Xbox 360 / PS3 CPU's & GPU's making it to PC market?

Does this seem plausible? I'm sure most of you have read about the XBOX 360 and PS3's specs and processors, if not go here:

http://hardware.gamespot.com/Story-ST-x-1985-x-x-x

I'm wondering...isn't this technology coming to the PC market soon? The Xbox 360 is coming out in a couple of months and the PS3 next spring. Would it be possible that similar cell processors could come from AMD, Intel or IBM for the PC market as well?

Another thing...the GPU in the Xbox 360 has 48 pipelines. The newest nVidia 7800GTX has 24. Am I missing something here? How is it possible for Microsoft and Sony to package a machine with both a revolutionary processor & GPU's that outspec the highest-end PC market stuff in a package that will cost under $500? Hell if they expect to sell any consoles they better price them under $400, most people aren't willing to spend more than that on a console as we all know.

Meanwhile we have to pay $600 for a single 7800GTX graphics card.

Another thing...if you read that article. Quoting from that article: "Sony has revealed that the RSX GPU has a 550MHz core clock and has over 300 million transistors. Sony has also stated that the chip is more powerful than two GeForce 6800 Ultra cards put together." I'm guessing that the PS3's GPU is basically a 7800 GTX or something very similar.

So it comes with a 7800GTX and will cost well under $500? that sucks for us PC people eh? Or maybe i'm again missing something?

I was planning on building a new A64 rig with 7800GTX sometime in the fall, but something tells me it would be throwing my money away to upgrade now when revolutionary new processors/GPU's may be coming out within the next 6 months.

IBM is going to bring the cell to the PCs but don't expect the 360s to. Microsoft controls production of those I think. Also don't expect them soon. Maybe by this time next year we will start to see them. Rember they have to design motherboards for them also. As for the 360s GPU ATI made that one not Nvidia. The reason the number of pipes is so high is that it is using a Unified Shader Architecture and that is the combined number from the vertex shader and the pixel shader pipelines.

It's definitely possible for microsoft and sony to package such great (expensive) components into a box for under $500. It's called taking a loss.

Microsoft is the loss leader. The X-Box has costed Microsoft quite a pretty penny. Money's usually regained in software and software licencing.

Nintendo's a bit more efficient with their design, last generation they broke around even in hardware sales.

Well cell will probably never make it to the PC market because it woudl require completely new coding of everything. Cell is great if what you are coding is made specifically for it but running something not native to it will be incredibly slow. Also its fast but not incredibly fast like sony wants you to believe.

Anandtech put up an article about how cell and xbox360's cpu are much less powerful than an Athlon64. One of the main reasons the consoles are so cheap is that they cut these processors down so much. Supposedly, the xbox360's single threaded power is little more than twice that of the original xbox, a single celeron 733mhz.

EDIT: Ohh also, I believe these cpu's use a Mac architecture, they are more likely to appear on a budget Mac than on a Windows pc.

correct me if im wrong but doesnt the xbox360 have a triple core processor?

Yes, 3 cores, and each core is capable of running 2 threads at once, but according to Micosoft, most games will be single threaded. At the most, they will use 2-4. Cell is even more limited because it only has 1 general purpose core. Most of the "cells" are specific task and most of the time they can't even be used at all.

Yuriman said:

Anandtech put up an article about how cell and xbox360's cpu are much less powerful than an Athlon64. One of the main reasons the consoles are so cheap is that they cut these processors down so much. Supposedly, the xbox360's single threaded power is little more than twice that of the original xbox, a single celeron 733mhz.

EDIT: Ohh also, I believe these cpu's use a Mac architecture, they are more likely to appear on a budget Mac than on a Windows pc.

Click to expand...

Not likely in MAC since apple is now going intel anyways due to yield issues with IBM.

and the Xbox 1 was a PIII 733, i dont beleive it was a celeron....?

Its hard to really decide whether it was a celeron or not, you can also say it was a Pentium 3 with less cache, and a high fsb.

The cell processor is much faster than an athlon 64. The reason being it can use vector / matrix algebra natively as opposed to x86 architecture. This means that A) yes it would need a new operating system. B) even when emulating x86 architecture it's faster than an athlon 64, as they have proven. At first the cell processor might not be right for everyone untill all the software is released, however, it can still be better for people who are rendering / doing physics simulations / folding@home...

I don't know where you read that the cell was slower than an A64, but I'd like to read it as well.

http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=396455

Anandtech took their article down shortly after they posted it, but I don't know why.

Mr.Guvernment said:

Not likely in MAC since apple is now going intel anyways due to yield issues with IBM.

and the Xbox 1 was a PIII 733, i dont beleive it was a celeron....?

Click to expand...

your right, it was a pIII, not a celeron.

Depends on your definition of a celeron, since I don't believe they specificly state it so. Its a P3 with less cache and a higher fsb.

hehe, didn't expect replies past that initial one.

Yah I've been reading a lot of articles. Most of them say that the new xbox360/ps3's processors aren't particular powerhouses, but since the architecture and design of games on consoles is quite different from PC's they don't have to be to make the games look amazing.

its nice we are seeing AMD coming out with 2 and 4 core processors. I hope this continues..i plan to upgrade soon and I'm waiting for multiple core processors to begin hitting the mainstream

Yuriman said:

Depends on your definition of a celeron, since I don't believe they specificly state it so. Its a P3 with less cache and a higher fsb.

Click to expand...

Correct the cpu ran at 133 fsb like a PIII, but had 128k cache like a Celeron.

I like to say it was a Celeron because imho the cache is more important than the FSB. Its almost like an overclocked Celeron 550.

Product report:
It all depends on function. The intel IXP 2800 has 16 cores! Thats right! 16! All 1.4 ghz power pc and an 700 mhz controller core that makes them parrellel process!

They can emulate a single core meaning it can act as one 1.4 ghz power pc that is 16 times in power. Oh and it costs less then 4000+ or a p4 640.

BUT, it is task specific. Only number crunching meaning it can not even start a game and is 32-bit yet has the power if made into pentium 4's and get the programming for 3d apps, it becomes nine p4s 3.4 ghz.

Oh and the mobo is 18 thousand dollars plus you need to program your own system because this is a telecommunications cpu. The mobo has no video card nor a slot for one.

Intel has IXP 2800, Sun has Niagara which is 8 core but will be 16 core and is more accessable to current apps, and IBM had cell.

Cell is almost a beefed up ixp 440 which is 8 cores at 1.2 ghz and the 9th controller core. (Both IXP and Cell use same style core.) IXP 440 has a market cost at $50 and can play media apps including limited 3D. Anyone know where this is going.....

Cell= 9 cores PowerPC, 1 real 8 logarithmetic, # crunching design=$XXX
IXP 440= 9 Cores PowerPC, 1 real 8 logarithmetic, # crunching design=$50

I smell conspiracy

Yea I also dont get that. How come they are putting in hardware into these consoles that overkills our pc hardware at such a cheap price?

It's called taking a loss. Console games will cost up to 100 dollars like some final fantasy titles at release.

But if the Cell is based off the ixp 440 then they only lose 300 bucks on the video card and ram. the ixp line uses very low end procs to make "microengines" or "cells."

Ever seen how cheap a p3 is on ebay? And no, the xbox chip seems to use cheaper components too but the fact that they are integrated and use thier own format programming then they can reach and sometimes overcome pc speed, but technically speaking, these are just lots of cheap old procs used in parrellel processing like in old supercomputers