"Cell greater than Xenon" argument = Over *Updated*

People were saying how much greater the Cell is than Xenon. Cell may be more precise than Xenon cause of its SPEs, but Xenon has more raw processing power cause of its true, 3 core versus Cells 1 core. Cells 8 SPEs doesnt matter since they are only as fast as the PPE that is a controller for each SPE and if the PPE struggles, they struggle. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cell_BE#Power_Processor_Element
Think of games like Kameo and N3 with hundreds or thousands of enemys on screen, thanks to its 3 cores its able to multiply its AI and Physics better than cell because its more efficient and more data is able to be pushed through its 3 cores, thats why it has a 512MB GPU Vs 256MB. Another example is Forza 2, 360 physics and AI calculations per second, along with real-time damage for all 300+ cars all at 60fps. http://news.teamxbox.com/xbox/11214/Forza-2-60fps-Better-Physics-and-PGR3like-TV-Confirmed/

"It was revealed that the game engine is multi-threaded...It is therefore likely that the Xbox 360 version will also be able to take advantage of the Xenon CPU's three cores which have a total of six threads."

"It was also claimed that the game is unlikely to run on single-core systems"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Wake

If you look below, Each CPU in the Xenon only has to handle 2 threads, The Cells 1 CPU has to handle 8 threads, making it much less efficient and sometimes less powerful.

 Xenon:

Cell:

Another reason Xenon is more efficient:
"The CPU cores (there are three) are the highest frequency PowerPC cores currently available, running at 3.2GHz. Throughout, the CPU uses extensive clock gating, leaving pipelines shut down until there are instructions to be processed; this dramatically reduces power consumption under real-world loads. The basic design is a 64-bit PowerPC architecture, with the complete PowerPC ISA available"
http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/power/library/pa-fpfxbox

**-----------update-----------**

Spread sheet performace= PS3 > X360;  real world performace= X360 > PS3

http://www.hardcoreware.net/reviews/review-348-1.htm

"Performance: On paper, the PS3 is more powerful. In reality, it's quite inferior to the 360. Without getting into too many details, the three general-purpose CPU's the xbox360 has are currently FAR easier to take advantage of than the SPU's on the PS3. I suspect a few years down the road some high budget, first party PS3 exclusive titles will come out that really take advantage of the SPU's and do things the XBOX 360 can't, but I don't think the console is worth buying based on this speculation (for some it will be though, we'll have to wait and see how these games turn out)."

http://dpad.gotfrag.com/portal/story/35372/?spage=4

"Even while taking all of this into consideration, the CPUs can't reach those crazy performance numbers; the PS3's cell still comfortably comes out on top in terms of overall floating point capability, but it should be known that the available power on the PS3's cell will be significantly more difficult to harness than the available power on the 360's CPU."
"It's also worth mentioning that even the PS2 CPU had more than twice the GFLOPS of the original Xbox's CPU, but it didn't necessarily lead it to being the performance winner."

"The reason the PS3's CPU will be significantly more difficult to program for is because the CPU is asymmetric, unlike the 360's CPU. Because of the PS3 CPU only having 1 PPE compared to the 360's 3, all game control, scripting, AI and other branch intensive code will need to be crammed into two threads which share a very narrow execution core and no instruction window. The cell's SPE will be unable to help out here as they are not as robust; hence, not fit for accelerating things such as AI, as it's fairly branch intensive and the SPE lacks branch prediction capability entirely."

"Well the PS3's SPE are further stripped down than even the Power PC Cores and, as a result, isn't as capable of handling as many different types of code like the 1 Power PC Core available on the PS3's cell or the 3 Power PC Cores available on the 360's CPU"

mass AI (kameo, n3 etc;)

"The 360 CPU however, due to its 3 symmetric General Purpose Cores, is not only much easier to program for than the cell, but having 3 PPE capable of handling things such as AI also means the 360's CPU will be the better of the 2 CPUs when it comes to AI code. Either way we can look forward to great things from both CPUs in the future."

"The only cause for concern would be the 512KB L2 cache being shared by 7 simultaneous running SPE and a PPE, but that's what developers are for; they work around things like this. In practice, this should allow PS3 games to potentially have more things going on at once than 360 games. Ignoring the difficulties of programming for the PS3 CPU, it should be known that the PS3's CPU is very good when it comes to vertex-related operations because the PS3's CPU handles graphics code better than the 360's CPU. It is also possible that through good parallelism of physics code on the SPE that physics code could also run better on the PS3 CPU due to the concurrency advantage."

Yeah cell handles graphics code better, but crappy graphics are being fed to it by RSX

While Cell handles graphics code better, that doesnt mean the games will Look better as a result. The rendering of the polygons are done on the GPU, not the CPU. Think of cell as a nervous system and brain and RSX as the existence of your flesh/dermis/epidermis/muscles. As you know the nervous system and brain tell your muscles how to move and were to move, it places your body basically whereever you(cell;brain) tell it to go. it has nothing to do with the make up of your bodily cells (polygons, vertexs) it merely controls their movement and placement.

This is Ridge racer in 720P on Xbox 360:

This is ridge racer in 1080P for PS3:

I'm going to need a one line summary.asmallchild

[QUOTE="asmallchild"]I'm going to need a one line summary.Danm_999

Ugh...newsflash TC...and I'll give you a hint. -whispers- It's published by the company that makes Windows.

Xenon is cripled with only1mb of cache, because of it if it uses all of its threads it will get bottlenecked and lose efficiency. Both CPUs are good, each has a different purpose. Xenon=general processing Cell= Floting Point processing.muscleserge

I think there's a geek section somewhere on this website. i say, go find it.dubvisions

Ugh...newsflash TC...and I'll give you a hint. -whispers- It's published by the company that makes Windows.

Downplays

People were saying how much greater the Cell is than Xenon. Cell may be more precise than Xenon cause of its SPEs, but Xenon has more raw processing power cause of its true, 3 core versus Cells 1 core. Cells 8 SPEs doesnt matter since they are only as fast as the PPE that is a controller for each SPE and if the PPE struggles, they struggle.Link
Think of games like Kameo and N3 with hundreds or thousands of enemys on screen, thanks to its 3 cores its able to multiply its AI and Physics better than cell because its more efficient and more data is able to be pushed through its 3 cores, thats why it has a 512MB GPU Vs 256MB. Another example is Forza 2, 360 physics and AI calculations per second, along with real-time damage for all 300+ cars all at 60fps. http://news.teamxbox.com/xbox/11214/Forza-2-60fps-Better-Physics-and-PGR3like-TV-Confirmed/

"It was revealed that the game engine is multi-threaded...It is therefore likely that the Xbox 360 version will also be able to take advantage of the Xenon CPU's three cores which have a total of six threads."

"It was also claimed that the game is unlikely to run on single-core systems"Link

If you look below, Each CPU in the Xenon only has to handle 2 threads, The Cells 1 CPU has to handle 8 threads, making it much less efficient and sometimes less powerful.

 Xenon:

Cell:

Another reason Xenon is more efficient:
"The CPU cores (there are three) are the highest frequency PowerPC cores currently available, running at 3.2GHz. Throughout, the CPU uses extensive clock gating, leaving pipelines shut down until there are instructions to be processed; this dramatically reduces power consumption under real-world loads. The basic design is a 64-bit PowerPC architecture, with the complete PowerPC ISA available"
http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/power/library/pa-fpfxbox/

Pro_wrestler

TLHBOHazeNPopes

[QUOTE="Pro_wrestler"]

People were saying how much greater the Cell is than Xenon. Cell may be more precise than Xenon cause of its SPEs, but Xenon has more raw processing power cause of its true, 3 core versus Cells 1 core. Cells 8 SPEs doesnt matter since they are only as fast as the PPE that is a controller for each SPE and if the PPE struggles, they struggle.Link
Think of games like Kameo and N3 with hundreds or thousands of enemys on screen, thanks to its 3 cores its able to multiply its AI and Physics better than cell because its more efficient and more data is able to be pushed through its 3 cores, thats why it has a 512MB GPU Vs 256MB. Another example is Forza 2, 360 physics and AI calculations per second, along with real-time damage for all 300+ cars all at 60fps. http://news.teamxbox.com/xbox/11214/Forza-2-60fps-Better-Physics-and-PGR3like-TV-Confirmed/

"It was revealed that the game engine is multi-threaded...It is therefore likely that the Xbox 360 version will also be able to take advantage of the Xenon CPU's three cores which have a total of six threads."

"It was also claimed that the game is unlikely to run on single-core systems"Link

If you look below, Each CPU in the Xenon only has to handle 2 threads, The Cells 1 CPU has to handle 8 threads, making it much less efficient and sometimes less powerful.

 Xenon:

Cell:

Another reason Xenon is more efficient:
"The CPU cores (there are three) are the highest frequency PowerPC cores currently available, running at 3.2GHz. Throughout, the CPU uses extensive clock gating, leaving pipelines shut down until there are instructions to be processed; this dramatically reduces power consumption under real-world loads. The basic design is a 64-bit PowerPC architecture, with the complete PowerPC ISA available"
http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/power/library/pa-fpfxbox/

imprezawrx500

you are right

Cell totally rocks :)

TLHBO = The Lemmings Have Been Owned.HazeNPopes

you are right

Cell totally rocks :)

amourkiss

TLHBO = The Lemmings Have Been Owned.HazeNPopes

[QUOTE="HazeNPopes"]TLHBO = The Lemmings Have Been Owned.dangould1985

[QUOTE="dangould1985"][QUOTE="HazeNPopes"]TLHBO = The Lemmings Have Been Owned.HazeNPopes

          Nice post TC, great read - thx !SecretPolice

Oh dear lord...find me ONE, ONE developer who plainly says that Xenon is better than the Cell BE. The argument has been over a long time ago for anyone in the industry and it went the other way.Runningflame570

Oh dear lord...find me ONE, ONE developer who plainly says that Xenon is better than the Cell BE. The argument has been over a long time ago for anyone in the industry and it went the other way.Runningflame570

I didnt say Xenon was better than cell, my arguement is about Cell not being better than Xenon in some cases.Pro_wrestler

I'm going to need a one line summary. I'm not mentally advanced enough to process that much information in one post. :)asmallchild

The only thing I have ever and will probably ever agree with you on. TC I need that summed up in a few more sentences as well. Sensory overload over here.... 

[QUOTE="Runningflame570"]Oh dear lord...find me ONE, ONE developer who plainly says that Xenon is better than the Cell BE. The argument has been over a long time ago for anyone in the industry and it went the other way.Spartan070

Trying to change the argument FTL.  that's not what this argument is about and that's not what the TC was trying to prove. 

Cell > Xenos ....get over it.

we already know the cell is more difficuilt to program for but if a game is specifically programed to use the Cell it will ALWAYS outproform what ever is being designed using xenos.

BTW: even Jhon Carmak the PC guy who did indeed say the Cell was a ***** to program for, when it was all said and done admitted....Cell > xenos.

[QUOTE="Pro_wrestler"]I didnt say Xenon was better than cell, my arguement is about Cell not being better than Xenon in some cases.dubvisions

[QUOTE="dubvisions"][QUOTE="Pro_wrestler"]I didnt say Xenon was better than cell, my arguement is about Cell not being better than Xenon in some cases.Pro_wrestler

Wonderful. So this is going to determine which console I buy? Okay... *goes out to buy PS3*

[/sarcasm]

No normal gaming consumer, even a gaming consumer is not going to care about which processor is better. They will look at the two systems, look at the price tags, see which has the most interesting games, and buy the one they are most interested in. The miniscule differences between the two system graphical capabilities are meaningless unless you are talking to a fanboy or a technophile.
foxhound_fox

CELL>>>>>>>>>>>>>XENON

/Thread 

[QUOTE="Pro_wrestler"][QUOTE="dubvisions"][QUOTE="Pro_wrestler"]I didnt say Xenon was better than cell, my arguement is about Cell not being better than Xenon in some cases.dubvisions

CELL>>>>>>>>>>>>>XENON

/Thread 

MGS9150

From a 3rd party, non-console experienced, PC developer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PFUw29U4J8

Thread/ 

 

From a 3rd party, non-console experienced, PC developer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PFUw29U4J8

Thread/ 

proof11102

[QUOTE="MGS9150"]

CELL>>>>>>>>>>>>>XENON

/Thread

Pro_wrestler

Who do you think is a more credible source? An Actual game developer or a 12 year old sitting behind a computer. Until An ACTUAL DEV disproves what Insomniac has said CELL>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>XENON.

 /THREAD.

A big difference in Cells from normal CPUs is the ability of the SPEs in a Cell to be chained together to act as a stream processor . A stream processor takes data and processes it in a series of steps.


A Cell processor can be set-up to perform streaming operations in a sequence with one or more SPEs working on each step. In order to do stream processing an SPE reads data from an input into it's local store, performs the processing step then stores the result into it's local store. The second SPE reads the output from the first SPE's local store and processes it and stores it in it's output area.
This sequence can use many SPEs and SPEs can access different blocks of memory depending on the application. If the computing power is not enough the SPEs in other Cells can also be used to form an even longer chain.
Stream processing does not generally require large memory bandwidth but Cell has it anyway and on top of this the internal interconnect system allows multiple communication streams between SPEs simultaneously so they don't hold each other up.









It is when the SPEs are working on compute heavy streaming applications that the Cell will be working hardest. It's in these applications that the Cell may get close to it's theoretical maximum performance and perform an order of magnitude more calculations per second than any desktop processor currently available.

On the other hand if the stream uses large amounts of bandwidth and the data blocks can fit into the local stores the performance difference might actually be bigger. Even if conventional CPUs are capable of processing, the data at the same rate the transfers between the CPUs will be held up while they wait for chip to chip transfers. The Cell's internal interconnect system allows transfers running into hundreds of Gigabytes per second, chip to chip interconnects allows transfers in the low 10's of Gigabytes per second.

While conventional processors have vector units on board (SSE or VMX / AltiVec) they are not dedicated vector processors. The vector processing capability is an add-on to the existing instruction sets and has to share the CPUs resources. The SPEs are dedicated high speed vector processors and with their own memory don't need to share anything other than the memory (and not even this much if the data can fit in the local stores). Add to this the fact there are 8 of them and you can see why their potential computational capacity is so large.

You forgot to mention this about cell cpu.

People were saying how much greater the Cell is than Xenon. Cell may be more precise than Xenon cause of its SPEs, but Xenon has more raw processing power cause of its true, 3 core versus Cells 1 core. Cells 8 SPEs doesnt matter since they are only as fast as the PPE that is a controller for each SPE and if the PPE struggles, they struggle.Link
Think of games like Kameo and N3 with hundreds or thousands of enemys on screen, thanks to its 3 cores its able to multiply its AI and Physics better than cell because its more efficient and more data is able to be pushed through its 3 cores, thats why it has a 512MB GPU Vs 256MB. Another example is Forza 2, 360 physics and AI calculations per second, along with real-time damage for all 300+ cars all at 60fps. http://news.teamxbox.com/xbox/11214/Forza-2-60fps-Better-Physics-and-PGR3like-TV-Confirmed/

"It was revealed that the game engine is multi-threaded...It is therefore likely that the Xbox 360 version will also be able to take advantage of the Xenon CPU's three cores which have a total of six threads."

"It was also claimed that the game is unlikely to run on single-core systems"Link

If you look below, Each CPU in the Xenon only has to handle 2 threads, The Cells 1 CPU has to handle 8 threads, making it much less efficient and sometimes less powerful.

Xenon:

Cell:

Another reason Xenon is more efficient:
"The CPU cores (there are three) are the highest frequency PowerPC cores currently available, running at 3.2GHz. Throughout, the CPU uses extensive clock gating, leaving pipelines shut down until there are instructions to be processed; this dramatically reduces power consumption under real-world loads. The basic design is a 64-bit PowerPC architecture, with the complete PowerPC ISA available"
http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/power/library/pa-fpfxbox/

Pro_wrestler

People were saying how much greater the Cell is than Xenon. Cell may be more precise than Xenon cause of its SPEs, but Xenon has more raw processing power cause of its true, 3 core versus Cells 1 core. Cells 8 SPEs doesnt matter since they are only as fast as the PPE that is a controller for each SPE and if the PPE struggles, they struggle.Link
Think of games like Kameo and N3 with hundreds or thousands of enemys on screen, thanks to its 3 cores its able to multiply its AI and Physics better than cell because its more efficient and more data is able to be pushed through its 3 cores, thats why it has a 512MB GPU Vs 256MB. Another example is Forza 2, 360 physics and AI calculations per second, along with real-time damage for all 300+ cars all at 60fps. http://news.teamxbox.com/xbox/11214/Forza-2-60fps-Better-Physics-and-PGR3like-TV-Confirmed/

"It was revealed that the game engine is multi-threaded...It is therefore likely that the Xbox 360 version will also be able to take advantage of the Xenon CPU's three cores which have a total of six threads."

"It was also claimed that the game is unlikely to run on single-core systems"Link

If you look below, Each CPU in the Xenon only has to handle 2 threads, The Cells 1 CPU has to handle 8 threads, making it much less efficient and sometimes less powerful.

Xenon:

Cell:

Another reason Xenon is more efficient:
"The CPU cores (there are three) are the highest frequency PowerPC cores currently available, running at 3.2GHz. Throughout, the CPU uses extensive clock gating, leaving pipelines shut down until there are instructions to be processed; this dramatically reduces power consumption under real-world loads. The basic design is a 64-bit PowerPC architecture, with the complete PowerPC ISA available"
http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/power/library/pa-fpfxbox/

Pro_wrestler