Playstation3  only has  1 Cell Processor

quote:
__________________
" Although early reports suggested that PS3 would use four or even eight 
Cell CPUs, many developers now believe that the system may only have one - "
__________________
http://gamesindustry.biz/news.php?aid=8790


and even this single Cell Processor has only 7 of the SPEs  (the workhorse 
of Cell)  activated, instead of the normal
8 SPEs.

so instead of a full Cell Processor with 9 cores,  the PS3 has a Cell 
Processor with 8 cores (1 PowerPC + 7 SPEs)

and this is a far cry from what was originally planned for PS3.  lets look 
back at how many times PS3 has been downgraded over the years:


1.)  PS3 was going to be 1,000 times the power of PS2.
 that would have meant 6.2 Teraflops / Tflops,    because the PS2 
performance is 6.2 Gigaflops / Gflops


2.)  then it was going to be at least a 4-Cell  system, with 4 PowerPCs and 
32 APUs (APUs are now SPEs) for a total of at least 1 Teraflop / Tflop @ 4 
GHz.   that is still powerful even though it's a big downgrade from original 
goal.

3.) then it was realized that PS3 would get only one Cell Processor - but 
this would be an improved Cell with SPEs that have 256K local memory instead 
of the 128K that the APUs had.    running at 4.6 GHz.  providing 256  (SPEs)
  288 Gflops total (SPEs plus VMX). a new version of Cell was also made, 
with further increased performance.   it was thought that PS3 with 1 strong 
Cell Processor would reach 300 to 320 Gflops.

4.) the PS3 that was announced this week is significantly less powerful from 
even what I said in (3.).    the final PS3 is going to have one cripled Cell 
Processor with only 7 SPEs, and only clocked at 3.2 Ghz, which produces only 
218 Gflops.


so from (1)  to (4)  we are going from 1000 times the performance of 
Playstation2, down to only 35 times the performance of Playstation2.    that 
is roughly  28 times LESS powerful than what Sony originally promised.

not that I actually believed Sony's original claims about 1000 times the 
power of PS2, but, it just goes to show you the difference between  hype and 
reality.

for those that dont believe that Sony ever said PS3 would be 1000 times more 
powerful than PS2, I have a few examples

http://groups-beta.google.com/group/rec.games.video.sega/msg/551d3b67432c8445?dmode=source&hl=en
_______________________________________________
"PlayStation3 Revealed?

Kutaragi breaks moore's law, claims 1000x chip performance for PS3"

" By 2006, the third generation system will arrive, with EE3 and GS3,
featuring 1000 times the performance of the tool-just in time for the
PS2, which will also be delivered around that date, according to sony
sources mentioned in the EE times article.


HERE's the PlayStation3 part


So what kind of statistics would a game system capable of 1000 times
PS2's performance generate?
If you do the math, that's 66 trillion polygon calculations per second.
On a spuer-high-definition 6400x4800 screen, that's more than enough
polygons to update pixel size triangles more than 120 times per
second.that's both bettor than movie resolution and a refresh rate
faster than the human eye can detect (in fact, those results can be doen
by a mere 3.6 trillion ploys per second)."

___________________________________________________-






http://groups-beta.google.com/group/comp.graphics.apps.softimage/msg/3c2b5be12c0362a4?dmode=source&hl=en
________________________________________________
" The Phase 3 workstation, scheduled to appear around 2005-2006, will have 
the
Emotion Engine 3 and Graphic Synthesizer 3, which will have drastically
changed architectures. As a result, the workstation will have 1,000 times
performance of the development tool workstation, and will handle 4,000 x
2,000-pixel pictures at 24-to-120p. At this stage, Playstation3 will be
taking a shape, Sony said. "
___________________________________________


http://ps2.ign.com/articles/072/072836p1.html
____________________________________________________
" PS3 Will Have 1,000 Times Performance of PS2
SCEI senior VP says that PlayStation 3 will significantly out-perform 
layStation2.
by David Zdyrko
November 17, 1999 - According to a news release on AsiaBizTech, Shin-ichi 
Okamoto said, "We are working to create the PlayStation 3 game machine so 
that it will have 1,000 times the performance of the PlayStation 2." 
Okamota, senior vice president of the research and development division of 
Sony Computer Entertainment, said this when he gave a keynote speech at the 
"Microcomputer System & Tool Fair '99" held at Tokyo Big Site from Nov. 
10-12.



As indicated by the story, SCE surveyed content developers when they were 
developing the PlayStation 2; the developers said that they would need a 
performance of 18,000 times that of the PlayStation in order to generate 
game images in real-time. Sony suggests that the PlayStation 2 is 300 times 
as powerful as the current PlayStation, falling short of what the content 
developers had wanted. In regards to this, Okamoto said, "We understand the 
requirement is half met. We would like to realize the goal in the 
development of our next version, the PlayStation 3."
__________________________________________


http://www.eetimes.com/story/OEG19991006S0040

http://www.geek.com/news/geeknews/2001jan/gam20010123003936.htm

there are many more but that should be enough