Here — one, two, three, four — are some break-downs of the numbers between the Xbox 360 specs and the published PS3 specs. Note, these are from Microsoft so they have a decided Microsoft spin. However, they seem to have a lot of truth and jive a lot with what I’ve been figuring based on my own knowledge of development and hardware.
Here’s what I commented in that article:
Personally I think Microsoft has it more right than Sony this time. With Microsoft’s three general purpose cores all running at 3.2GHz you’re talking about a lot of general purpose processing power to throw at a game. Sony’s SPEs would be pure hell if those machines were, for instance, crunching a bunch of SETI@Home packets doing fast fourier transforms or something, but they really will mean very little for processing things like game logic or AI. Will they be useful for real-time 5.1 encoding? Quite likely. Can they do dot-products? Damn skippy. But the real key is you have to keep those units fed with data… they’re meant to be streaming inputs and mathematical operations so you need to keep them fed with operands at a high rate of speed. I’m sure there will be some gaming utility there — perhaps as something like “extra vertex shaders†calculating deformable terrain on a mass of vertices — but for regular game processing, I don’t see it.
But, Sony can claim they can crunch more floating point numbers and that seems to satisfy the likes of the talking heads at G4 and Gamespot. They’re a bit like the movie Roxanne: “A few frilly words and you’re counting ceiling tiles.†Though in this case “a few prerenders and some floating point numbers and you’re declaring a winner.â€
Personally, as I said above, I think Microsoft knocked this one out of the park in everything from industrial design to architecture to the concrete plans for the next-gen Xbox Live features.
22 Responses to “Some Xbox 360 versus PS3 numbers”
General purpose CPU’s are all fine, but please consider what any modern game actually spends its time doing. Very very little time is actually used for game logic, and almost all the time is spend doing graphics and physics. Sony’s machine will have the nvidia chip for graphics, leaving the 7 seven vector units free for doing something else – most probably physics, sound, dynamic world generation or whatever. 3.2 ghz for gamelogic and AI is more that enough – I think they made a wise choice when going for more floating-point performance. But I would sure like the Xbox 360 as a desktop computer, for that it would be perfect.
i have to agree with barkholt 100%. having the online capability that xbox 360 is proposing as a pc element rather than a console element would be absolutely the greatest thing ever.
i firmly believe Xbox 360 is the better console. SO what if the PS3 has 7 SPE cores or whatever. they are all controlled by the eighth core and share the same processor unit. This causes them to play a game of “tag” which slows down processing and greatly reduces speed. Also, the nvidia chip is almost the same chip as the G70 which is coming out later in 2005, so by the time Sony releases the PS3 there will probably be a more powerful graphics chip. On the other hand, xbox’s custom Ati chip is not based of PC graphics cards but rather it is costumed designed for video games. Also, another graphics card to even come close to its power probably wont be out for the PC for at least another year or so.
I THINK THE XBOX 360 WILL BE THE BETTER CONSOLE AND HAVE BETTER GAMES,”COME ON I DONT THINK THE PS3 CAN UP WITH GAMES LIKE HALO3 AND FABLE2″I THINK THE GAMES THE XBOX MAKE IS LEGENDARY IN THE SAKE OF THE TRUE GAMERS.SO I AM A XBOX 360 FAN ALL THE WAY TO THE NEXT GEN.REMEBER XBOX FANS EVEN IF THE PS3 IN ANY TIME WHICH NEVER WILL BE BETTER THAN THE XBOX”LOYALTY IS GRATER THAN ANY ROYALTY”WHICH MEANS KEEP WITH YOUR CONSOLE EVEN IF IT IS SHITIER.BUT ANYWAY IM WITH THE XBOX 360.
Microsoft’s 360 looks great for online gaming and playing with other people is what’s going to drive the next generation. I think Microsoft’s experience gained in online gaming from this generation is going to make Xbox Live Gold the PS3 killer or at least their main, powerful, selling point.
Ok.. Well I got the PS2 first, then an Xbox and I like the xbox better.. Anyways, well PS3 is probally gonna have better graphics by a little, and it can play more games from its original systems. The problem is how are you gonna play 7 people on one tv?? Very small small screen. Xbox 360 is keepin LIVE on it nad it never really lagged like the PS online. With the XB live GOLD, I really want to see this.
xbox 360 aall the way baby
im getin both so im happy
xbox 360 is way way way way way better in every way than (evil)sonys(evil) ps3 (what kina name is that anyway?)
Xbox 360′s CPU is better than PS3′s Cell. 3 symmetrical cores are more efficient 1 core with 7 SPE’s. Also, the Xenos is more efficient due to it’s much higher memory bandwidth.
The Xbox360′s ATi graphic card is capable of doing 80 shader operations per second compared to PS3′s 74.8 shader operations per second. The ATi card also has this thing called a unified shader architecture, and has a 10 MB of DRAM thing built into it.
Also, the PS3 has less than one-fifth of system memory bandwidth than from the Xbox 360.
bull shit ps3 kicks xbox 360′s ass you just can’t admit that a playstation is better than an xbox
“Toshiba used the COOL Chips VIII event, in Yokohama Japan, to demonstrate the Cell microprocessor in action, for the very first time.
The demonstration tried to highlight the capacity of the new processor for the simultaneous processing of information and featured 48 MPEG-2 streams, stored on a hard drive, that were read, decoded and projected to a 1080i resolution display divided into 8 x 6 cells; each displaying a different video. The demonstration was a showcase for Toshiba’s moving video thumbnails.
The Cell architecture’s official first showing involved a configuration of 9 independent cores: one PowerPC Processing Element (PPE) and eight Synergistic Processing Elements (SPEs). The PPE and SPEs are different, but all eight SPEs are alike. In the demonstration six, of the eight synergistic processor elements, were used for decoding 48 MPEG-2 streams and one was used for scaling the screen. A testament to the architecture’s efficiency is the fact that although this function was being performed, 2 SPEs were idle and available to perform any additional processing function.”
Look guys…..PS3′s Main purpose through Kutaragi’s Eye’s was instead to have extreme processing motion in games.How he expains it is like this:The main power of the cell is for extreme data processing, but the cell could also be used as a GPU.Explained at the Sony Press Conference,but even in greater detail in after interviews, combined with the RSX(Reality Synthesizer)which is the next generation of NVIDIA’S GPU’S, You got yourself a graphical and processing powerhouse.Remember….Most people thought at first that having 2Teraflops just added to extra processing, when in fact, this helps alot in Texturing,Rendering ,And Processing Graphical Filters.The 360 only has 1 Teraflop, meaning its limited on its amount of graphical expressions.Im Not gonna be biased though, the 360 is an amazing system,sporting excellent next generation technology,but the Cell Combined With The RSX, Is gaming Heaven On Earth…Thank You
I know I’m on the first page of results for the search term “Xbox 360 versus PS3″ but I never imagined people would feel compelled to present their arguments — some obviously higher quality than others (Bill) — here.
That said, does this all not strike anyone else as sounding a bit like:
The ability to simultaneously display 48 MPEG-2 streams is impressive. I can juggle and drink a beer at the same time, too. Neither of these impressive traits is any more likely to make a better GAME SYSTEM.
I stand by my assertion that the Xbox 360 — from a hardware point of view, a software services point of view, and an online point of view — has the best, most complete, and balanced next generation gameplan right now. Until Sony does more than wave their hands around and say “yes, we have online!” then I don’t see conceding the title.
mpeg streams are just video decoding thears no logic involved in that thats easy from graphics perspective you just have to figure out to devide the screens up by the way the gpu the xbox 360 is going to kill those unfied shaders work at nearly 100% percent effiecency unlike nvidas mere 70% percent or so
Do u really know about are u talking about! u are talking about the Cell that has 9 cores in just one core(in which one spe will be deactivated or used for redundancy and the other have general purpose) and by the way the PS3 processor is not 3.2 ghz is 22.4ghz only accounting the power of the spe’s cuz each has their own speed clock hehehe
dude ai isnt merly a choice that a computer makes it hast to make the charecter move and do what the game needs to do based on that choice ai does sound like a potenchialy confounding task for just one spe and seven distinct graphics processing units 8 if you count the freaking gpu they must act more like pc clusters i assume
this is all i have to put up>>> http://www.us.playstation.com/SearchResults.aspx?str=PS3&cat=
Wow david, get some punctuation. Bill, the xbox currently overpowers the ps2, but the ps2 has more market share. Me? i’m for the 360, and Sony is stupid for giving Microsoft free reign for 4 months. by the time the ps3 comes, the 360 will have reigned unchallenged as the only next-gen system for four months, and when the ps3 does come, Microsoft will be able to lower the 360′s price, leaving Sony grasping for straws.
Nonwithstanding, the Revelution will own all
.
Kidding.
the bottom line is sony sucks….xbox rules,and gaystation drools. what does ps2 mean=piece of shit 2,and now 3. so sony let the big boys make better games….
All I have to say is I thought PS3 would grow to be pretty much better than 360 because the PS3 footage of fight night looked great to me and unmatchable. The first footage I saw of fight night for 360 looked kinda bad, but I believe developers were not ready for 360 programing because of the late developing kits. Now latest footage of fight night for 360 looks awesome. Even though PS3 looks great something about 360′s version looks more realistic.So gamers remember, Microsoft spent as much time as Sony on their system.Microsoft just rushed the launch to be first out the gate which in turn rushed games and forced developers to stick to the basics of what 360 could do to meet the deadline.Watch out for later 360 games with Amazing graphics,physics, and AI. If Microsoft wanted too, they could of just waited and copied PS3 to make sure 360 is better (like I think happened with Xbox and PS2)and still be second to market and still make alot of money but they didn’t.Why? Because they think they can top PS3 and its technology with their own. As you can see, Nintendo is not even trying to compete because they know they can’t and would look foolish saying Revolution is more powerful than 360 and PS3 because the truth would be so noticeable.Instead Nintendo focuses on other selling points. If Microsoft couldn’t compare you would know because they know they can’t dissapoint people with an outright lie which is so obvious(although I couldn’t put it past a maybe secretly worried Sony, because for some reason, what sony says people believe even though they have a rep for exagerating). And for the record, when has there ever been a game launch where systems specs were not basically identical when played(Accept for systems like Revolution who offer a different approach of why their system is next gen apposed from the norm of graphics, clockspeed ect.. Mostly its based on your personal preference. So get the system you want they all will be the latest technology for right now. Though I always have had playstation, I believe Xbox to take the market and I now have a 360 and love it I see its potential. One things for sure this war can be compared to nothing less than Sega Genesis VS. Super Nintendo. Thanks for reading my opinion feel free to comment I would love to know what my views are doing to your brain right now. PS Excuse my grammer, punctuation, run ons ect.. I’m not stupid lol
Hello! I just wanted to clear things up before I spent $100 extra dollars getting the 60GB model:
1) As the 20GB model does not come with HDMI input, does that mean that you can still have High Defenition gaming (with use of a cable – i.e. DVI-to-HDMI) or not?
2) Sony have stated that the hard drive in the PS3s can be upgraded, is there a limit to 60GB (i.e. the 60GB PS3 cannot be upgraded) or can we buy a 250GB and put that in there?
3) Is there any images showing boxart of any games?
Thanks