PS3 VS HIGH END PC

[AngryClown]

YaY!! I made it to the end of the thread! YaY111!11!one!1!eleven!!!1

But seriously, I think mechluke is right. Consoles rule, so we should all collectively stop upgrading our PC's immediately! </sarcasm>

That would be so sweet. No hardware R&D for all eternity.

Another good idea? Everyone should buy a PS3, and never buy a single game title.

Put that in your pipe and smoke it, console nazis.

On a technical note, I've seen all the new consoles in action, on several different TV's, and nothing comes close to the clarity of a HD PC monitor. That's where the argument should end- the graphics, the end result.

In closing I'd like to say, " Are you nuts?" The guy who started this is obviously a 12 year old who was looking for the exact response he got.


8O

 

[kolix]

a $600 PC is possible if you get the parts at direct cost
meaning no profit for the companies
even so, articles state the $600 ps3 is underpriced whereas underpriced PCs are rare to come by
(in reality, high demand and low supply state otherwise)
your comparison is difficult to perform since the pricing strategies in these markets are not exactly the same

sadly for me, the PS3 is only worth it for exclusive titles that I find worthly of playing

 

[enforcer22]

high end / does your pc output 1080p (1920 × 1080) smoothly over HDMI?

This topic is getting way out of hand. I dont know or care if my computer does 1080i or p nativly personaly i cant stand playing games uncer 1920x1440 right now i settle for 1920x1200 only because my LCD is limited by it. But yes at those three resolutions my computer runs games smoothly and flawlessly.

As far as high def support no i doubt i have that but then again alot of what i have been reading is so far the high def support ps3 has remains to be seen if at this time is even worth all its hype.

 

[TabrisDarkPeace]

With all due respect prozac but i totally disagree.The PS3 is vastly superior than any pc system today in every aspect.Perhaps you are not familiar with the hardware that ps3 incorporates.Has any pc-system today cpu with 7 cores?NO but ps3 has.The pc will need at least 2 years to compare with ps3 hardware.The pc is not a gaming machine we must all reealize that the pc architecture is not game-oriented like video consoles are.

You may have 'cores' and 'SPEs' confused my friend
High end PCs with GeForce 8800 GTX will have 2-4 processor cores (with heaps of cache), and the ability to use the video card as a streaming processor, which is like having "40 'decent' cores, using 160 watts or so" (as far as game console comparisons go).

The trick is being able to differentiate marketing speak from actual technical specifications. Sure Cell is good, but 'Sh' / 'C+' to GPU is several times better, as is ClearSpeed.

I am having trouble finding the PlayStation 3 in the Top500 SuperComputers (built using comodoty x86/x64 compatible parts):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cell_microprocessor
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPU
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cell_%28microprocessor%29#Synergistic_Processing_Elements_.28SPE.29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lib_Sh
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TOP500
http://www.clearspeed.com/
Several other links I won't bother listing, as console addicts won't read most of them anyway.

Can you help me find it ?
:lol:

A game console using a few hundred watts tops, vs a 'HIGH END PC' using Kilo-watts, if not Mega-watts.

BTW: PCs processors have had units very similar 'SPE' units (not cores) for quite some time, 10 years give or take.

Anyway in gaming it is graphics that is the main bottleneck in most cases, and a 300 watt ATI Crossfire or nVidia SLI setup is going to beat a consoles 150 watt (if not less) GPU.

 

[Opterondo]

Yea heres the link to the 14 GFLOPS performance during Double precision floating point operations. What other links would you like ?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cell_microprocessor

from wiki

Compared to a modern personal computer, the relatively high overall floating point performance of a Cell processor seemingly dwarfs the abilities of the SIMD unit in desktop CPUs like the Pentium 4 and the Athlon 64. However, comparing only floating point abilities of a system is a one-dimensional and application-specific metric. Unlike a Cell processor, such desktop CPUs are more suited to the general purpose software usually run on personal computers. In addition to executing multiple instructions per clock, processors from Intel and AMD feature branch predictors. The Cell is designed to compensate for this with compiler assistance, in which prepare-to-branch instructions are created. For double-precision, as used in personal computers, Cell performance drops by an order of magnitude, but still reaches 14 GFLOPS.

Recent tests by IBM [10] show that the SPEs can reach 98% of their theoretical peak performance using optimized parallel Matrix Multiplication.

***************

Sandra says P4E-540 3.2Ghz = 5.15 GFLOPS
Sandra says C2D-E6600 2.4Ghz = 15.1 GFLOPS

 

[Opterondo]

Seriously dude, you are clearly on the loosing side of this argument. The only reason why you would have to have a superiorly faster pc to run PS3 games, is because current emulators arent optimised. Also PS3 games designed to steam code over non-existant spe's clearly isnt going to be properly optimised to suit the pc archetecture. Either way, the ps3 is nothing powerfull and is simply terrible. The cell is nothing powerful either, your just another Sony clone, who beleives their horrendously BS based advertising. I personally dont see a single PS3 game that looks half as good as GOW. To bad that RFOM (resistance fall of man) looks like a game from last generation with the physics to back up last generation.

Clearly dude you play with legos cause software emulation never has and never will reach the efficiency of native hardware processing. Try playing a PC game in software mode if you don't believe me -- LOL -- Your Pentium 4 sucks imitating a video card. noob

 

[Opterondo]

Are you forgetting to factor in the cost of a high definition television capable of viewing the PS3 in all of its lame glory ? because if you want to argue about cost, in-order to fully view a ps3's visual fidelity in any game you need to run it on a high definition television. Which if you havent noticed arent cheap. You can easily build a 1200 $ computer that would completly rip the ps3 in all areas, while having tons more functions.

Dude my 4 year old Samsung EDTV LCD big screen over components is crystal and besides there is a transcoder box for 45$ you can play any console on your monitor in 1080p.

1200$ do it david blain don't forget the os and the E6600 C2D just to match the CPU power of the PS3 not to mention the GPU cost

 

[enforcer22]

You should also have mentioned the cpu in the play station is only a single core chip. And as it is in the play station not anywhere near as capable as one found in a computer and surely not even close to vastly supeior.

 

[Heyyou27]

oh pls, the ps3 is no where near close to a high end system.

a c2d and 8800 smokes it badly.

Bear in mind a few months ago, maybe the ps3 would have been up to the challenge to rival a highend desktop. But with c2d and 8800's, there is simply no match.

Your not getting the point for the same cost .. dollar for dollar

high end / does your pc output 1080p (1920 × 1080) smoothly over HDMI?If you owned a PS3 and any games, you'd know that there no current PS3 titles play above 720P.

I'm pretty sure I'd die without antialiasing and anistropic filtering, one of the reasons I can't stand to play the PS3/Xbox360.

 

[Opterondo]

PS3 doesn't support 1080p... only 1080i, sorry.

sorry try google some time:

FROM IGN

E3 2005: PS3 to Output 1080p
An HD revolution in the making.
by Ivan Sulic

May 16, 2005 - Among one hundred billion other bits of technical information, we recently learned that the PlayStation 3 would be capable of outputting a 1080 progressive scan image.

Very few pieces of media currently support 1080 progressive scan display. For reference, Apple recently announced that it would release new movie trailers in 1080p format, provided gamers used their new Quicktime application. Additionally, a couple of movies (namely Terminator 2) support 1080p.

While a lot of televisions do not currently support the ultra high-end format, it's great to see Sony looking way into the future for its next system.

UPDATE: We have just been updated by our away team at the SCEA conference that not only will 1080p be supported by the system, but that this is considered the standard resolution for the system. Every game for the PS3 will be in incredible, indelible, indubitable HD.

Nobody at IGN even owns a TV that can do 1080p, but that's the system's goal - to give HDTV a killer app piece of hardware that people will no longer be able to live without. Get your wallet ready...

-----------

hmmm.. you look smart

 

[Mex]

Try using a more recent link:
http://ps3.ign.com/articles/707/707540p1.html

Gran Turismo HD was the only confirmed 1080p game at the show.

I underline "confirmed" as other games still might make the jump to 1080p...but most are 1080i and 720p.

===============
Open statement to the entire forum:

Has anyone noticed yet how consoles + TG Forums = Sh!tfest?
How many more threads do we need to figure this one out?

 

[ralio]

One price difference that many people fail to mention: GAMES!

2 games a month = 24 games a year
24 Games X Five years = 120 Games
120 X 60 = 7200 dollars in 360/S3 games
120 X 50 = 6000 dollars in PC games

Thats a 1200 dollar savings over five years.

 

[TabrisDarkPeace]

18.868 GFLOPS for a Core 2 Duo @ 3000 MHz

Here is my 'home' PC, with only '2 cores' at 3000 MHz per core, with 1333 MHz (post QDR) FSB.

Bear in mind this is against a 3.2 GHz processor that is closer to a Sun Microsystems / IBM design (well the Cell is an IBM design).

This test is using SSE4 though, much like the test above would be using very high optimizations for the Cell processor. So 'equal' on the optimization front.

I was also running 602 other threads while running the above test too btw, However most of them where idle, or near idle, during the benchmark, so result should be close.

As it supports branching, etc, and has 4 MB L2 cache to play with and a 1333 MHz FSB the processor only needs a 44% cache hit rate to scale performance, and with 4 MB of cache dynamically assigned over 2 cores it is very easy to keep the cache hit rate (scaling) much higher than 44%.

The Cell processor can run heaps of small 'threadlets' (as I term them, think it'll catch on myself) and scale well, but it can not run more complex threads. With a PC I can do either and the performance will scale equally well either way.

Remember the Cell has a +6.67 percentage advantage clock speed wise over my system (above).

Then consider that a Core 2 Quad would have 26.683 GFLOPS performance at just 2133 MHz per core, and similar power consumption to the Core 2 Duo. (Electrical Engineering 'rule' of 1 / [SqRt 2] the clock speed using half the power, then double core count to get 'equal' power consumption again). - Better yet at 45nm they can raise clock speeds far beyond 2133 MHz for Core 2 Quad, heck even at 65nm they are already selling near 3 GHz parts (They just need 80+ watts instead of 65 watts). [Performance per watt is still higher, thus they complete work faster and spend more time idle, actually using less power for same workload / runtime].

By the time Sony PlayStation 3 takes off in April 2007 (if not April 2008 for most consumers) PCs will be leaving it in the dust.

...and all the above is without going into stream processing* (much like Cell, but via GPU / ClearSpeed + Others add-in cards, providing a non-x86 processor to a x86/x64 based systems + software).
*(Well we are on the subject of highly optimized code, so this is quite valid data/info):
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2870&p=8
http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.aspx?i=2849&p=1

 

[bullaRh]

just admit it PC's r better and u cant change it. tho the cost of PC is higher than consoles and that is why its worth buying a ps3 or whatever ppl buy.



btw go find some console forum cuz they will agree with u, we will not.

 

[Opterondo]

high end / does your pc output 1080p (1920 × 1080) smoothly over HDMI?

This topic is getting way out of hand. I dont know or care if my computer does 1080i or p nativly personaly i cant stand playing games uncer 1920x1440 right now i settle for 1920x1200 only because my LCD is limited by it. But yes at those three resolutions my computer runs games smoothly and flawlessly.

As far as high def support no i doubt i have that but then again alot of what i have been reading is so far the high def support ps3 has remains to be seen if at this time is even worth all its hype.

You run those resolutions to stay native to your display and not trigger a recode/resize and for sharpness (HD). HDMI connection is DRM forced on us but basically no digital HD content will play from certain studios without it, they downgrade output to dvd quality. Once again i'm addressing a ~$600 PC not a $3,000+ one. Unless you have Blu-ray or HD-DVD you haven't experienced HD content.

 

[bullaRh]

i mentioned it :lol:

 

[Opterondo]

With all due respect prozac but i totally disagree.The PS3 is vastly superior than any pc system today in every aspect.Perhaps you are not familiar with the hardware that ps3 incorporates.Has any pc-system today cpu with 7 cores?NO but ps3 has.The pc will need at least 2 years to compare with ps3 hardware.The pc is not a gaming machine we must all reealize that the pc architecture is not game-oriented like video consoles are.

You may have 'cores' and 'SPEs' confused my friend
High end PCs with GeForce 8800 GTX will have 2-4 processor cores (with heaps of cache), and the ability to use the video card as a streaming processor, which is like having "40 'decent' cores, using 160 watts or so" (as far as game console comparisons go).

The trick is being able to differentiate marketing speak from actual technical specifications. Sure Cell is good, but 'Sh' / 'C+' to GPU is several times better, as is ClearSpeed.

I am having trouble finding the PlayStation 3 in the Top500 SuperComputers (built using comodoty x86/x64 compatible parts):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cell_microprocessor
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPU
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cell_%28microprocessor%29#Synergistic_Processing_Elements_.28SPE.29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lib_Sh
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TOP500
http://www.clearspeed.com/
Several other links I won't bother listing, as console addicts won't read most of them anyway.

Can you help me find it ?
:lol:

A game console using a few hundred watts tops, vs a 'HIGH END PC' using Kilo-watts, if not Mega-watts.

BTW: PCs processors have had units very similar 'SPE' units (not cores) for quite some time, 10 years give or take.

Anyway in gaming it is graphics that is the main bottleneck in most cases, and a 300 watt ATI Crossfire or nVidia SLI setup is going to beat a consoles 150 watt (if not less) GPU.

Cores is what it means cores ie. Core2Duo has 2 cores ON-DIE. PS3 has 9 cores ON-DIE (1 PPE , 8 SPEs) techno speak ...element = core

wiki

 

[Opterondo]

You should also have mentioned the cpu in the play station is only a single core chip. And as it is in the play station not anywhere near as capable as one found in a computer and surely not even close to vastly supeior.

sure, and soul made out with jazz and techno got a little silly on yo’ ass

see http://forumz.tomshardware.com/hardware/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&p=1364062#1364062 'bout the cores and http://forumz.tomshardware.com/hardware/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&p=1364026#1364026 'bout the powah

 

[Heyyou27]

Do you own a PS3? If you did you'd notice that on the back of every game it labels the resolution it outputs. Out of all the games I have seen, not one supports 1080P and are instead limited to 720P. You'd have to be naïve to think a G71 based GPU with a 128-bit memory bus is going to have the power to push over 2 megapixels per frame smoothly.

 

[Opterondo]

oh pls, the ps3 is no where near close to a high end system.

a c2d and 8800 smokes it badly.

Bear in mind a few months ago, maybe the ps3 would have been up to the challenge to rival a highend desktop. But with c2d and 8800's, there is simply no match.

Your not getting the point for the same cost .. dollar for dollar

high end / does your pc output 1080p (1920 × 1080) smoothly over HDMI?If you owned a PS3 and any games, you'd know that there no current PS3 titles play above 720P.

I'm pretty sure I'd die without antialiasing and anistropic filtering, one of the reasons I can't stand to play the PS3/Xbox360.

Blu-ray movies are 1080p, NBA '07 for PS3 is 1080p - what did you say?

http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/ps3/nba07

 

[Opterondo]

Try using a more recent link:
http://ps3.ign.com/articles/707/707540p1.html

Gran Turismo HD was the only confirmed 1080p game at the show.

I underline "confirmed" as other games still might make the jump to 1080p...but most are 1080i and 720p.

===============
Open statement to the entire forum:

Has anyone noticed yet how consoles + TG Forums = Sh!tfest?
How many more threads do we need to figure this one out?

dude -May 10, 2006- from your link post something after launch please

 

[TabrisDarkPeace]

Cores is what it means cores ie. Core2Duo has 2 cores ON-DIE. PS3 has 9 cores ON-DIE (1 PPE , 8 SPEs) techno speak ...element = core


Sure I am happy to call SPE's cores, if you are happy to call 4th generation Shader Units cores, OK ?

Since 4th Generation Shader Units on GPUs support branching, etc making them more like a 'processor core' than the Cell SPE, so this is an OK analogy for us to 'work' with, yeah ?


Heck the Sun CoolThreads UltraSPARC T-1 has '8 cores' ON DIE, but each of them sports 4 SMT units, so it'll process 32 threads at once. It also has a huge ****ing cache and multiple I/O (RAM, FSB) interconnects.

http://www.sun.com/processors/UltraSPARC-T1/index.xml
http://www.sun.com/servers/coolthreads/overview/index.jsp
http://www.opensparc.net/

High core count doesn't always equal high performance, as each core gets more basic (over-specialisation is a weakness in IT) as a result.

 

[turboflame]

As it has been said before

PCs to consoles == apples to oranges

yes a ps3 would beat a $600 pc when it comes to graphics, since the ps3 is optimized to do just that. Meanwhile a PC has to deal with windoze eating its resources.

A $600 pc could rip apart a ps3 in terms of processing power, the cell is no match for an athlon 64 or even a pentium 4 as it has been explained in the article.

Yay! everybody kinda wins!

 

[Opterondo]

18.868 GFLOPS for a Core 2 Duo @ 3000 MHz

Here is my 'home' PC, with only '2 cores' at 3000 MHz per core, with 1333 MHz (post QDR) FSB.

Bear in mind this is against a 3.2 GHz processor that is closer to a Sun Microsystems / IBM design (well the Cell is an IBM design).

This test is using SSE4 though, much like the test above would be using very high optimizations for the Cell processor. So 'equal' on the optimization front.

I was also running 602 other threads while running the above test too btw, However most of them where idle, or near idle, during the benchmark, so result should be close.

As it supports branching, etc, and has 4 MB L2 cache to play with and a 1333 MHz FSB the processor only needs a 44% cache hit rate to scale performance, and with 4 MB of cache dynamically assigned over 2 cores it is very easy to keep the cache hit rate (scaling) much higher than 44%.

The Cell processor can run heaps of small 'threadlets' (as I term them, think it'll catch on myself) and scale well, but it can not run more complex threads. With a PC I can do either and the performance will scale equally well either way.

Remember the Cell has a +6.67 percentage advantage clock speed wise over my system (above).

Then consider that a Core 2 Quad would have 26.683 GFLOPS performance at just 2133 MHz per core, and similar power consumption to the Core 2 Duo. (Electrical Engineering 'rule' of 1 / [SqRt 2] the clock speed using half the power, then double core count to get 'equal' power consumption again). - Better yet at 45nm they can raise clock speeds far beyond 2133 MHz for Core 2 Quad, heck even at 65nm they are already selling near 3 GHz parts (They just need 80+ watts instead of 65 watts). [Performance per watt is still higher, thus they complete work faster and spend more time idle, actually using less power for same workload / runtime].

By the time Sony PlayStation 3 takes off in April 2007 (if not April 2008 for most consumers) PCs will be leaving it in the dust.

...and all the above is without going into stream processing* (much like Cell, but via GPU / ClearSpeed + Others add-in cards, providing a non-x86 processor to a x86/x64 based systems + software).
*(Well we are on the subject of highly optimized code, so this is quite valid data/info):
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2870&p=8
http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.aspx?i=2849&p=1

Well once again I never said PCs were weak I said dollar for dollar they are weak and not specifically designed for gaming ..

You system is an overclocked $400 processor + other system costs - whats your point no one ever said the PS3 was an unbeatable supercomputer?

 

[Opterondo]

just admit it PC's r better and u cant change it. tho the cost of PC is higher than consoles and that is why its worth buying a ps3 or whatever ppl buy.



btw go find some console forum cuz they will agree with u, we will not.

goto some circle jerk pc forum where they think the apple is a supercomputer, and my 5x PS3s will smoke your $3k rig rotten anyday don't cry it makes a good space heater