First of all...
IBM Didn't discontinued the Cell. They ended production of ONE FAMILY of the Cell, to be specific, all development of the PowerXCell 8i (the one who would be expanded to 32 SPU's). As IBM itself has declared, IBM will continue to make Cell processors until Sony finish the contract with them.Now that this is all cleared, lets continue with the topic.
Cell is a very powerfull and (now cheap) processor. It has many advantages over what Intel or AMD are making:
a. Cell was created for multi-processor arrays and multi-processor environments
b. Cell has memory management that is fully automatic between them
c. The current Cell yields have ALL the SPUs active
What this means? Well...
1. You can add AS MANY Cells to a board and (in theory) they can work with each other WITHOUT SOFTWARE INTERVENTION (in English: the Developer doesn't have to make changes to their applications to take advantage of all this power. Tools like IBM's Octopiler can make this kind of application right now).
2. Developers don't have to worry about how the Processors exchange messages and instructiones between cores/cycles or abour latency when some SPUs are not being used because they dont have to.
3. With more SPUs they can do more things at once
Remember that PowerXCell 8i can run UP TO 6.0 GHZ now with all SPUs running (9 cores), and is cheaper and cheaper to produce by day.
Sony can do one of the following:
a. Use the newer Cell BE (up to 6.0 GHz, 9 Cores) and put 2 or more of these on the new machines so the PS4 will be FULLY COMPATIBLE with the old one, more than 10 times as powerful, update their development kits and make a very CHEAP new PS4 that will be well received by the gamers and the developers because they will be able to use all the knowledge they have now. They will have the OS, the libraries, the development Kit and the know-how.
b. Use the newer IBM Power Series. As a member of the same family (yes, the Cell has a lot in common with the Power Family), the Power processors have "almost" the same structure: Up to 8 FULL CORES (not limited cores as with the Cell SPUs), multi-processor arrays/configurations.
The bad side about this is that all the back compatibillity has to be done via software emulation because Cell BE and Power are not the same and I doubt the emulation would be efficient because Cell have different "core languages" and memory structures on the PPU and the SPU's (PPU = 64 bit core and instructions set / SPU = 128 bit vector core with limited instruction sets), so you have to compensate for the different processing resolutions. This would be very complicated even for a processor as powerfull as the new Power Series (and that would make -AGAIN- the PS4 the MOST EXPENSIVE new console...)
c. Change the processor for a new tech like Intel or AMD. This would make compatibility a NO-NO situation. PS1 emulation is now common.. PS2 could be done easily with new processors... The Cell... Nope. Like I said before, Cell is a beast to program because is an incredible technology. This would make for a decent priced new console that developers will have to start learning from zero all over again, wich means a lot of games that doesnt fully take advantage of the hardware up to the third or fouth year of the console's life. Developers = Not happy again.
What do you think Sony could do?
I think they need to use the Cell for (at least) a new gen for two reasons: Compatibilty and price. The best way to regain all the territory they gave to Big N is to do what they did: Make a cheap console but, unlike them, make it as powerful as you can with what you have.
And that is the advantage Cell gives to Sony...
My bet is with a new iteration of Cell in a multi-Cell PS4.
F.
Log in to comment