The Cell Processor

[idkdragon]

Dave reminded me of an event that took place at HOWZ. This kid named Dan or something decided to argue with me about the power of the Cell processor. Basically, he said that it was crap compared to current PC technology, never-mind the fact that it has the equivalent computing power of 40 Pentium 4's. I want to see a commercial PC with 256 GFLops

Comments

[fonnywm]

I'm sure it's awesome, but how long will it be until programmers can actually harness the full potential? We're still waiting for practical uses for dual core, though they are right around the corner. Oblivion and UT2k7 will both supposedly see benefits from dual core processors. I just got one, and Oblivion just went gold today, so we'll see shortly.

[idkdragon]

Your comment raises an extremely important issue: the difference between PC architecture and console architecture. By the very nature of consoles, their architecture needs to be one whose full power cannot be harnessed until the end of its lifetime

[davekap]

Supposing this were all complete fact, it sure would be funny if Nintendo and Sony made a deal where they agreed to bump off Microsoft by debuting their hardware after the quick-death of 360 occured.

But that's just hypothetical hilarity.

[fatman182]

as if you needed to further your point, a good example of the full-potential theory of console gaming: the original playstation. even by looking only at the final fantasy series, you can see a clear difference in graphical quality between 7, 8 and 9. sure you added an extra disc for 8 and 9, but the stories were also a good bit longer and more involved, plus the side-quests were much more multi-faceted. point being? they fit more great game into less space. the graphics were better, the story was longer, there were more FMV's, and it was overall more complex with each successive title. i still don't like ff9, but that's my opinion.