

There will be no way to activate the 8th SPE. It is going to be disabled in the fab process.

[The_One]

dont worry about the 8 cell processor. im sure there will be hackers with modchip that'll have ability to activate the 8th spei. maybe even softwares who knows... but what's the difference??? and i hope my shit dont burn.. lol.

There will be no way to activate the 8th SPE. It is going to be disabled in the fab process. Yeah, exactly. This isn't like the ATi Radeon 9800 SE pipeline scenario, that was disabled using software, and of course, any knowledgable cracker will sooner or later crack the software and enable the disabled piplines.

[Gegenki]

I just read online that "Gears of War" (the Demo version for the PS3) was rendered real time without using *any* of the 7 SPU's in the cell chip. Only the main cell processor core and the GPU was utilized.

Just imagine when this game is finished, and just imagine what other games are going to come along.

However, I still hope that Sony boosts the system's specs up as high as possible before they start mass producing the system.

Well thats all well and good - but if i were them I'd keep it at that. Use the 7 SPE's for A.I. and Physics - that will make it truely amazing
And anyways isnt gears of war xbox 360 exclusive?

[rpgamer_2k5]

And anyways isnt gears of war xbox 360 exclusive?

Probably until the PS3 comes out. There is no way Epic is not releasing this game on the PS3.

[Lord Darkblade]

MS are the publisher are they not? Epic I believe does not have a big say in this.

[FerrianX]

There are different levels of exclusivity... it's possible (but highly unlikely) that Gears of War is just time exclusive and it will be on Ps3 but only at a later date.

[rpgamer_2k5]

MS are the publisher are they not? Epic I believe does not have a big say in this.

As long as Epics Games isn't owned by MS, it is probably Sony could get Gears of War. What is even more likely it what PS3 gets an exclusive game similar to Gears of War. I have a feeling many developers have yet to unveil their PS3 games.

[Ducey]

So what happened to the idea of distributed computing? Was that canned or what?

Be nice if the 8th SPE was reserved for other PS3s to use...

[rpgamer_2k5]

So what happened to the idea of distributed computing? Was that canned or what?

Be nice if the 8th SPE was reserved for other PS3s to use...

That might be unveiled when Sony releases some info on their online service. Maybe 1 SPE jointly works with another SPE >20 different PS3s to improve the online experience.

[Gegenki]

I don't think people would be happy about other people using their PS3. People would unplug it from the net when they werent playing

[the legendary ice man]

There are different levels of exclusivity... it's possible (but highly unlikely) that Gears of War is just time exclusive and it will be on Ps3 but only at a later date.

Much like San Andreas?

I'm sure I read somewhere that it would only come out on X360.

[Ibanez32]

But isn't it already comming out on the xbox whywould they realse it on both?

[rpgamer_2k5]

But isn't it already comming out on the xbox whywould they realse it on both?

To garner more sales. If the Gears of War is actually that good, then it would release on PS3 especially if it has a greater unit base.

[Ibanez32]

I was refering to the coment saying san andreas was coming out on the 360. But you do make a good point.

[xbdestroya]

So what happened to the idea of distributed computing? Was that canned or what?

Be nice if the 8th SPE was reserved for other PS3s to use...

Well, you can't do that though because you can't have some PS3's out there with 8 active SPE's and some with only 7 - they have to all be 8 or all be 7, and it seems that at this point Sony has opted for 7, for reasons explained earlier in the thread.

If Sony really improves their fab proccess prior to launch however, it's still possible we could see them go to using 8-SPE Cells, but barring some sort of major yield-improvement for them, the 7 SPE version seems to make the most sense from a business standpoint.

[cpiasminc]

Well, there is a supercomputing chain logic where you basically have say, 3 bits for device ID per board (3bits = up to 8 devices) -- but instead of puting 8 CPUs to a board, you put 7 and the 8th slot (if the scheduling decides that there are no free CPUs) becomes a relay to the next board full of another 7 CPUs (or 8 if it's the last one in the chain), and that board's local glue logic decides whether to delegate to another board or distribute the thread to one of the onboard CPUs.

Granted that there was something in the CELL patent about distributed computing, but I don't see that as a real *reason* to lock down to 7 instead of 8 if the possibility was there to manufacture 8 at reasonable yields. It's not like someone can release a game that says "Requires 6 Playstation 3 consoles." Maybe if the very same CELL was being used for CELL-based renderfarms, but there's no guarantee of that yet.

[Lord Darkblade]

Don't cells have the ability to be constructed as 1:32 as well as 1:16 and 1:8? If so then surely 5 bits would be stored for the Processor ID in case? Also the 4 Cell BE required an additional logic chip to function correctly, not sure what it did but possibly some form of low level router? (basically "full" bits, a Cell tags the thread as wanting more space, asks the "router" if there is space and sends it to the appropriate one?)...

[makeitlookreal]

Personally, I don't like the idea of having a crippled cell chip inside my PS3. I both don't like the fact that the speed has been reduced to 3.2ghz and one SPE is at best reserved and at worst broken.

I honestly don't think I will buy a PS3 with anything less than a 4.0ghz chip and an eighth SPE.

I really wanted the BBE or at least two cell chips. I still think those things are possible. But if we don't even get ONE FULLY WORKING CELL CHIP then I will be VERY depressed.

The jump from 1000 times the PS2 down to the BBE was bad enough. Then the fact we would only get one cell was worse. However, having a broken crippled cell chip makes me want to puke.

Sony hyped the PS3 like crazy and I honestly think that we should all demand at least one fully functional first gen 4.0ghz chip with all SPE's fully functioanl. Of course it is Sony's right to produce whatever system they want. But we don't have to buy it.

[rpgamer_2k5]

Just purchase the Cell Workstation for several grands if you require a large amount of power.

[Schmeh]

Personally, I don't like the idea of having a crippled cell chip inside my PS3. I both don't like the fact that the speed has been reduced to 3.2ghz and one SPE is at best reserved and at worst broken.

I honestly don't think I will buy a PS3 with anything less than a 4.0ghz chip and an eighth SPE.

I really wanted the BBE or at least two cell chips. I still think those things are possible. But if we don't even get ONE FULLY WORKING CELL CHIP then I will be VERY depressed..

I am sorry that you won't be getting a PS3, if you want I am sure that when the rest of us get them we could post our experiences for you.(j/k)

The likelyhood of the PS3's Cell being clocked at 4Ghz and having all 8SPE's activated are very slim. The only way we will see the clock speed of the Cell increased is if it is built on the 65nm process and I seriously doubt that Sony will be ready with their 65nm process by the time the console launches, unless it is delayed. It is even less likely that the 8th SPE will be turned on, no matter what process is used. In fact, it is more likely to see it activated on a 90nm Cell, because whenever you move to a new manufacturing process there are always problems at first, meaning lower yields. The decision to only activate 7SPE's was purely a manufacturing one, since this will allow them to keep chips that normally would have to be discarded.

[Coded-Dude]

just buy three or more playstations and have a PS3 CELL farm! :idea: :idea: :idea:
you will have three celll's on a Gig LAN.....thats horsepower my friend :wink:
(and cheaper than the workstation)

[makeitlookreal]

I honestly feel that they are going to boost the cell's specs before it is released.

[Z]

no matter how you look at it, Cell is a monster. Devs won’t get the full power of it working even after 4 years of release. Heck PS2 is STILL getting better graphical results. And everybody thought it would reach its limits only a couple of years after launch.

[cpiasminc]

I honestly feel that they are going to boost the cell's specs before it is released.
I pretty much see that happening in the form of back-and-forth reactions. You take Microsoft, which is a company that never acts and always reacts and they're likely, if they feel this raw power comparison going around on the boards is too troubling, to increase the specs on 360. Once that happens, you're sure to see Sony do likewise on PS3. Partially because they are declaring war against each other, and partially because they both are fully aware that the public at large is dumb as posts.

It's not so different from this Halo3 together with PS3 thing. I wouldn't be surprised if for every day that PS3's release shifts, Halo3's release date will shift in kind. MS is like that. And I wouldn't have been surprised if, were the shoe on the other foot, Sony might do the same thing with Killzone.

[Z]

also, Sony (or any other) won’t give final specs this early. They either give lower specs or give nothing at all. Very little was shown about PS3. they let the demos do all the talk- and it worked. Also, I find it a bit suspicious that Cell and X2’s CPU share the exact same frequency. Sony raised PS2’s CPU clock speed from around 220-250 to 300. PSP specs also changed from announcement to launch. I don’t see why PS3 won’t do the same, especially when the hardware isn’t even finished.

[makeitlookreal]

My guess is that by the time of the release they will release a 4.0 or higher cell chip with all eight SPE's working.

Another guess is that they just *might* include a second cell chip.

[FLCL]

also, Sony (or any other) won’t give final specs this early. They either give lower specs or give nothing at all. Very little was shown about PS3. they let the demos do all the talk- and it worked. Also, I find it a bit suspicious that Cell and X2’s CPU share the exact same frequency. Sony raised PS2’s CPU clock speed from around 220-250 to 300. PSP specs also changed from announcement to launch. I don’t see why PS3 won’t do the same, especially when the hardware isn’t even finished.

Z did they improve the PSP specs from announcement to launch or the opposite?

lets just hope they wont downgrade it by launch, i remember Xbox was announced with a 300Mhz Nvidia chip and ended up 233Mhz

[martel]

also, Sony (or any other) won’t give final specs this early. They either give lower specs or give nothing at all. Very little was shown about PS3. they let the demos do all the talk- and it worked. Also, I find it a bit suspicious that Cell and X2’s CPU share the exact same frequency. Sony raised PS2’s CPU clock speed from around 220-250 to 300. PSP specs also changed from announcement to launch. I don’t see why PS3 won’t do the same, especially when the hardware isn’t even finished.

Z did they improve the PSP specs from announcement to launch or the opposite?

lets just hope they wont downgrade it by launch, i remember Xbox was announced with a 300Mhz Nvidia chip and ended up 233Mhz

I haven't the slightest interest in PSP so I may be wrong, but I seem to recall that they upped the memory to 32MB before launch. There had been talk early on of only 8MB but the devs had given out.

[O.D.S]

most likely they will up the performance, the same way they did with the PS2

As Z said in another thread the only reason Sony "stated" that their CPU spead is the same as the 360's (3.2GHz) is to not show their true power and at the same time to show that they can compete

i allso belive the above reason may of played into other specs, which ones? i dont know...but as soon as xbox is released...BOOM :wink: the power will be revealed (can you tell im excited? :D )

[makeitlookreal]

Just think about this for a moment.

Sony has apparently blown away the XBox 360 with what they claim is a 3.2ghz chip (matches 360) with 512mb (matching 360), and a very good graphics card.

I honestly believe that they will eliminate the compeitition when they announce that they have boosted the specs to 4.0ghz, added a second chip, and perhaps boost the GPU RAM.

[Lord Darkblade]

If Sony can get to the 65nm technology before launch with a reasonable yield we might see 2 cell chips, heck we might see 2 anyway, if you notice the Cell blade, the Cell rendering the realtime terrain demo etc are all in pairs, just imagine 2 Cells, each with 256MB XDR and the RSX... who cares if most developers waste the power you still have a lot under the hood, and for people like Konami who will spend the time the power would be simply amazing.

I am still liking the idea that the PS3 will come with a high speed bus connection, which supposedly connects to Sony Cell TVs (Gigabit ethernet is not fast enough, however a really fast direct bus is). Basically if you go for the Sony experience the Cells can tap each others power (if the theory that SPEs can be dynamically allocated code then having multiple cells would not be wasted as devs could simply write more "threaded" code and let it run as best it can.

[makeitlookreal]

DarkBlade,

I also agree. The good thing about having two cell chips is that you don't need a seperate chip to control the two.

If Sony already has Blade servers with twin cells then I see no reason they can't have two cells in the PS3.

The idea of two Cell chips would blow away their competition. Who would buy an XBox 360 with 115 gigaflops of power when you can have a PS3 with over 500?

I think Sony needs to simply destroy the competition. To do so, they need to make their system as powerful as possible.

Also, if some of the demos were running on two cells I think that is a hint that we will see two cells.

Another 256MB XDR also sounds great!

[LaLiLuLeLo]

What's that stand for? Semiconductor Production Equipment? Or something else?

[xbdestroya]

What's that stand for? Semiconductor Production Equipment? Or something else?

Synergistic Processing Element. That was an utterly bizzarre guess - but at least you were in the right industry. :wink:

[Ibanez32]

As much as it would be nice for them to up the power something has to be said for nintendo's stratagy, bring out a decent product at a price people can actually afford to pay. If they can do it without taking everyone to the cleaners then I'm all for it.

[Lord Darkblade]

It doesn't matter how much it costs, the end cost to us is fixed, likely at £/$ 299/350. Sony, MS and Nintendo cannot afford to launch at more than that as they begin to lose market due to costs, while many people can easily (lol) justify spending £300 or a console £500 would make them consider waiting.

The actual Cell chips are fairly expensive right now (probably around $50/chip) due to yields and the size, however if the process becomes better (they are testing in 2/3 sites now) or they manage to move to the 65nm technology we will see an increase in yields and a decrease in costs.

Putting in two cell chips right now is expensive, however it really would give them a killer system, that would be power to easily outclass the 360, and all the demos and blades are running two cells. The IBM blade is getting ~400GFlops @ 4.0GHz, thats fairly impressive. With the RSX as well imagine having an entire cell basically devoted to helping it? The RSX may be slightly less powerful than the Xenos but imagine someone like Konami fully utilising 15 SPEs and 2 PPU (15 as each cell likely uses 7 with the final one in the chain getting a full set).

Come to think of it has anyone heard of anything that ran with a single cell?

[makeitlookreal]

DarkBlade,

Now that is what I am talking about!

If Sony wants to make a system that is clearly dominate over the Xbox 360 (without anyone being able to argue) then they need to stick in another cell chip to produce a duel cell PS3, another 256MB of ram for the second cell, and boost the GPU ram as well.

That right there would smash Microsoft.

Also, I remember reading the Sony president saying that he believes in the "power of two" and that he wanted to do everything with the "power of two".....

If so, why not two cell chips?

[The_One]

All Sony needs to do is up the clock speed to 3.6Ghz and let the average Joe do the "awe-ing" :lol:.

I mean, the average joe doesn't know the difference between 64-bit and 128-bit, other than the fact that 128-bit is bigger, and probably better.
Give the CELL .4Ghz more, and the average Joe will think it's more powerful than the Xbox 360's CPU's (Which they are... but you get my point ;)).

[SPARDA]

I agree. All the average gamers I spoke to (mostly friends) see the following

Xbox 360 = 3 GHz, 512 MB Ram
PS3 = 3 GHz, 512 MB Ram

They don't understand Cell vs. PowerPC chip, and they don't really care.

so to them the systems will be very similar in power.

Sony should take advantage of this and bump it up to 4 GHz and give it even more ram.
That will keep many from buying the 360 and wait for the PS3. :wink:

[haggisns]

I think there is a little bit of delusions of grandeur going on in this thread.

We were absolutely wowed by PS3 tech demos and game demos yet people are still salivating for more and more power. I think its safe to assume that next generation gaming does indeed look like next generation gaming.

Imagine if Sony builds a console that blows away microsoft completely (I believe it may already have) but they lose $50 bucks with every console sold: You sell 10 million consoles: you lose 500 million dollars, thats some pretty serious scratch.

Now you can say that you make that money back on games but after the life of the console your still looking at an install base of 100 million people on the planet no matter how amazing the gaming is. It does'nt matter how awesome and fun these consoles are too play, they are'nt toasters and not everyone is going to buy one.

You lose 50 bucks for 100 million consoles and your talking 5 billion dollars, lets pretend that manufacturing processes don't improve and reduce cost, and in today's world in 8 years time any improvement in manufacturing is offset by other rising costs.

Share prices are based on fear and greed. Sony can do amazing financially for 5 years, have one quarter where the PS3 does'nt sell as many as expected and in a week the share price drops to post PS3 release levels.

Of course, with PS3 and innvotion they would'nt be in business in the first place.

The PS3 has 7 SPUs running at 3.2 ghz, thats amazingly powerful.
Multiple core CPUs are the same as single core CPUs?
So is it not like having 7 CPUs on the motherboard eaching having say 20 million transitors running at 3.2 gighertz designed specially for computational operations that give great benefit to AI, physics, graphics, etc.

there is nothing to worry about.

In a week the pessimissim is shining through.

Companies only provide just enough to beat the competition.
If a company has a product that is 4 times faster than the competition: you don't sell that, you sell the one 2 times faster than the competition, you don't hold all your cards in one hand.

Relax, bask in the glow of what PS3 will be, based on today's known specs.

90% person of the population are not as informed as those in this forum.

One thing is for sure, people who know nothing about tech specs and are casual gamers are more concerned with game play than they are with how many polygons are pushing.

Which is exactly why people are crying for a remake of FFVII. the game play and story was so great people want a remake of it when they could opt for a completely different story.

I'm going off on tangents, porfis forgive me.

[MLittle577]

Companies only provide just enough to beat the competition.
If a company has a product that is 4 times faster than the competition: you don't sell that, you sell the one 2 times faster than the competition, you don't hold all your cards in one hand.

Exactly right. It's business and competition, but probably about 65% business, they want to make thier pockets fat, period. So don't expect another cell, or anything that will significantly boost performance. Sony's PS3 has just enough power to beat M$ this round, but depending on how tings go, there will be a next round and you have to save something for that.

Sony of any other company will NEVER release anything 3 or 4 more times better than the comp, UNLESS it's cost effective. Think of our old friend Neo-Geo, most powerful than anything ever released at the time, too powerful, it cost too much, see?

[xbdestroya]

I have some points to make on this though

@haggisns: Sony will probably be losing $50 (or more) per console to begin with anyway - that's just how the console cycyle for them usually starts out. But through component minturization, increased economies of scale, and process maturation they are able to turn it around to profit on hardware (traditionally) before too long and end whatever generation with their hardware both cheap and profitable. Software is where the bulk of the profits due lie though.

@MLittle: I understand the 'spend only what required' to beat them philosophy, and generally I would say that is definitely the norm in business. Still, when you have a situation when a competitor is ascendent like Microsoft, but still financially on very shaky ground (and frankly the console division is on thin ice - talk is they need to get profitable this gen or the plug might get pulled), there would be logic in perhaps takign a hit to your own margins to release hardware that you feel might go a ways towards stamping your competitor out once and for all. I'm not saying this is the path I think Sony would take, because to do so might simply prove too expensive - I'm just saying there would be a way such a thought could be defended.

[MLittle577]

@MLittle: I understand the 'spend only what required' to beat them philosophy, and generally I would say that is definitely the norm in business. Still, when you have a situation when a competitor is ascendent like Microsoft, but still financially on very shaky ground (and frankly the console division is on thin ice - talk is they need to get profitable this gen or the plug might get pulled), there would be logic in perhaps takign a hit to your own margins to release hardware that you feel might go a ways towards stamping your competitor out once and for all. I'm not saying this is the path I think Sony would take, because to do so might simply prove too expensive - I'm just saying there would be a way such a thought could be defended.

I understand that, and agree with it as well, but I think it is up to Sony and what they're thinking right now. If they see this as a chance to snuff out Microsoft's gaming division, then you may see a little more effort from Sony to make that happen.

If Sony expects M$ to be around another generation they have to be more reserved.

[Lord Darkblade]

Sony are likely to lose money in the short term, however as the cell process matures and they move to the 65nm process we are likely to see significant cost savings for Sony. Putting in a dual cell sounds like a bad plan however it does seem to fit, all the blades etc are running dual cells, my theory is that they could allow us to upgrade the system, have hatches with slots for cells, memory whatever...), programmers can write for the cells as they wish and dynamically allocate to however many chips users have, memory chips improve textures etc, just like PC dev but all you need to alter is a few things rather than having games run in 640x480 @ 8bit colour...