PS3 as a PC = Slow, not good at all. Don't bother.

[tenchi86]

It's not only them helping that one though, it is also extreme multi-threading. So on task that are able to thread to each processor and are made for the optimized just for it chances are yes. Unlike a 360 which uses a complex yet still basic CPU the PS3s' Cell cpu is not meant to run everyday task or to run a desktop. On projects it is meant for like supercomputing or gaming which could have tons of things going on at once then the Cell could do very well. Which should be obvious when you look at the graphics of a PS3 compared to what a Mac or whatever you are comparing it to and then realize that the PS3s GPU is not all that great. Not to mention that people are starting to use them in Supercomputing and when people invest that much money in a PC it's safe to say they have done their research. So simply put I don't think the Cell will ever be for desktop use except maybe very serious graphic animators, but on a more specified task like F@H or DNA rendering it could do very well.

 

[rainless]

To clariy things a bit Rainman, the Cell runs PPC code so when you run a Linux PPC version on the Cell it is running natively, it just isn't taking advantage of the SPEs. You're running Linux PPC on 1 3.2ghz PPC core. If you were to run in on the 360 however you'd be running it on 3 3.2ghz PPC cores. That is the main difference in the PS3 CPU and the 360 CPU: 1 3.2ghz PPC core and 7 SPEs vs 3 3.2ghz PPC cores. Can the 7 SPEs make up the difference between the 2 extra cores on the 360? I don't think so, unless we're talking about a dedicted program that was written to take advantage of using those 7 SPES to a dedicated process and then it'd only be faster for that process. Let us say we were using a PS3 and a 360 to render an animated movie. The Cell could use its' 7 SPEs to help the 3.2GHZ PPC core render the animation while the 360 used 3 3.2GHZ PPC cores to render the animation. Are those 7 SPEs powerful enough to add up to or be greater than 3 cores? We don't know yet, but I'd be VERY intersested in finding out.

Thanks for clearing that up Fudgeman.