Consortium reveals Cell details, claim 4GHz+ clock speeds

By Games Industry.biz Published 8 February, 2005

Official details of the Cell microprocessor have been revealed by partners IBM, Sony and Toshiba.

Official details of the Cell microprocessor have been revealed by partners IBM, Sony and Toshiba, with the multi-core architecture set to be capable of processing ten threads on a single chip clocked at over 4GHz.

The chip package will consist of a 64-bit Power processor - similar to the CPUs being used in the Xbox 2 and PowerMac G5 systems - which can process two threads simultaneously, along with eight "synergistic processing units".

These SPUs are the real horsepower behind the chip; each one has 256KB of its own memory and can handle computing tasks separately from the main processor, which will be responsible for dividing up tasks between the SPUs and running the operating system.

While clock speeds are an almost entirely meaningless measurement of processor performance, especially when comparing chips as radically different as Cell and the existing Intel/AMD families, much attention has been focused on the claim that the Cell could start out at speeds of over 4GHz.

Despite not being a clear indicator of actual performance, the speed is still a PR coup for IBM and its partners - since Intel's range of chips currently maxes out at 3.8GHz, while Cell may go as high as 4.6GHz in its early incarnations.

More useful as a performance measurement is the chip's rating in terms of calculations per second, or "gigaflops", with Cell rated at 256 gigaflops according to IBM - a fair bit short of an entry in the Top 500 Supercomputers list, which starts at 851 gigaflops, but still enormously powerful for a single chip, and of course the chips are designed to operate efficiently in clusters.

Indeed, it's widely expected that the PlayStation 3 could boast as many as four Cell chips, which would give a theoretical CPU performance of over 1,000 gigaflops, or one teraflop - a very theoretical measure, admittedly, but still enough to earn the PS3 a place on the supercomputer list.

Another aspect of the performance which IBM has been quick to champion is the memory bandwidth available to the Cell, with the design utilising RAMBUS interface technology that delivers an unprecedented one hundred gigabytes per second of bandwidth to the chip, with separate interfaces for communicating with system memory and with other CPUs.

Despite Sony's claims, one thing we won't be seeing in the near future is Cell being used in portable devices such as mobile phones - according to an IBM spokesperson, the chip, which is initially being manufactured on a 90 nanometre process but will eventually move down to 65 nanometre, runs hot enough to require a cooling fan, like most desktop CPUs.

Spokespeople from the Cell consortium were quick to point out the flexibility of the system, saying that the multi-processor architecture could be used in a variety of different ways by game developers or other software creators.

However, game developers contacted by GamesIndustry.biz downplayed reports that the PS3 would be incredibly difficult to program as a result of the new architecture, saying that the main difficulty would be the move to a multi-core system - a design shared by the Xbox 2 and almost certainly by the Nintendo Revolution.

The game development model which is used for PlayStation 2, where a few programmers work directly with the low level code to create libraries for specific functions and other developers simply use those libraries, masking the complexity of the underlying system, is likely to work just as well on PlayStation 3, while the prevalence of middleware such as Criterion's RenderWare or the Havok physics engine will also make the transition less painful.

Another factor fingered by developers is the fact that Sony's PlayStation Portable libraries and documentation have been widely praised by those working on the system, indicating that Sony has learned an important lesson from the PS2 launch - where much of the development difficulty lay not with the system itself, but with poorly translated (or un-translated) documentation and difficult to use libraries.

Along with the Cell processors, the PlayStation 3 is also set to use a graphics chipset from NVIDIA, which will be based on the company's next generation of GPU, following on from the hugely successful 6000 series of PC graphics cards.

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Comments (55) Latest comment 7 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • oceanmotion #1 7 years ago

    Lets not get ahead of ourselves. The 4Ghz is best they can get out of the chip at the moment and it also does not mean that the PS3 will have the fastest chip available(4GHz).

  • Eraser #2 7 years ago

    A number of things have to be considered:

    Their 4GHz comparison is when you let the tasks performed by the Cell processor be done by an x86 CPU. Try to run Doom 3 on a 4GHz CPU without 3D hardware accelerated support and framerates will drop down significantly. That's why we still chuck $400 at a video card these days.

    x86 CPUs are already reaching the 4Ghz mark. By the time the PS3 is released, x86 CPUs will run at more than 4GHz.

    Sony has been overly confident of hardware performance with the PS1 and very much so with the PS2. I wouldn't be surprised if they do the same with the PS3.

    Coding applications with multi-threaded support is a bitch. Unless Sony develops a tight SDK which makes the multi-core CPU transparent to the developer, it's gonna be a bitch to code for. Such an interface layer between hardware and software can also slow performance down again.

  • El_MUERkO #3 7 years ago

    dribbles

  • aabyssx #4 7 years ago

    > photo-realistic Madden & FIFA, I can't wait.

    / vomits

    Well, if only EA will be the only developer wich can afford to develop for a next gen platform I will quit playing videogames.

  • statix101 #5 7 years ago

    All that power and what are you betting PAL machines will still be stuck with 50hz, bordered conversions ala' Squaresoft and final fantasy.......

  • IronGiant #6 7 years ago

    Christ at least lets see something running on it before being critical. Yes we all know about the emotion engine, yawn.

    "saying that the main difficulty would be the move to a multi-core system - a design shared by the Xbox 2 and almost certainly by the Nintendo Revolution"

    So all 3 machines will pose similar problems/challenges.
    Edited by 1 at 08/02/05 @ 13:34

  • Kengro #7 7 years ago

    It's hard to judge this....
    A breaktrought, mabye
    10 times faster than what we got now, most likely not.
    That one i don't belive, faster than what we got now it shurely is. But not 10 times.
    I just wish that they stopped hyping the shit and let us get the pure facts, the ps2 was one of the biggest letdown i ever bought for alot of money. So i will be wery careful to shell out alot for the ps3, it was at the time better games on the dreamcast.
    Will it be alot that seperates microsoft and sony ?? No, none of them will let that happend

  • aabyssx #8 7 years ago

    > Just look at the mobile phone you were using 5 years ago

    I still use my mobile only to initiate and receive calls. Thats it.
    Don't need anything else that I didn't have 5 years ago.

    But maybe I am the only one who does not need high end graphics to enjoy a good game. :(

  • gamingdave #9 7 years ago

    "Christ at least lets see something running on it before being critical. Yes we all know about the emotion engine, yawn. "

    Equally, lets wait an see something running before praising it blindly, especially considering their track record.

  • bef #10 7 years ago

    Like the comment in the first post by abigsmurf: this will be one expensive piece of kit. (Like every hardware introduction, I know.)

  • IronGiant #11 7 years ago

    "I just wish that they stopped hyping the shit and let us get the pure facts, the ps2 was one of the biggest letdown i ever bought for alot of money. So i will be wery careful to shell out alot for the ps3, it was at the time better games on the dreamcast."

    Classic.

  • Blerk #12 7 years ago

    IBM does not have a sense of humour and neither do they like bullshit

    Amen to that! I work a lot with IBM, have spent quite a lot of time on-site with them in the last year or so. Not funny. Not even remotely funny. It's like they're all brainwashed clones. :-)

    /looks over shoulder

  • statix101 #13 7 years ago

    "So "obvious" that most of you still buy any old shite that the likes of EA peddle whilst ignoring the vast majority of games out there with innovative gameplay."

    Ahmen Brother, Ahmen....u r indeed a kindred spirit.....now where can i find some more mindless sheep to run over...:))
    Edited by 1 at 08/02/05 @ 15:04

  • Shinji #14 7 years ago

    5+ years ago, the talk was that SCEI was going to smash Moores Law by creating a chip with 1000 times the performance of PS2.

    2-3 years ago, the talk was that Cell would be 100 times faster than a 2.5 GHz Pentium 4.

    But who the hell was saying this shit? Fanboys on websites? For all that Sony talk a lot of shit, I don't remember them ever jumping up and down about 1000 times the performance of PS2.

    Plus, nobody has EVER said that Cell was going to be a teraflop chip. The point is that you can put multiple Cells into a system, or onto a single die even, and get efficient parallel processing running. They're talking about Cell blades which 64 of the chips on them, for genuine supercomputer applications. Nobody EVER suggested that was going into PS3, except retards on message boards.

    This is IBM's next generation supercomputer tech, not just a Kutaragi-driven hype vehicle. Note that the speakers last night weren't Sony guys, they were IBM guys. That's a distinction that a lot of people seem to be missing when they dismiss Cell on the grounds that the Emotion Engine failed to live up to their expectations based on two quotes from Ken Kutaragi and fanboys on forums spuffing themselves over specs they didn't even understand.

  • kb #15 7 years ago

    does anyone remember the things Sony said about the PS2 half a year before its release, oh and the screen shots of "images" such as a large lake with ripples in the water. it looked so powerful, no game on the pc had the graphics to match that, even today. Funnily enough nor has the PS2. looking back at those comments by Sony makes me chuckle, and looking at the hype from Sony and Microsoft today about their next consoles (if you can even call them conoles anymore) its just more amusing. yes they're going to be very powerful, but it's never remotely close to the specs they give them. point being? well if you hadn't already figured that out, then its this, ITS ALL FOR HYPE, PRE-ORDERS, EXCITEMENT ect...ect...ect... in 2006 you'll be paying at least £40 on a game that'll last around 2 hours, the majority of PS1 games are longer than PS2 games. as a serious gamer, high end graphics are great, but unless the game is CHALLENGING (not to the point of annoyance like many games) and big i wont bother playing the game. you may of forgot my point, hell... so have i, but im not looking foward to the start of the next console war (rushed, buggy games anyone?) maybe when it's settled down we can look foward to good games.

  • IronGiant #16 7 years ago

    LOL. Anyone who buys product on hype alone is a fool and only has themselves to blame, people whinging on about the emotion engine is hilarious.. like Sony forced you to buy anything. I got my PS2 at launch and didn't give a flying hoot about the emotion engine. It played my DVDs and i had fun with Timesplitters and a whole load of top quality games since.

  • Thamuhacha #17 7 years ago

    >Amen to that! I work a lot with IBM, have spent quite a lot of time on-site with them in the last year or so. Not funny. Not even remotely funny. It's like they're all brainwashed clones. :-)

    Altogether now: White shirt. Blue tie. Samuel J. Palmisano is god. Repeat.

    Shinji - the word "spuffing" is genius. I will use it. Thanks.

  • Blerk #18 7 years ago

    Altogether now: White shirt. Blue tie. Samuel J. Palmisano is god. Repeat.

    You work with them too? :-)

  • Thamuhacha #19 7 years ago

    Used to work for an agency of theirs.

    Until I realised that RS6000 and silicon on germanium aren't as interesting as games.
    Edited by 1 at 08/02/05 @ 15:30

  • ssuellid #20 7 years ago

    Nope. Its just rumours at the moment. I doubt even Sony know until they figure out what they can make reliably and in enough quantity.

  • drumbaby #21 7 years ago

    "LOL. Anyone who buys product on hype alone is a fool and only has themselves to blame, people whinging on about the emotion engine is hilarious.. like Sony forced you to buy anything. I got my PS2 at launch and didn't give a flying hoot about the emotion engine. It played my DVDs and i had fun with Timesplitters and a whole load of top quality games since. "

    You too, eh? Wow, I thought I might be on my own there.

  • Schwabing #22 7 years ago

    hmm.
    most successful current gen console: PS2
    least powerful current gen console: PS2
    best selection of games in current gen console: PS2

    too early to call kids

  • Flowmax #23 7 years ago

    im an open gamer and if sony's pr are so deceptive with their comments then why have they shipped 80 million+ consoles? just get on with gaming and have fun guys...i used to be a fanboy before...boy i can proudly say i have owned every console including dreamcast and GBA and they have all given me content that made me appreciate them. the ps2 kept me company while i had it..the xbox wowed me with ninja gaiden (thats the reason i bought it) and although the gamecube only lasted 2 weeks, Zelda wind waker kept me company too..so boys lets enjoy and be happy and eat the fruits from each of consoles trees.im looking foward to the psp and DS and im buying a slimline ps2 next month or so because of 3 games that i know will blow me away..
    1 Devil may cry 3
    2 God of war (ninja gaiden beater and absolutely amazing gameplay)
    3 Metal gear solid 3 (just another amazing game with strong storyline)

    so it doesnt matter how many katakatakaflops or breadflops and subway and burgerking flops each consoles do...they will all be amazing...how much better can the graphics of todays consoles get to make ur brain go pop!!!! not much guys...peace....

  • IronGiant #24 7 years ago

    go with the Flow Max ;)

  • Flowmax #25 7 years ago

    heheheh thanx iron giant :)

  • Flowmax #26 7 years ago

    well exactly thats what im trying to say..they have what it takes to be successful so whats all the complaining about?

  • Scimarad #27 7 years ago

    "LOL. Anyone who buys product on hype alone is a fool and only has themselves to blame, people whinging on about the emotion engine is hilarious.. like Sony forced you to buy anything. I got my PS2 at launch and didn't give a flying hoot about the emotion engine. It played my DVDs and i had fun with Timesplitters and a whole load of top quality games since."


    Well said, couldn't agree more. Except with me it was Dynasty Warriors 2, Smugglers Run and SSX... :-)

    Ah, Nfanboy! I've so missed your particular brand of predictable shite...
    Edited by 1 at 08/02/05 @ 18:51

  • RobTheBuilder #28 7 years ago

    Difference is (and I dont want to get into this too much)

    Sony Fanboys : Say whatever Sony does is best
    Nintendo Fanbys: Think that Nintendo is best, but make reasonable judgements based on facts.
    Xbox fanboys: "Piss off im playing Halo2."

    I just dont trust Sony, all their promises on performance get broken. Ill believe it only when I see it. I hope its as good as they say... but I have a feeling...

  • IronGiant #29 7 years ago

    I think being a fanboi of any manufacturer is pretty pointless, they all care about money and making as much as possible!! Being sceptical about all the new hardware is the best way to be as you can be pleasantly surprised if they actually deliver.. will the Cell/PS3 be a monstrously powerful machine, will the Nintendo Revolution be at all revolutionary and will the XBox2 keep up the momentum started by the XBox. Who knows but should be fun finding out :)

  • valli #30 7 years ago

    i see broken ps3's in the future...

    Nfanboy, I see dead people. Please register your stupid nick... please! Y'know, for the kids!

  • IronGiant #31 7 years ago

    Life is good with Ignore Unregistered Posters.. means i don't have to even read the complete toss NFanboi posts.

  • Kengro #32 7 years ago

    Hell....
    If the cell is as good as they say we will only use that one, i don't see that happens anytime soon.
    The proof needed for good food is to eat it.
    So the cell have to prove itself, we don't know if there's any trouble with it that they need to iron out. It's totally new, so some kind of shit there will be.
    Does anyone here acually remember what the price was for P4 cpu's when they came??.....
    They where hellish expencive, so might cell be....
    And we know little about what nintendo got going...
    Throw the fanboyism out the damn window, we will be the winners nomatter what. I hope sony, nintendo and microsoft get 33% of the marked each, that will give us the best deals

  • RobTheBuilder #33 7 years ago

    Question is, what price does this chip come at?

    Does it mean a reduction in drive quality/component quality/speed? (boo!)
    Does it mean reduced gfx chip power? (boo..maybe)
    Does it mean higher prices? (boo!!)
    Does it make it impossible to code well for? (booooo!!)

    Only when the complete package unveiled does this mean anything other than Sony stats...and we know how far we can throw them.

  • Ravenlore #34 7 years ago

    PS2 EE and GS are two good chips the problem was the bottleneck from the small VRAM only 4MB when they could have used 8. then there was the limited 32MB of ram. 64 would have been better. Changing this would have made all the difference in the world.

    Now as for PS3. They have learned their lesson this is shown by Sony working with IBM and Nvidia.

    The cell can take care of some graphics but how will it work with the custom Nvidia GPU??? Sony also worked with the GPU like they did with Cell it was not just Nvidia alone. Though both Nvidia and IBM will work on system tools to make it easy to develop for. AND both companies are great at making tools.

    This time they will not short change their console they know they need to get it right to stay ahead of the pack.

  • makaveli789 #35 7 years ago

    I can see the hype-snowball forming already. Numbers at this point mean nothing. Let sony release the console then we can either praise it or bitch all day long about it.
    Edited by 1 at 09/02/05 @ 05:42

  • 3william56 #36 7 years ago

    Yeah, this is all fine and well, but what about the battery life?

    Oh...

  • Scimarad #37 7 years ago

    ' Difference is (and I dont want to get into this too much)

    Sony Fanboys : Say whatever Sony does is best
    Nintendo Fanbys: Think that Nintendo is best, but make reasonable judgements based on facts.
    Xbox fanboys: "Piss off im playing Halo2." '

    Please read the above statement back, Robthebuilder. Aren't you the slightest bit embarrassed at your obvious bias? Fanboys are Fanboys - It's as simple as that...

  • renzo #38 7 years ago

    " Yeah, this is all fine and well, but what about the battery life?

    Oh..."

    Heh.

  • MoFo #39 7 years ago

    All I care about is how cool the case looks.

  • sir_tripod #40 7 years ago

    Perhaps this chip will have an emotion engine that works. d:-S

    Anyhoo, of course it can do all these mega-millions of pixels in a console because the resolution is only 640x480 on a standard TV.

    Get the same performance at 1280x1024 and then I'll be interested.

  • drumbaby #41 7 years ago

    They'll be gearing up this uber performance with HDTV resolutions in mind, seeing as there's Blu Ray inside the PS3....prolly.

  • Blerk #42 7 years ago

    Unless it's running at 1Mhz. In which case it would probably be a little on the restrictive side. :-)

  • Bertie Verified Senior Staff Writer, Eurogamer.net #43 7 years ago

    Yeah, but a fast chip is like a fast car, it just sounds good!

  • Pina Verified Producer, Seed Studios, Lda. #44 7 years ago

    The Ghz is not the important thing here. The Gigaflops are.
    Also IBM, Toshiba and Sony wouldnt spend 5 years and millions just to build a chip for a console. In 2 years time expect Cell to be part of Laptops, celular phones, PDAs, etc. And imagine you PDA sharing computational power with youre TV, or DVD player...

    There is a bigger picture than gaming happening over with this new chip it envolves more changes than anybody here can imagine. It is dificult to explain but imagine upgrading your PC just by adding another chip. Just like that, it doesnt matter the OS, or the rest of the hardware.

    Just think about it.

  • Wobbler #45 7 years ago

    To be honest, I have my doubts about if the PS3 will have a 'graphics chip'. The thing the PS2 was lacking compared to the XBox were per-pixel operations; as the pre-vertex processing (the Vector Units) were much more powerful than the XBox vertex shaders.

    I've just got a feeling that the PS3 may do away with the whole graphics chip altogether (apart from very simple to-TV (or HDTV) output circuits), and just allow developers to use a chunk of main RAM for the display, and just allow writing to that directly with the SPUs.

    Say the PS3 is a multi-CELL unit; allocate one of those to graphics, 2 SPUs doing vertex ops, the other 6 doing pixel ops (say), and streamed all out to an area of user memory. You'll have a much more powerful set of operations than any existing PC-esque graphics part, at the cost of making the developers write 'software' rasterisers and the like again.

    /ponders

  • RobTheBuilder #46 7 years ago

    Actually im not really biased at all. I own a DS and want a PSP.
    I own a gamecube, but didnt own an N64.

    Its a logical statement based on seeing hundreds of the damn f-word's across a range of boards. I hate the word too, but at least people know what you are talking about.

    Disclaimer: Of course there are stupid Nintendo f****, and intelligent reasoned Sony f****... but they seem to be in the minority.

  • inpHilltr8r #47 7 years ago

    Xenon = dual core PPC, so the current rumour goes.

  • inpHilltr8r #48 7 years ago

    > I've just got a feeling that the PS3 may do away with the whole graphics chip altogether

    Makes you wonder what NVidia would be doing then.

  • Creedy #49 7 years ago

    I will never understand how everyone insult's Sony for their tech demos for Playstation 2. But no one ever lashes out at NVIDIA, has anyone seen NVIDIA's tech demos? The stuff they show will never happen in current pc games. Did anyone see that amazingly rendered fairy? She was gorgous and highly detailed but you'll never see that amount of detail on pc, yet no one complains about NVIDIA

    Also, I think 4Ghz is a great CPU speed. Maybe now developers will get some perfected physics and great AI going this generation.

  • flp #50 7 years ago

    '4Ghz is a great CPU speed'

    Yeah, my favourite too.

    Specs. Zzz.

  • Kami #51 7 years ago

    We're talking the processing power so far.

    Remember, processing power is only as good as the hardware backing it up. You could have a PC with a 3.8GHz processor - but if you're running it with a shitty GeForce 4 MX and 512 DDR-RAM, you ain't gonna get much out of the processor.

    I, for one, would like to see full system specs and some examples of the hardware in action. Sony DID overhype the power of PS2, that's a truth that we'll never escape from no matter what your denomination to consoles.


    Sony, of course, COULD throw in some serious hardware - but then, it'd be more a freakin' PC and you ain't gonna pay £600 for a console. So lets be realistic here. Processing power does not equal great graphics... we're gonna have to wait and see, but hardware is getting ever more expensive, and even if Sony make it in bulk batches, they ain't gonna get it much cheaper...


    In short, yeah. Whoopdie doo, 4GHz+ processors. Like, we never thought that was coming after the 3.8GHz one. Processing power is only as good as the hardware linked up to it, or you're wasting its potential. So lets hold the phones for now and wait and see.

  • valli #52 7 years ago

    I will never understand how everyone insult's Sony for their tech demos for Playstation 2. But no one ever lashes out at NVIDIA, has anyone seen NVIDIA's tech demos? The stuff they show will never happen in current pc games. Did anyone see that amazingly rendered fairy? She was gorgous and highly detailed but you'll never see that amount of detail on pc, yet no one complains about NVIDIA

    Umm... So they show you a working demo, at full detail and framerate that screams "IT CAN BE DONE, LOOK!", but you're still blaming Nvidia?

    I think you should ask the game developers how bad they are using the resources. The only game that uses the resources rightfully (and, incidentally, looks almost as good as the Nvidia tech demos) is Half-Life 2.

  • drumbaby #53 7 years ago

    And what a tech' demo THAT is!

  • Yaz #54 7 years ago

    Shinji wrote; "But who the hell was saying this shit? Fanboys on websites? For all that Sony talk a lot of shit, I don't remember them ever jumping up and down about 1000 times the performance of PS2."

    Well, Sony made/makes all kinds of claims about their technology and future plans, which years later, some will remember and others don't.

    1000 times the performance of the PS2 was mentioned by Shin'ichi Okamoto, Sony Computer Entertainment senior vice president at GDC 2002.

    http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/article/0,aid,907 44,src,ov,00.asp

    "For the more immediate next-generation console, Okamoto spoke of processing power multiplied 1000 times over that of the PlayStation 2...

    ...Moore's Law is too slow for PlayStation development, Okamoto said, referring to Intel Chairman Emeritus Gordon Moore's forecast for the pace of ever-increasing processing power. He estimates it could take nearly 20 years to reach the goal of 1000 times current processing power through traditional increases. After all, the PS2 only jumped 300 times over the original PlayStation, he said.

    Rather, research into distributed computing could be applied to the PS3, Okamoto said. Using a network-based processor and sharing various tasks over a network, distributed computing could bring that 1000X power by 2003 or 2004 instead of 2020, he said."

  • paullondon #55 7 years ago

    who cares about specs. all i want to know is if this is going to be better thaN my beloved xbox. if yes i may consider to buy one if not i pass.