Playstation 3: Cell 45nm Mass Production Begins in 2009

[Metroid]

Sony and Toshiba announced that they had successfully shrunk the 65nm cell down to 45nm earlier this year, and now thanks to Japan's Nikkan Kogyo, we now have a date for mass production: 2009. At a 40% reduction in power consumption, the shrunken Cell will generate less heat, which would help the PS3 to lose some of its piano-black bulk in a slim version. Cheaper production costs also means more $$ for Sony (or price drops for us). This could also lead to wider adoption of Cell technology in HD upscaling, which Toshiba is already doing in their SRT-enabled TVs and DVD players (but with their own custom chip)

Source

Finally The slim version is soon a reality.

Metroid.

[Manicdan]

god if they made that chip for PCs the world would be a different place

[Motiv]

god if they made that chip for PCs the world would be a different place

You mean if PC games ran on it

[Arkangyl]

Why? As I understand it, the Cell is a rather focused processor and not really any sort of replacement good for the x86 based microprocessor.

Back on topic though, excellent news! With the 360 down to a $200 starting price hopefully now Sony can get down there too. Considering all the added functionality the PS3 has, for a bit less green I think quite a few more people will jump on it!

[Shintai]

god if they made that chip for PCs the world would be a different place

Ye, would be like warping 5 years back in time.

[Spawne32]

Ye, would be like warping 5 years back in time.

[Psykocyber]

Back on topic though, excellent news! With the 360 down to a $200 starting price hopefully now Sony can get down there too. Considering all the added functionality the PS3 has, for a bit less green I think quite a few more people will jump on it!

The slim version probably won’t be released before later summer/fall of 2009. I don’t think we will see any real price cut before next year.

[XS2K]

Ye, would be like warping 5 years back in time.

Hope this will cut the cost down for the end-user,either way the PS3 is very good at diffrent things except games
Gotta love it's RSX

[Slovnaft]

...and I hope someone developes a good PS3 Emulator soon...

[Scubar]

Very much doubt we will see a PS3 emulator, Even a decent functioning PS2 emulator isnt available. An Xbox360 Emulator should be possible though.

[clonez]

well, they shouldnt build up the emulator on software emulation, like those ps2 emulators....

now that would be nice, using cuda or similar technologies to speed things up

guess the first useable ps3 emulators will turn up around dx11 time (which isnt far off, afaik)

[XS2K]

The Cell CPU sould be a big obstacle when building a PS3 emulator also the performance would be horrible.
A X360 one as said above is possible.

[Shintai]

Both Xbox360 and PS3 is just as "difficult" to emulate. And we wont see it anytime soon. Not because the PS3 or Xbox360 got any power compared to the PC. But because it require alot more speed to emulate something largely different.

[clayton]

The best PS2 emulator is still having trouble emulating games accurately, even using 4ghz dualcore to boost performance. PS3 emulators will be hmm... when there is a processor that will double that of i7's.

[Slovnaft]

I do remember getting unbearable FPS on a PS2 emu on my crappy amd laptop, but I've yet to try it on my flashy Q9450, 9800gx2 system. If I can get 2 9800gx2s stable at 800/2000/1050 with my Q9450 at 3.8~9, we'll see how that PS2 emu fairs ;]

[Swatrecon_]

Hope this will cut the cost down for the end-user,either way the PS3 is very good at diffrent things except games
Gotta love it's RSX

Yea, that 7800 is pretty h4x.

Very much doubt we will see a PS3 emulator, Even a decent functioning PS2 emulator isnt available. An Xbox360 Emulator should be possible though.

I think because they 360 games are made with XNA, they are easier to port.

Both Xbox360 and PS3 is just as "difficult" to emulate. And we wont see it anytime soon. Not because the PS3 or Xbox360 got any power compared to the PC. But because it require alot more speed to emulate something largely different.

I don't think so. The 360 would be vastly easier to emulate. The Cell is a total for people to code for, where the 360 is way the easier. People don't make games for PS3 because of it. Valve hates the PS3. Gabe Newell called it a joke. It was a good concept, poorly implemented.

[zanzabar]

Both Xbox360 and PS3 is just as "difficult" to emulate. And we wont see it anytime soon. Not because the PS3 or Xbox360 got any power compared to the PC. But because it require alot more speed to emulate something largely different.

the 360 would be easy it has an IBM 3.2ghz ppc 2 core with a 4xpci-e cell u could emulate it fairly easily, the x86 architecture just cant do reverse commands so the cell would fix that and the graphic processing is native

[Swatrecon_]

the 360 would be easy it has an IBM 3.2ghz ppc 2 core with a 4xpci-e cell u could emulate it fairly easily

It's a tri-core CPU, and that really has nothing to do with it. It's made completely different than an x86 CPU.

[alucasa]

I purchased Xbox 360 this month after waiting long enough for various revisions to avoid "red rings of death". I purchased 9 xbox 360 games this month also to keep up with what I've been missing.
Most are RPGs (and DOAX2 ). I am not interested in shooting games.

I am planning to get a Wii this month solely for "Harvest Moon: Tree of Tranquility".

Unfortunately, PS3 at the moment is way too expensive to even consider purchasing. It's 700 CAD (Includes tax and extra warranty. In comparison, Xbox360 60gb was 450CAD for all.), and the only game I'd be interested in playing is Disgaea 3. Valkyria Chronicles is coming in November, but mere two RPG games do not warrant me to buy PS3 at 700CAD. PS3 needs more games or it will fail, or has it already failed ?

[MomijiTMO]

Well when most of the big Square titles are available on the 360, I lost interest in the PS3. Bad move sony haha.

[WRC]

god if they made that chip for PCs the world would be a different place

supposedly they are superior at raytracing than the dualcores. They just use very weird architecture

[Psykocyber]

I think because they 360 games are made with XNA, they are easier to port.

Xbox 360 games are not made with XNA! Its C++ and a platform specific version of DirectX.

[The0men]

supposedly they are superior at raytracing than the dualcores. They just use very weird architecture

Well with all motherboards having 3 PCI-e Slots these days, what we really need is Cell on a card, a CellCard, that works with your graphics card, and allows us to play PS3 games, and use the cell capability in PC games

Then we can still keep our 3+ghz Quads that are far faster.

[Psykocyber]

Well with all motherboards having 3 PCI-e Slots these days, what we really need is Cell on a card, a CellCard, that works with your graphics card, and allows us to play PS3 games, and use the cell capability in PC games

Then we can still keep our 3+ghz Quads that are far faster.

All mothers having 3 PCI-E slots? When have you last visited your local computer shop giant? 1 PCI-E *16, and two *1 or 2 slots.

And our 3+GHz quads are only faster at some tasks. They are utterly destroyed a math.

[STEvil]

My board has 2 PCI-E 16x 2.0 slots, a PCI-E 16x 1.1 slot, and 1 PCI-E 1x 1.1 slot.... and a PCI-X slot and one PCI slot!

yikes.



Cell's neat. Its no x86 killer otherwise we'd have changed to it by now.