PS3 smoke and mirrors?: IBM stats

by Ken Weeks { Apr 30th 2006 at 11:45PM }

I don't pretend to be an expert on matters technical, but reader Crimson Angelus sure sounds like he knows what he's talking about:

At this year's E3 (or thereabouts) Sony proclaimed that their processor could achieve 200GFLOPS! However, according to IBM's white paper, only 155.5 GFLOPS was actually achieved (Table 4). BUT, IBM's tests used all 8 SPEs. The PS3 will only use 7 SPE's, due to manufacturing yield issues.

The efficiency of the Cell is 75.9% (Table 4), with of a theoretical peak of 201GFLOPs (Figure 5)--running 8 SPEs at 25.12GFLOPS apiece (Table 2). Similarly, the theoretical peak for the PS3's processor will be 176GFLOPS, using 7 SPEs at 25.12GFLOPS apiece. Assuming the same 75.9% effieciency, we could easily interpolate the PS3's Cell to be capable of 133.6GFLOPS.

The take home message is that with the PS3 being cabable of 133.6 GFLOPS and the Xbox 360 being capable of 115.2 GFLOPS, the PS3 is not nearly as far ahead of the Xbox 360 as we were lead to believe. we should expect relatively similar power coming from both consoles, processor power, and ease of programming all considered.

Not to mention that one of the SPE's in the PS3 are reserved for the OS and the bottlenecking of the data transfer between the SPE's and the on board memory. I see the 360 hand in hand with a gaming Revolution taking home this next round at least, if not the whole cake over time.

He's working off this data, which has been around for a while.

So much for "twice the processing power," though I'm interested to learn just how many GFLOPS it takes to enter the fourth dimension. Any tech-minded PS3 fanboys care to argue, or are you still busy making fun of the Wii fanboys?

Tags: specs, tech

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)

IHaveWood @ May 1st 2006 12:10AM

PS3 fanboys owned by SONY , ouch!

SfGanjaMan @ May 1st 2006 1:59AM

Im sorry Sony...Your Hype will never match up to your ego. "Blue Ray in the past was used to refer to a photo-copying process for blueprints and/or traces. This equipment is now largely obsolete." Im thinking the Blue ray player will be obsolete much faster than the photo coping process.Tada

EvoG @ May 1st 2006 2:15AM

For the sake of this article, assuming for a moment all things being true, it sounds no different than when a company only releases SHIPPED copy statistics of their game, not SOLD copies. Perhaps CELL's peak "horsepower" is 200GFLOPS in ideal conditions, with a tail wind, but real world application brings it home, right next to the 360.

Then again, who cares, just get it over with, get the system out and get me all the games. Every system looks outstanding and all will have killer games(just like last-gen), so this is all academic.

Give me a Christmas of Gears of War, MGS4 and Zelda TP (with Wii Enhancements!) and I'll leave extra cookies out next to the tree.

Daniel D @ May 1st 2006 3:37AM

two words....

emotion engine

this hurts sooo bad If i was in the sony camp I would be raged big time. ah well

ymmv @ May 1st 2006 6:22AM

Sony is well-known for publishing "ideal situation" numbers that don't hold up in real world situations. The same goes for the dual 1080p screens that the PS3 can drive. Yes, the nVidia graphics chip inside the PS3 can handle 1080p dusplays flawlessly but only if you put severe limits on the 3D graphics output. The vast majority of PS3 games will use 720P because that's the soft spot for maximum game performance. If you go higer than that, the frame rate will drop. This will be very noticeable on one 1080p display, let alone two. Besides that, who expects to see PS3-games utilizing dual displays anyway? Dual displays have a place in high end PC setups, but not in living rooms where you're going to find the PS3.

Mike @ May 1st 2006 7:37AM

PS3 fanboys have to make fun of the Wii fanboys, it's all they've got left.

Sinistar @ May 1st 2006 9:11AM

PC fanboys make fun of 360 fanboys who make fun of PS3 fanboys who make fun of Wii fanboys who make fun of everybody playing a console that doesn't have a Mario game.

Me? I really don't care. I'll go where the games are.

Jason UK @ May 1st 2006 10:57AM

It seem's to me.. a customer.. that SONY haven't being honest and are purposely trying to deceive customer's. I don't know about you but I don't waste my time on such w@nkers. What they're actual saying is you're too stupid to notice or care. Great company? Nah..

I much prefer the upfront approach of Mircosoft and the wacky approach of Nintendo.

But each to their own..

devi8i @ May 1st 2006 11:28AM

Interesting stuff all around but I think the writer missed one point... The MAX theoretical output of the 360 is 115 GFLOPS under ideal conditions we should assume that the 360 cannot (just like the ps3) ever reach that maximum. If the 360 runs with similar efficency as teh ps3 (75.9%) then the real life usable GFLOPS for the 360 would be around 87.44 when we compare that to the what the writer has assumed for the ps3 of 133 GFLOPS then the PS3 will be capable of 65% more processing power than the 360. Not quite twice the processing power touted from marketing but definetly a significant improvement.

puh_fifer @ May 1st 2006 11:36AM

Personally I'm used to this sort of thing, companies always overstate what their machines can do. In the end it all comes down to games, not if they made up a term like emotion engine.

The PS2 had the best and widest selection of games last generation. What sets the xbox apart and converted me was Live. Somewhere during the 600 hours of rainbow six 3 online play time my PS2 got traded in.

And when all the numbers and hype fade away, there's going to be two great consoles, with many games made cross-platform for both.

The 360 will have Live and the PS3 will have blu-ray and I think those will be the big selling points of this generation, not polygon counts.

Just my 2 cents.

And as far as nintendo goes, I would expect a warioware urinating game where you hold the revmote between your legs and aim it at things on fire. All while yelling, wiiiiiiiii.

whoppingwombat @ May 1st 2006 11:40AM

Good point devi8i, however do you have any link or anything that proves tht the 115GFLOPS for the 360 is the max theoretical, as the case with the PS3. Generally speaking, Microsoft (of all companies), have been much more honest than Sony when it comes to consoles (at least it seems to me). I'm therefore curious if this value really is only theoretical, and what may be the actualy GFLOP output.

Jonny @ May 1st 2006 12:16PM

Seriously guys, is GFLOP really even a word? The only equation or whatever I need to know about graphics and shit is XBOX 360=fuckin' awesome!

Crimson Angelus @ May 1st 2006 12:19PM

Believe it or not this article wasn't to start a flame war between fanboys. It was more to let people see that Sony has been playing us all the same way that they did before the PS2 came out. They're scrambling to keep people from buying 360's now as they were trying to stop people from buying the Dreamcast then. When all is said both systems will have great games, but I think it's kind of silly for Sony's fanbase to try and tout power when a partner making the "cell" (IBM) says they won't have nearly as much power as they said. I just wanted to point out this generations "emotion engine" is all. As for the 360's tech numbers being max output or not, I'm not sure but I'll try and find it for reference and if I do I'll be sure to post it here.

DA360 @ May 1st 2006 12:22PM

Well, Ken Kutaragi is notorious for blowing allot of hot air (aka flat out lying, to the point where some could think he's a compulsive lier) when trying to market a Playstation console at trade shows. He had false, outlandish statements for all his Playstation consoles, and obviously PS3 is no different. When I looked at allot of the specs, I immediately knew he was blowing allot of hot air and all those E3 2005 trailers pretty much screamed "CG Rendered".

The PS3 and 360 will be EXTREMELY close in graphics capabilities, were the graphics will look pretty much no different. I saw a GPU comparason chart and I saw in some areas, such as memory speed and clock, they were the same, in some areas (such a pixel pipelines, vertex and pixel shaders, etc) the 360 was better due to its unified architecture (which can adjust between 1-48 pixel pipelines and 1-48 vertex pipelines depending on the game, but it has to be like 24 pixel, 24 vertex or 32 pixel, 16 vertex), but afew areas were better about the PS3 GPU. But all in all, they will have extremely similar graphics despite their architecture differences.

Also, Sony hypes 1080p but MANY developers have said that it would be impossible to make their games run at anywhere near an acceptable frame rate at 1080p, so the only thing you will be seeing in that is the PS3 dash and backwards compatible PS2 games. I guess that's why MS didn't even bother with 1080p. You also got the fact that HDTVs that support 1080p are still very expensive and some of them don't even support true 1080p.

Also, comparing the CPU architectures, they seem to be about same on power in that aspect too. Because the PS3s SPEs are no where near as efficient as the main core, making it very close to the 360's CPU.

That's the biggest thing about this generation, netier platform will more powerful than the other. But I wish these PS3 fanboys would stop saying "Oh, the PS3 is so much more powerful", because its NOT, its on-par with 360. Its ironic that these fanboys didn't care about system power and almost vowed that system power didn't matter, until Kutaragi claimed the PS3 would be more powerful....

devi8i @ May 1st 2006 12:25PM

Whoopingwombat here is what you are looking for.. this is straight out of the horses mouth ttp://download.microsoft.com/download/1/B/2/1B2DA71A-6E70-48EF-8656-2649A1C95E9F/Xbox360FS.doc

warning MS word document

josh @ May 1st 2006 12:31PM

Is anyone really suprised? Doesn't seem like it.

Sony is notorious for being full of themselves as well as full of crap at the same time. They make outrageous claims and like to proclaim what is really technology of today as being the technology of tomorrow's tomorrow. As if buying the PS3 is a time machine that will take you 100 years into the future. *cough*

They have to justify to the public why their console is going to arrive late, cost more, and have games that cost more than the games of other consoles. While at the same time somehow convince people that haven't yet bought a 360 that they shouldn't buy one becuase the PS3 is going to be THAT MUCH better.

Hence the only way to pull off that feat is to... lie.

devi8i @ May 1st 2006 12:37PM

And to all, I wasnt trying to help start a flame war here, I was just trying to illustrate that if you want to compare apples to apples then do so. You cannot compare one systems theoretical MAX performance against another systems theoretical REAL world performance and call it a fair comparison. Regardless of what you look at consoles or computers manufacturers always state their HIGHEST THEORETICAL PERFORMANCE for PR and marketing. Generally real life numbers are significantly lower then stated. So to be fair lets say that both systems can deliver about 60% of what they claim, then the PS3 GFLOPS per second will be higher, and you could argue significantly higher. However, this being said, the two systems in question here have taken wildly different approaches in hardware, and there can be arguements on both sides as to which approach is better.

At the end of the day though the only thing that matters is the end user experience and percieved value. I am the proud owner of a ps2, 360, gamecube, gba, and a gaming computer. Before hurricane katrina I also had a N64, dreamcast and original flavour Xbox. I have complaints with all the systems, but I also like all of them for different reasons. And, come november I will also be buying a PS3.

I say "If the game fits, play it!"

Cliff "Cliffy B" Bleszinski, creator of the Xbox 360 shooter Gears of War� @ May 1st 2006 2:14PM

"I can't speak much for Sony right now�yeah, we're working on stuff for the PS3 but honestly I'm so busy with Gears [of War] that it's all I'm seeing and I can tell you�Microsoft is giving you a hell of a system. This thing is a BEAST and is capable of MUCH GREATNESS."

EvilBit @ May 1st 2006 2:34PM

devi8i, here's a rebuttal to your "apples-to-apples" comparison of max theoretical output: the reason the "max theoretical output" of the PS3 is so low (75.9% compared to 100%) is that there is a lot of performance lost in coordinating multiple processors. And comparing apples to apples, all things being equal, etc., the PS3 has to coordinate 7 processors (or 6 if you count the loss of the OS-reserved SPE) while the Xbox 360 has to coordinate 3.
There are an incredible number of factors that will effectively make this whole thing impossible to prove quantitatively, but every last bit of reliable advance word I've heard states that PS3 and Xbox 360 are roughly comparable in power with a very slight advantage going to PS3.

DA360 @ May 1st 2006 2:35PM

You are definitely true Devi8i, the raw benchmarks can NOT be used as a comparison for real-world performance. Because how a game actually truly performs will be different that how it performs theroretically or even in tech-demos. Also, many factors can affect real-world performance, especially how the game is developed.

Also, I also feel the same way about gaming. If you enjoy playing it, then play it. Just don't try to bash the person playing something else and ruin their fun. I just really don't like these "mindless-bashing" type fan boys that will say something "sucks" without ever reading up on it, looking at its games, or especially playing it.

Both the Xbox 360 and PS3 are be VERY nice platforms, and are what I like to call "different but equal" powerhouses capable of performing awesome graphics. But like I said, both of them will be on-par on what their capable of, which is one of the most unique things about this generation. So this generation, the platform someone prefers will be solely just be based on games and system features, because we won't have the system power differences we had last generation.

tiremfej @ May 1st 2006 3:05PM

I think it's great, this doesn't come as a surprise to me either. I'm very happy with my 360.

Fanboy 360 @ May 1st 2006 3:05PM

Wow, Worst. FUD. Ever. A fanguy shooting in his foot. Shame on you guys who can't read the original text and diagram at
http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/power/library/pa-cellperf/

Now let me explain why this "Crimson Angelus" is a stupid fanguy.

Check out this diagram for Triangle Transform and Lighting, which is a 3D geometry algorithm test directly relevant to gaming performance.
http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/power/library/pa-cellperf/?ca=drs-#table11

PPC970 2.7GHz performs worse than 1 SPE in Cell. The clock speed of this PPC970 core is lower than that of PPC970-compatible core in the Xbox 360 CPU, but it's an out-of-order core so significantly more powerful than the in-order cores in the Xbox 360 CPU so you can assume it's as good as the one in the Xbox 360 CPU.

Now the Xbox 360 CPU has 3 of them while Cell has 7 of SPEs but 1 of SPEs is not available because it's reserverd for the OS. Though a part of the Xbox 360 CPU is reserved for the OS too, let's ignore it for the benefit of the Xbox 360. So how does the Xbox 360 CPU's real-world performance compare that of Cell? You do the math. 3 PPC cores VS 6 SPEs, and the PPC core of 360 performs roughly the same as a single SPE in a benchmark test. Oh I forget 1 thing, Cell has a 3.2Ghz PPC core too!

So the reality is, this paper from IBM proves that Cell is 2.x times more powerful than the Xbox 360 CPU in a realworld test. Do you think IBM fabricated it by lowering PPC figure? Oh well, PowerPC is also a creation of IBM, who did they trash it?

Alex @ May 1st 2006 3:48PM

It is just numbers. Let's see on E3 what Sony will show. I hope it will be something else then ducks. LOL

mc200X @ May 1st 2006 3:48PM

But wait, with all your arguing about the Cell processor, don't you seem to be forgeting that while there are 7 SPEs there also is 1 PPE?

The_Solidshadow @ May 1st 2006 4:09PM

"Sony is notorious for being full of themselves as well as full of crap at the same time"

... er... Same thing! lol, sorry, I couldnt resist.

"the PS3 has to coordinate 7 processors while the Xbox 360 has to coordinate 3."

Im not sure if I'm right, but the 360's 3 processors control themselves and coordinate with eachother, whereas the PS3 has one "Main Brain", and four, "little, miniature brains", and I think that's where a lot of the efficiency is lost, in the coordination between them.

I could be talking out of my arse, though, I'm no expert when it comes to these things...

Blaze Lord @ May 1st 2006 4:17PM

I'll admit my ingorance as well, but.. Crimson Angelus doesn't sound like he knows what he's talking about. He takes numbers from more than one benchmark. The 75.9% efficiency numbers is stated for linear equations, and the 201GFLOPS is for matrix multiplcation.

shotty @ May 1st 2006 4:22PM

You are also forgeting each one of the xbox 360 cores is "hyper threaded" this means it actually doubles the thread count of the xbox 360 bringing it to 6. One the other hand the ps3 has 7 spe with 1 being used for the OS, which leaves 6 spe for gaming use. A note is 1 spe is only capable of 1 thread. This leads the ps3 to execute 6 threads for gaming which is the same as for the xbox 360. Another note is the ps3 is more inclined to huge framerate drops because spe are dependant on each other for process. Since each spe is a secondary processor it itself cannot perform a hugh task so the developer for example might decide to split the work for physics onto 2 spe. Therefore both spe must be insync for the ps3 to run smoothly or else there will be major performance hits. This is why the ps3 is a pain to code for. The code has to be broken into really small chunks and made sure by the developer to stop any possible bottlenecks. Oh and here's my favorite neebie ps3 fanboy comment "The ps3 has 7 processors while the xbox 360 has 3, so the ps3 is better"

Arch @ May 1st 2006 5:46PM

2 things.

1. we dont know the efficiency of the Xenon CPU, so we cant compare just yet.

2. the SPE reserved fopr the OS has already been debunked on Beyond3d. its just not true. but everything else is true. 133.Gflops is the number. and i would bet it will go even lower.

here is a quote from a developper on beyond3d.com

"I work for a game development company that has both development kits in house. I have programmed on both the Xbox360 kit and the PS3 kit. I must say, the PS3 is a poly-crunching powerhouse. It's incredible.

Unfortunately, the CPU/GPU bandwidth is insufficient to produce any kind of HD, "TrueHD" or not. The best we can do with it is 720p with some of the visual goodies and AI turned off. Yes, we can nail out some impressive scenes, better than the 360, in 480p and no AA or AI, but it's QUITE the challenge to do so.

For this reason, I prefer to code for 360. The development time is far shorter and we can do so much more at a greater fill rate. The only problem we've really run into is efficiency (as seen on MANY 360 games).

Honestly, I'll be surprised if the PS3 can muster anything more than Tetris in 1080p. The only thing that the PS3 will be able to sport is Blu-Ray movies in 1080p. If that's worth it to you, then get a PS3; personally, I'm boycotting HD-DVD & Blu-Ray so that doesn't matter to me. The PS3 (devkit) is an incredible machine, but I truly prefer the 360... it just has more potential."

Nossy @ May 1st 2006 5:56PM

Laughs...

I don't care what GFLOPS they're talking about. Ken better delivers on the 120fps he claimed a while back or else it's a freakin lie. Remember, a half truth is still a lie!

matt @ May 1st 2006 6:51PM

I am tired of Sony's crap. The only thing that they make well anymore is their display technologies. Their Receivers (stereo) suck, their DVD players suck, CD players suck, Cameras suck, etc, etc.

I bought the PS2 with the intent of using it as a DVD player until I bought a stand alone later. The stupid thing couldn't play movies. They would freeze about a half hour in. I tried multiple discs with the same result. Bought a stand-alone the next week and haven't looked back at Sony since. The PS2 may of had some good games but I was too tired of Sony. They switched me to Xbox and I couldn't be happier. The 360 is the greatest system I have ever played.

I don't like being lied to. I have bought one Sony product in the last few years. My $10 alarm clock.

In order for me to ever buy a PS3 it has to be much, much better than the 360. It needs to be all they say it is and more. I don't care what games it has on it ( I usually don't have time to play every great game on one system). If the system is not exponentially better than 360 they can kiss my butt.

I look forward to the Revo and playing something different. 360 in HDTV is unreal. It will be nice when the developers figure out how to utilize the 360.

Not a fanboy. I highly suggest getting a 360. Games will be better than Sonys for quite some time and the console will be cheaper when their is actually something good to play.

Logan T. @ May 1st 2006 7:02PM

This is all just words on a page. I'll beleive one way or another once I start seeing the results of all these specs of calculations.

PS3 could prove us all wrong if they'd start showing in-engine footage.

Plus, who cares if they get all these great graphics pumping if we see the same old games we always have. Some of the 360 games are starting to have that next gen gameplay. Nintendo Revolution (f*** Wii) is obviously going to be innovative. I want to see gameplay from Sony that proves to us that all that horsepower is going to make my gaming experience more than pretty.

Crimson Angelus @ May 1st 2006 7:42PM

For those of you attempting to decredit the information and text I sent the site you don't have to believe me. Nor do you have to go out of your way to point out any errors. As stated in my previous comment, I'm just trying to show how Sony wan't telling thw hole truth at last years E3. At least Microsoft's "peak" numbers from last E3 were what they shipped. Son'y on the other hand has "peak" numbers that are far lower than what they were claiming a year ago. This wasn't an attempt to start a flame war, or to get people to think I'm a blind fanboy. On the contrary, I was attempting to show that people tht love one system can have faith and interest in another while not being blind to the "FACTS". Depending on what games are at the PS3's launch I'll be getting one, but it depends on launch price and games. That's just my four cents.

Jason @ May 1st 2006 8:18PM

Tech demo's are lame... I watched the video of them zooming in on Snake in the MGS3 tech demo... its totally unrealistic... sure... Anyone could get an engine to sit there and run a camera around a detailed model in a simple scene... look at the awesome demos of Project Offset that look as good as or detter than the MGS3 demo and that will run on the 360. GAMES are what we want to see... not 3D statistic and GFLOP calculations... lets see some game footage! I would love to get a PS3 if they are not $1000.00 retail... if you thought it sucked seeing the 360 on ebay for over a grand just think of how much people will be hawking the PS3 for if it costs $800 retail!

Chris @ May 1st 2006 10:15PM

I realize this post will probably be removed, but we need this story dugg to help make it known to the world how wrong Sony is to do that to their customers. Please go here and digg this story about this direct topic.

http://digg.com/gaming/Is_Sony_pulling_its_classic_hype_tricks_with_the_PS3_

Nort @ May 1st 2006 10:24PM

It the end, the processing power takes a back seat to the development tools.

I think you're going to see a lot of games developed on the 360 or PC and ported to other platforms with perhaps some tweaks.

There will be games on the PS3 and Xbox 360 that will be exclusive and will blow you away, but most mainstream developers will create games for more than one platform to achieve the most profitibility.

Chris @ May 1st 2006 10:24PM

Yeah!

Chris @ May 1st 2006 10:28PM

http://digg.com/gaming/Is_Sony_pulling_its_classic_hype_tricks_with_the_PS3_

Garrett @ May 1st 2006 11:08PM

Something no-one seems to have mentioned yet is the inherent Linux OS, which ties up, what, 13% more system resources than the Xbox's or something like that?

That lowers the PS3's effective capabilities further. It's still a great machine, but it's certainly not the "zomg teh xbox 1.5 killa!!!1!" so many are insisting it is.

The console war this time around is SO CLOSE. Interesting times...

Fanboy 360 @ May 2nd 2006 12:21AM

>At least Microsoft's "peak" numbers from last E3
>were what they shipped. Son'y on the other hand
>has "peak" numbers that are far lower than what
>they were claiming a year ago.

Crimson Angelus, are you trying to look funny or what? You're confusing the theoretical peak of the Xbox 360 CPU with real world performance.

Microsoft has never published the realworld performance of their CPU nor benchmark tests. Do you know the reason? Yes, it's because they know they are inferior.

Blaze Lord @ May 2nd 2006 1:14AM

Crimson, you could have just as easily pointed out peaks from another benchmark on the IBM spec sheet, and listened to IBM's own interpretations of the numbers, such as: "Assuming that matrix multiplication can achieve its peak single-precision floating point capability, a Pentium4 with SSE3 at 3.2GHz can achieve 25.6GFLOPS, while the Cell BE could achieve 201GFLOPS, better by almost a factor of eight."

Crimson Angelus @ May 2nd 2006 1:24AM

Apparently you don't know how to read, or you don'r care to understand what you're reading. What I said was that I didn't want to start a flaming war, and that I was just pointing out what IBM made available so we could deduce that the PS3 "peak" performance wasn't going to be what Sont said it was at E3 last year. Clearly you misunderstood what I was saying even though it was made very clear. I said myself that I couldn't find any real performance numbers for the 360, had I found them I would have posted them myself. The point was to show Sony's folly and their lies. I'm not saying that the 360 is definately as powerful as they claim, rather I'm saying that the PS3 is far from as powerful as they claimed. When IBM releases information on the triple PPC cores that run the 360 I'll be sure to fill you guys in. I thought you guys would like some raw data from the proverbial horses mouth about how Sony's hype machine has already faulted, and two years before the systems release. Next time someone wants to try and rip on me, read my post first and make sure you read it correctly so I don't need to explain myself again. Thanks. For those that appreciate this, thanks for the suppost and in the future I'll do what I can to continue.

Crimson Angelus @ May 2nd 2006 2:01AM

Hey Blaze Lord, everything I wrote made complete sense, if you can't see that I'll take my time to help you see it for yourself. I'm not a blind fanboy, I only entered this evaluation so as to help others see that Sony is busy making another "emotion engine" hype machine. I'm not trying to tell people that the PS3 is going to be a bad system in any way shape or form, just that they gave false information on the system last E3. As for your claim that I could have pulled fhose numbers that I refernced out of any of the given tables, it is true that I could have. However I took the data from the most relevant location on the spec sheet. If you read my entry to the site you will see that I refer you to table 4, which is a refernce to 8 SPE's in parallel. The last time I checked the PS3 was going to have 7 SPE's in parallel. I think that on my part it was a fair assumption that those numbers given in the aforementioned table would be the nearest to the PS3's own specifications. I could be wrong here, so if you'd like to I would be very grateful if you'd point out some more of my "flawed" or "skewed" data.

Fanboy 360 @ May 2nd 2006 7:29AM

Crimson Angelus:
>Apparently you don't know how to read, or you
>don'r care to understand what you're reading.
>What I said was that I didn't want to start a
>flaming war, and that I was just pointing out
>what IBM made available so we could deduce that
> the PS3 "peak" performance wasn't going to be
>what Sont said it was at E3 last year.

ROFLMAO, you're not even starting a flame war, you're just stupid. Everyone knows it's a theoretical performance. Everyone in the silicon industry uses this figure for their CPUs. So it shows you are a ignorant kid.

You're shooting your foot too, because the paper shows the efficiency of Cell is pretty high too. Achieving 75% of the theoretical peak in certain tests is not possible for Pentiums and PowerPCs (and the Xbox 360 CPU which is 3 PowerPC cores).

And let's go back to your original article again:

>The take home message is that with the PS3
>being cabable of 133.6 GFLOPS and the Xbox 360
>being capable of 115.2 GFLOPS, the PS3 is not
>nearly as far ahead of the Xbox 360 as we were
>lead to believe. we should expect relatively
>similar power coming from both consoles,
>processor power, and ease of programming all
>considered.

This illustrates your ignorance and fanboysm best, bringing in the theoretical peak number of Xbox 360 (which you must claim bogus because you hate all theoretical numbers) on the same table with the real world performance of Cell. Congratulation Crimson Angelus! You've successfully demonstrated your stupidity through xbox.joystiq.com to the world.

Crimson Angelus @ May 2nd 2006 10:56AM

Ok, Fanboy 360 I'm sorry. I'm just a blind kid and an ignorant fanboy. Everything I said is so false and I'm stupid and I showed it off to the world. Next time I'll just shoot myself in the foot because I'm just that stupid.

DA360 @ May 2nd 2006 12:45PM

I think the real deciding factor will be the games once the system is launched. I still think both systems will be very close in both CPU and GPU performance, especially in-game. You also got the fact that most games these days are becoming more dependant on the GPU than the CPU. I believe the CPUs biggest use in this generation will be physics engines, and certain other engines.

But like I said, both are very impressive machines capable of putting out some very impressive graphics, as well as game play. I think both systems are worth owning, it just comes down to what platform you prefer to own (which in my, and many others here's case, is the Xbox 360).

All this article is about is debunking the whole "PS3 is much more powerful than 360" thing, because as many graphs, charts, comparisons, etc. show, its definitely not. Like I said, the systems are on-par with each other in capability, which isn't definitely a bad thing at all.

I just wish Ken Kutaragi would stop making false statements (which includes trying to say CG trailers are real game graphics) when promoting Playstation consoles at trade shows. I feel its better to promote the system based on what it actually truly can do, instead of trying to blow it out of proportion.

DA360 @ May 2nd 2006 12:54PM

Wow, I didn't expect a simple article like this to have its comments turn into such a "flame war". This is the exact thing I hate to see happen at any website...

Crimson Angelus @ May 2nd 2006 1:36PM

"All this article is about is debunking the whole "PS3 is much more powerful than 360" thing, because as many graphs, charts, comparisons, etc. show, its definitely not. Like I said, the systems are on-par with each other in capability, which isn't definitely a bad thing at all."---DA360

Thank you for saying what I've been trying to say to the people that are freaking out, thanks again.