Reasons why should Sony keep the CELL for the PS4

I made this Topic first in the PS3 forum, but I decide to bring it to system wars to have a more "wide" point of view.

First of all, because Sony has spend a ton of money on the CELL, and its a really nice chip.

http://ps4info.com/2011/01/12/ps4-cpu-vs-ps3-cpu/

I know that I sound like in 2005, but the CELL is capable of cool thing, (look the second video of the next link)

http://www.gamersoutlook.com/2011/05/why-cell-processor-is-so-important.html

If sony keeps pushing the development and research of the CELL we will have a really nice and powerfull consoles in the future and with low cost (comparing creating the cell from the ground uo)

http://www.ps4forums.org/16-playstation-4-cell-chip/

What do you think?

EDIT: Im talking about an upgraded CELL processor not the sameone.

No, it will increase development costs and/or be harder for developers to use. More than likely since cell architecture has not dominanted the market it will also be more expensive.

No, it will be overpriced and harder for developers to use. Diviniuz

Developers now have figured out the CELL, I mean the been developing for it for 6 freaking years now.

And Sony had bought factories to create and develop the CELL, so that keeps the cost low (like apple with his A chips)

idk...i remember reading that the cell can do some things better than the new intel i7 processors, which is cool considering the CELL came out in 2006

They should put in there an enhanced Cell and a GeForce GTX 560 class graphics chip and 2 gigs of total RAM.

Their devs are used of Cell and they invested heavily in it's development so it makes sense to keep it, I agree.

idk...i remember reading that the cell can do some things better than the new intel i7 processors, which is cool considering the CELL came out in 2006

UNcartMe

Can you provide a link for that? I mean seem like really nice information

they should keep it.

It was alinen hardware early this gen but im sure most devs have got a hang to it by now.

[QUOTE="UNcartMe"]

idk...i remember reading that the cell can do some things better than the new intel i7 processors, which is cool considering the CELL came out in 2006

Pelon208

Can you provide a link for that? I mean seem like really nice information

They should put in there an enhanced Cell and a GeForce GTX 560 class graphics chip and 2 gigs of total RAM.

Their devs are used of Cell and they invested heavily in it's development so it makes sense to keep it, I agree.

nameless12345

My point exactly

So many triple and double posts in this threadDiviniuz

Gamespot glitch, Today a bethesda guy is running gamespot lol

[QUOTE="Pelon208"]

[QUOTE="UNcartMe"]

idk...i remember reading that the cell can do some things better than the new intel i7 processors, which is cool considering the CELL came out in 2006

UNcartMe

Can you provide a link for that? I mean seem like really nice information

It doesn't matter, it's not indicative of real world overall performance. Radeon cards annihilate nvidia ones at bitcoin farming because of all the shader processors. They're neck and neck at anything important though.

They should put in there an enhanced Cell and a GeForce GTX 560 class graphics chip and 2 gigs of total RAM.

Their devs are used of Cell and they invested heavily in it's development so it makes sense to keep it, I agree.

nameless12345

[QUOTE="nameless12345"]

They should put in there an enhanced Cell and a GeForce GTX 560 class graphics chip and 2 gigs of total RAM.

Their devs are used of Cell and they invested heavily in it's development so it makes sense to keep it, I agree.

Pelon208

My point exactly

I made this Topic first in the PS3 forum, but I decide to bring it to system wars to have a more "wide" point of view.

First of all, because Sony has spend a ton of money on the CELL, and its a really nice chip.

Pelon208

How much they spent is irrelevant. Don't throw good money after bad. They should select the best solution, not the one they are already invested in.

[QUOTE="Pelon208"]

[QUOTE="UNcartMe"]

idk...i remember reading that the cell can do some things better than the new intel i7 processors, which is cool considering the CELL came out in 2006

UNcartMe

Can you provide a link for that? I mean seem like really nice information

http://www.pcgameshardware.de/aid,685203/H264-Videos-Neuer-Codec-nutzt-Playstation-3-fuer-Transkodierung/Tools/News/ ?

No, it will increase development costs and/or be harder for developers to use. More than likely since cell architecture has not dominanted the market it will also be more expensive.

Diviniuz

[QUOTE="nameless12345"]gtx 560? that's crazy bro [QUOTE="Pelon208"]

[QUOTE="nameless12345"]

They should put in there an enhanced Cell and a GeForce GTX 560 class graphics chip and 2 gigs of total RAM.

Their devs are used of Cell and they invested heavily in it's development so it makes sense to keep it, I agree.

UNcartMe

My point exactly

Multitasking is good when you are running tons of applications and a OS like windows or OSX but for not for gaming. Consoles when running a game only runs the game and "stupid" things like online messages and those things

[QUOTE="Pelon208"]

I made this Topic first in the PS3 forum, but I decide to bring it to system wars to have a more "wide" point of view.

First of all, because Sony has spend a ton of money on the CELL, and its a really nice chip.

KiZZo1

How much they spent is irrelevant. Don't throw good money after bad. They should select the best solution, not the one they are already invested in.

Why you see the CELL 2 to be a bad investement? Did you even read the links I provide?

[QUOTE="KiZZo1"]

[QUOTE="Pelon208"]

I made this Topic first in the PS3 forum, but I decide to bring it to system wars to have a more "wide" point of view.

First of all, because Sony has spend a ton of money on the CELL, and its a really nice chip.

Pelon208

How much they spent is irrelevant. Don't throw good money after bad. They should select the best solution, not the one they are already invested in.

Why you see the CELL 2 to be a bad investement? Did you even read the links I provide?

I don't think you understand what he said. The money they already invested is irrelevant. It is a sunk cost. It could have been on the cell, it could have been on beer and pizza for employees or pron for corporate executives. What you spent money on in the past is in itself irrelevant to the financial investment decisions you face today or tomorrow.

[QUOTE="Pelon208"]

[QUOTE="KiZZo1"]

How much they spent is irrelevant. Don't throw good money after bad. They should select the best solution, not the one they are already invested in.

SUD123456

Why you see the CELL 2 to be a bad investement? Did you even read the links I provide?

I don't think you understand what he said. The money they already invested is irrelevant. It is a sunk cost. It could have been on the cell, it could have been on beer and pizza for employees or pron for corporate executives. What you spent money on in the past is in itself irrelevant to the financial investment decisions you face today or tomorrow.

Ok, but what about if you spend 10 years ago $1,000 dlls on beer and pizza, you know for sure you are not getting back that money and you don't even care.

But if you spend $100,000 dlls in land 10 years ago, you hope to get that money back and more. And you are going to care if you don't see that money again.

[QUOTE="Diviniuz"]No, it will be overpriced and harder for developers to use. Pelon208

Developers now have figured out the CELL, I mean the been developing for it for 6 freaking years now.

And Sony had bought factories to create and develop the CELL, so that keeps the cost low (like apple with his A chips)

No, it will increase development costs and/or be harder for developers to use. More than likely since cell architecture has not dominanted the market it will also be more expensive.

Diviniuz

I made this Topic first in the PS3 forum, but I decide to bring it to system wars to have a more "wide" point of view.

First of all, because Sony has spend a ton of money on the CELL, and its a really nice chip.

http://ps4info.com/2011/01/12/ps4-cpu-vs-ps3-cpu/

I know that I sound like in 2005, but the CELL is capable of cool thing, (look the second video of the next link)

http://www.gamersoutlook.com/2011/05/why-cell-processor-is-so-important.html

If sony keeps pushing the development and research of the CELL we will have a really nice and powerfull consoles in the future and with low cost (comparing creating the cell from the ground uo)

http://www.ps4forums.org/16-playstation-4-cell-chip/

What do you think?

Pelon208

Ps3 fans didn't learn anything this gen did they?Miketheman83

Blaming the CELL for the PS3 "failure" its ridiculos, There were many factors, but I don't think the CELL was the problem.

[QUOTE="Diviniuz"]

No, it will increase development costs and/or be harder for developers to use. More than likely since cell architecture has not dominanted the market it will also be more expensive.

dr-professional

Again my dear Dr. read the links that i provide, and developers now know how to work with it.

If Sony goes to Intel or AMD, all the money they poured into developing tools to work with cell architecture will be gone and vanish into thin air. With the next Xbox, its just another iteration of Direct X Technology. All they have to do is copy and paste. LOL. MS has it soo easy next gen.

So it will have inferior Multiplats ?

So it will have inferior Multiplats ?

The_Pacific

LOL probably, I read somewhere that developers blame more the lack of VRAM in the PS3 more than the CELL itself, They mention something like "With the 360 you have this big chunk of RAM and with the PS3 you have to optimize everything because of the lack of it"

So if they put enough RAM i guess multiplats will be just fine

I cant believe someone would suggest something so terrible.

The Cell has been nothing but a bad poker hand for Sony and your resoning is that since they're already heavily invested in a bad hand, might as well go deeper? Brilliant business strategy. Sadly, thats exactly what Sony might do because they are driven more by money than by common sense even though such a strategy will net them no money.

The entire point of Cell was never to actually make a video game console out of it. The Cell and its high scalability of SPEs was meant to be their end-all solution for the variety of multimedia hardware devices they make. One SPE for a music player with video playback, two or thee SPEs for a TV, maybe 3 or 4 for a projector, and, of course, 7 or 8 for a video games console. This strategy sounds amazing on paper because you no longer have to create highly specialized components for each of these devices when you can createa highly scalable general processor. The money savings from no longer having to develop new processors or deal with complex patents and licensing deals would be enormous. A bean counter's dream.

A damn junion engineer could have told you that was a bad idea. Its impossible to build a general purpose processor to handle a huge variety of tasks. The entire reason that specialized processors exist is because they function well for their specific tasks. The cell has been little more than brute forcing a square peg into a round hole. Yeah, sure, with enough force you'll rip through it and get it on the other side..... or you could just use the round peg to begin with.

To suggest that they continue using it? Seriously? Sony isn't doing anyone any favors by continuing to use a flawed principle. It would be far easier to switch to an x86 architecture for developers. Even if your argument is "developers now know the Cell" - it doesn't matter - its still much easier to use x86. The cell clearly hasn't been a financial success given its massive R&D costs and its negligable use outside of the PS3, so its likely costing them more to run and maintaing their Cell manufacturing processes...so its not doing any favos for their bottom line either.

[QUOTE="dr-professional"][QUOTE="Diviniuz"]

No, it will increase development costs and/or be harder for developers to use. More than likely since cell architecture has not dominanted the market it will also be more expensive.

Pelon208

Again my dear Dr. read the links that i provide, and developers now know how to work with it.

I cant believe someone would suggest something so terrible.

The Cell has been nothing but a bad poker hand for Sony and your resoning is that since they're already heavily invested in a bad hand, might as well go deeper? Brilliant business strategy. Sadly, thats exactly what Sony might do because they are driven more by money than by common sense even though such a strategy will net them no money.

The entire point of Cell was never to actually make a video game console out of it. The Cell and its high scalability of SPEs was meant to be their end-all solution for the variety of multimedia hardware devices they make. One SPE for a music player with video playback, two or thee SPEs for a TV, maybe 3 or 4 for a projector, and, of course, 7 or 8 for a video games console. This strategy sounds amazing on paper because you no longer have to create highly specialized components for each of these devices when you can createa highly scalable general processor. The money savings from no longer having to develop new processors or deal with complex patents and licensing deals would be enormous. A bean counter's dream.

A damn junion engineer could have told you that was a bad idea. Its impossible to build a general purpose processor to handle a huge variety of tasks. The entire reason that specialized processors exist is because they function well for their specific tasks. The cell has been little more than brute forcing a square peg into a round hole. Yeah, sure, with enough force you'll rip through it and get it on the other side..... or you could just use the round peg to begin with.

To suggest that they continue using it? Seriously? Sony isn't doing anyone any favors by continuing to use a flawed principle. It would be far easier to switch to an x86 architecture for developers. Even if your argument is "developers now know the Cell" - it doesn't matter - its still much easier to use x86. The cell clearly hasn't been a financial success given its massive R&D costs and its negligable use outside of the PS3, so its likely costing them more to run and maintaing their Cell manufacturing processes...so its not doing any favos for their bottom line either.

XaosII

You are writing like if sony has to invest a billion dollars again, they have the facilities, they have the knowledge of the architecture (same as the developers) they are in a totally different position with the CELL now in 2011 than back in 2006.

But i totally understand your point of view, but remember that the cost of a cell for sony is really cheap now. check the first link on the first post.

[QUOTE="Pelon208"]

[QUOTE="dr-professional"] This and th fac that we will never reach teh full powa because 70% of the cell power is used for other things then gaming.dr-professional

Again my dear Dr. read the links that i provide, and developers now know how to work with it.

The problem is the lack of RAM and a pice of crap GPU, Agree?

So it will have inferior Multiplats ?

The_Pacific

Pretty much. All these people keep praying the cell will deliver some amazing game and all it delivers is inferior multiplats and scripted games since 2006. Sorry but if Sony wants to reign supreme again in the console market they better dump "teh cellz" and get with a proven architecture.

[QUOTE="Miketheman83"]Ps3 fans didn't learn anything this gen did they?Pelon208

Blaming the CELL for the PS3 "failure" its ridiculos, There were many factors, but I don't think the CELL was the problem.

[QUOTE="XaosII"]

I cant believe someone would suggest something so terrible.

The Cell has been nothing but a bad poker hand for Sony and your resoning is that since they're already heavily invested in a bad hand, might as well go deeper? Brilliant business strategy. Sadly, thats exactly what Sony might do because they are driven more by money than by common sense even though such a strategy will net them no money.

The entire point of Cell was never to actually make a video game console out of it. The Cell and its high scalability of SPEs was meant to be their end-all solution for the variety of multimedia hardware devices they make. One SPE for a music player with video playback, two or thee SPEs for a TV, maybe 3 or 4 for a projector, and, of course, 7 or 8 for a video games console. This strategy sounds amazing on paper because you no longer have to create highly specialized components for each of these devices when you can createa highly scalable general processor. The money savings from no longer having to develop new processors or deal with complex patents and licensing deals would be enormous. A bean counter's dream.

A damn junion engineer could have told you that was a bad idea. Its impossible to build a general purpose processor to handle a huge variety of tasks. The entire reason that specialized processors exist is because they function well for their specific tasks. The cell has been little more than brute forcing a square peg into a round hole. Yeah, sure, with enough force you'll rip through it and get it on the other side..... or you could just use the round peg to begin with.

To suggest that they continue using it? Seriously? Sony isn't doing anyone any favors by continuing to use a flawed principle. It would be far easier to switch to an x86 architecture for developers. Even if your argument is "developers now know the Cell" - it doesn't matter - its still much easier to use x86. The cell clearly hasn't been a financial success given its massive R&D costs and its negligable use outside of the PS3, so its likely costing them more to run and maintaing their Cell manufacturing processes...so its not doing any favos for their bottom line either.

Pelon208

You are writing like if sony has to invest a billion dollars again, they have the facilities, they have the knowledge of the architecture (same as the developers) they are in a totally different position with the CELL now in 2011 than back in 2006.

But i totally understand your point of view, but remember that the cost of a cell for sony is really cheap now. check the first link on the first post.

No, he's saying that the billions of dollars they spent doing R&D on the Cell processor would have been better spent elsewhere, and they could have just kept on using x86 architecture.

You are writing like if sony has to invest a billion dollars again, they have the facilities, they have the knowledge of the architecture (same as the developers) they are in a totally different position with the CELL now in 2011 than back in 2006.

But i totally understand your point of view, but remember that the cost of a cell for sony is really cheap now. check the first link on the first post.

Pelon208

I know. The price of manufacturing CPUs goes does pretty quickly with time and refinements to their processes. I'm fairly certain they still havent recouped their costs for the Cell's R&D and manufacturing.

Its a bad poker hand that needs to be folded. They aren't doing anyone any favors by sticking to it. I want to ask you what advantages are there for them to stay with the Cell versus a more powerful but conventional processor?

Sure a handful of PS3 exclusives look better than what the 360 can produce. But a lead of handful of games (and only in the graphics department) is worth all the downsides?

they won't, IBM have cancelled all research into the cell in favour of hybrid GPU/CPU chips http://www.psuni.com/ibm-cancels-cell-processor-development-1295/delta3074

/thread

But no one noticed ... :)

Make improvements of the Cell for the PS4, but don't change the whole architecture of it

[QUOTE="Pelon208"]

[QUOTE="XaosII"]

I cant believe someone would suggest something so terrible.

The Cell has been nothing but a bad poker hand for Sony and your resoning is that since they're already heavily invested in a bad hand, might as well go deeper? Brilliant business strategy. Sadly, thats exactly what Sony might do because they are driven more by money than by common sense even though such a strategy will net them no money.

The entire point of Cell was never to actually make a video game console out of it. The Cell and its high scalability of SPEs was meant to be their end-all solution for the variety of multimedia hardware devices they make. One SPE for a music player with video playback, two or thee SPEs for a TV, maybe 3 or 4 for a projector, and, of course, 7 or 8 for a video games console. This strategy sounds amazing on paper because you no longer have to create highly specialized components for each of these devices when you can createa highly scalable general processor. The money savings from no longer having to develop new processors or deal with complex patents and licensing deals would be enormous. A bean counter's dream.

A damn junion engineer could have told you that was a bad idea. Its impossible to build a general purpose processor to handle a huge variety of tasks. The entire reason that specialized processors exist is because they function well for their specific tasks. The cell has been little more than brute forcing a square peg into a round hole. Yeah, sure, with enough force you'll rip through it and get it on the other side..... or you could just use the round peg to begin with.

To suggest that they continue using it? Seriously? Sony isn't doing anyone any favors by continuing to use a flawed principle. It would be far easier to switch to an x86 architecture for developers. Even if your argument is "developers now know the Cell" - it doesn't matter - its still much easier to use x86. The cell clearly hasn't been a financial success given its massive R&D costs and its negligable use outside of the PS3, so its likely costing them more to run and maintaing their Cell manufacturing processes...so its not doing any favos for their bottom line either.

rpgs_shall_rule

You are writing like if sony has to invest a billion dollars again, they have the facilities, they have the knowledge of the architecture (same as the developers) they are in a totally different position with the CELL now in 2011 than back in 2006.

But i totally understand your point of view, but remember that the cost of a cell for sony is really cheap now. check the first link on the first post.

No, he's saying that the billions of dollars they spent doing R&D on the Cell processor would have been better spent elsewhere, and they could have just kept on using x86 architecture.

Now this I totally agree with you.

But they didn't. So that's why this topic

[QUOTE="dr-professional"][QUOTE="Pelon208"]

Again my dear Dr. read the links that i provide, and developers now know how to work with it.

Pelon208

The problem is the lack of RAM and a pice of crap GPU, Agree?

[QUOTE="delta3074"]they won't, IBM have cancelled all research into the cell in favour of hybrid GPU/CPU chips http://www.psuni.com/ibm-cancels-cell-processor-development-1295/KiZZo1

/thread

But no one noticed ... :)

IBM cancelled it, but sony its continuing to research on it, not in a big scale like IBM.