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PS3's Cell CPU tops high-performance computing benchmark

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A UC Berkeley paper [PDF] recently submitted to the IEEE International Parallel and Distributed Processing Symposium manages to highlight two common and seemingly unrelated themes that have come up a number of times over the past few years in my reporting on the high-performance computing (HPC) space: 1) IBM's Cell is really good at HPC workloads when you invest the time to write custom code for it, and 2) Intel's Xeon platform is perennially bandwidth starved and not very power-efficient.
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vasilisk - contributor
Published: 597 days 14 hours ago | News | PlayStation 3 | PC | Tech
 
 

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Fishy Fingers - 597 days 15 hours ago
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1 -
:)

That's my PS3 and my PC(CPU) 1 & 2 :)

But like they explain, the benchmark test was written exclusive for the Cell as its architecture is vastly different from the others, but it seem the Cells knight in shining armor is the RDRAM.
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Polluted - 597 days 10 hours ago
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1.1 -
Hey, me too. I have an old Xeon 1.7 ghz with 256 MBs rdram. I put Ubuntu on it and use it as a media server and for worry free web browsing. Just wish I had $150 to waste on expanding that expensive @ss ram.
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Chris399 - 597 days 14 hours ago
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2 - What I find the most interesting about this article (and correct me if I am wrong),
is that proponents of Microsoft's machine always tout on about how the PS3 is "bottle-necked" for memory, and thus stifled in terms of performance.

In this study (which won an award, mind you), the Xeon was the processor most affected by memory, not the Cell. Aren't the processors in 360s some variant of Xeon architecture?

If so, it pretty much negates all those 'PS3/bottle-neck/ memory' rants, as the 360s on the short side of the stick here.

I'm not looking to flame, just looking for information.

Cheers,
-C
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Shadow Flare - 597 days 13 hours ago
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2.1 -
Its probably true. The cell is capable of doing the jobs of other components. Its like how the ps3's gpu is less powerful then the 360's gpu, but it doesn't matter because the Cell is capable of doing part of the gpu's job. It's quite evident graphics aren't a problem for the ps3 when you look at some titles out. All i want to know is why does my ps3 crash about 2-3 times a day? Because im sure it has something to do with the memory usage. It happens most when surfing the web and it happened to me yesterday twice during folding@home and i lost about 40000 work units. It does my head in
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TheMART at Xboxkings - 597 days 13 hours ago
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2.2 -
Well Sony first thought the Cell could do all the GPU's tasks. But they found out the Cell is better for streaming video purposes and they had to put in a real GPU in the end. Thus costs were added, a high priced PS3 was born...

Shadow Flare, your PS3 crashes 2 to 3 times a day? Really? Damn! Which PS3 did you buy? News is coming in that the 40GB PS3 for the pricecut is build on cheaper stuff and has more hardware problems (BR drive that won't read games anymore soonish, crashing consoles etc.)
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meyers - 597 days 13 hours ago
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2.3 -
"Its like how the ps3's gpu is less powerful then the 360's gpu, but it doesn't matter because the Cell is capable of doing part of the gpu's job."

Oh god, give that BS a rest.
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actas123 - 597 days 13 hours ago
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2.4 -
@the mart
You are talking out of your ass.
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Shadow Flare - 597 days 13 hours ago
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2.5 -
Actually i have the 60gb euro PS3 on launch day and have installed it with a 160gb hard drive. Mart, i wouldn't talk about the 40gb ps3 having 'cheap' parts because, you have an xbox 360. End of

And Meyers, i read that in an article like this one months ago. You're not even worth giving a decent response to since you have absolutely no knowledge of the cell processor at all. Take a hike
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meyers - 597 days 13 hours ago
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2.6 -
"is that proponents of Microsoft's machine always tout on about how the PS3 is "bottle-necked" for memory, and thus stifled in terms of performance."

Not really surprising, most Dreamcast fans went on to become Xbox fans after the death of their system. Dreamcast fans were exactly the same way - they always had 'numbers' or 'charts' that 'proved' how much better their system was. And that all those amazing looking PS2 games 'could easily be handled by the Dreamcast' and 'just really good developers and not anything to do with the PS2 hardware'.

Same old, same old.
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MaximusPrime - 597 days 13 hours ago
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2.7 -
when i had xbox 360, it crashes dozens of times within first 2 months before i sold it. Yes it was brand new.

Now i have PS3 for a year and 2 months, it only started crashing when i first played Burnout paradise (which is about 5 months ago)
It crashes a few times. WAAAY LESS than xbox 360.

So im still happy with my PS3. I dont regret selling xbox 360 after just 2 months.
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Silverwolf - 597 days 13 hours ago
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2.8 - @Shadow Flare
Did you call Sony's support line? You might also want to grab a can of compressed air and clean it out. It just might be overheating due to dust buildup.
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Gorgon - 597 days 13 hours ago
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2.9 -
"What I find the most interesting about this article (and correct me if I am wrong),
is that proponents of Microsoft's machine always tout on about how the PS3 is "bottle-necked" for memory, and thus stifled in terms of performance.

In this study (which won an award, mind you), the Xeon was the processor most affected by memory, not the Cell."

You're confusing two different things there. One is memory bottleneck in terms of how fast you can feed the processor. That has to do with memory latency, memory speed, the way the CPU is feed the data, etc, and how that affects performance. Its a "performance limitation due to memory botlenecks" that is beying talked here and in that sense the Cell does very well.

Another thing is talking about the total memory available for the system and how that limits the amount of features (e.g. in a game). In that case the PS3 suffers more than teh Xbox360 due to a bigger OS and non-unified memory.

Two very different things.
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sonarus - 597 days 11 hours ago
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2.10 -
The thing is no matter how much people chatter about this and that, most of us here don't really know sh!t about either architecture.

That is why only the games can prove.
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Varsarus - 597 days 9 hours ago
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2.11 -
The RSX is more than what you think it is, you just wait a few months then you'll see why
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DJ - 597 days 9 hours ago
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2.12 - In response to Gorgon.
The PS3 OS uses slightly more RAM than the 360's OS, but actually uses far fewer CPU resources. Also, the API used on PS3, Open GL 2.0 ES, is faster and more efficient than Microsoft's solution, DirectX 9.0c.

The other piece of information you got wrong is "PS3 suffers from not having unified memory." It's actually the 360 that suffers for not using chip-specific memory; it uses GPU RAM for both the CPU and GPU, which bogs down performance significantly. PS3 actually does have a Unified Memory Architecture, only that it uses chip-specific memory (CPU RAM for the CPU, and GPU RAM for the GPU) and has dedicated bandwidth lines to each pool of memory rather than constraining both chips to just one line, as in the 360. The 35GB/s connection between these two chips (and their respective memory pools) is the reason PS3 has so much emphasis on CPU-GPU communication.

For example, Burnout:Paradise uses the SPUs for anti-aliasing, Warhawk uses the SPUs for Volumetrics, and Killzone 2 uses both chips to support its dual graphics rendering engines (one is forward rendering, and the other is deferred rendering).
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Gorgon - 597 days 9 hours ago
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2.13 -
DJ:

I don't agree. I could further comment, but already did that in another thread here and honestly I'm tired of explaining things. At least you did reply and I thank you for that, which is much more than the general disagrees from fanboys that know as much about hardware as my grandma.If you want to know why I disagree search for a topic on XDR memory here at N4G.

Suffice to say that you are mixing memory acess/speed and its influence on the feeding of the processor during code crunching with issues derived from available total memory in the system. This article has nothing to do with available system memory, it has to do with how memory interacts with the system in terms of cache, speed, latency, etc. Thats why theres no factoring at all to how much ram was available to either processor durinf testing.

You are right about what you said. But that is not what I was talking about if you read my previous post.

Again, thank you for your comment. Bubbles for you. At least its possible to have a normal conversation with you :)
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deeznuts - 597 days 6 hours ago
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2.14 -
"What I find the most interesting about this article (and correct me if I am wrong),
is that proponents of Microsoft's machine always tout on about how the PS3 is "bottle-necked" for memory, and thus stifled in terms of performance.

In this study (which won an award, mind you), the Xeon was the processor most affected by memory, not the Cell. Aren't the processors in 360s some variant of Xeon architecture?

If so, it pretty much negates all those 'PS3/bottle-neck/ memory' rants, as the 360s on the short side of the stick here.

I'm not looking to flame, just looking for information.

Cheers,
-C "

The knock on the PS3 is that there is a bottleneck on memory capacity, because of the way the 512MB is split. The knock on the Xeon archictecture is not capacity (these machines usually have GB's of Ram, tons of it) but bandwidth. It can't feed the cpu fast enough. Huge difference. And I don't think they were testing a PS3 anyway.

In regards to your second statement, no the 360 CPU, made by IBM who also makes the Cell (with sony and toshiba) is called the Xenon which may have confused you with Xeon. Xenon is a PowerPC derived CPU I believe. The Xeon (just the commercial workstation/low sever name) is an Intel processor, usually a beefed up version of the consumer CPUs, in this case Core 2 Duo/Quads etc. In this test it was the Clovertown (which is kind of old, the Harpertown cpus are newer). Think of Core 2 Quad beefed up. The reason for the memory bandwidth deficiency is chipset related. Intel still using hte old FSB and external memory controller. This becomes a problem when you have 8 cores and even SMT to deal with (in the future).

Intel is solving this with Nehalem based Xeons (forget the server codenames). Reason for the power consumption is becauseintel requires FB-Dimms, which are power hungry.
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gnothe1 - 597 days 14 hours ago
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3 -
no chris this is not the same xeon as in the 360, the xbox chip is called XENON, the 360's chip is made by ATI not Intel. IBM made both processors for the 360 an PS3 but Nvidia made the GRAPHICS chip for the PS3( cell doesnt do the graphics) an ATI made the graphics chip for the 360!!
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The Wood - 597 days 14 hours ago
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4 - theres a beast in my room
with a shiny black exterior. Its a new species so people don't quite know how to act around it or to what it likes to eat. Its young and and raw and will need some nurturing. One things for sure, It crunches numbers like Carol Vorderman

WHAT AM I?
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Fishy Fingers - 597 days 14 hours ago
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4.1 -
Stephen Hawking in a gimp suit?
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The Wood - 597 days 14 hours ago
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4.2 - lol
+1 for you, how'd ya guess
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Skerj - 597 days 10 hours ago
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4.3 -
That is the sum of all my fears.
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Silverwolf - 597 days 14 hours ago
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5 - And yet
You'll hear (people who don't know sh!t) claim there's no difference between the cell and the 360's cpu because of it's "two thread per core" crap.
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jones smokey - 597 days 13 hours ago
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6 - !!!!!!!!!!
i think we alerday know that after killzone 2 gameplay footage, i hope they make use of this propely for upcoming games, e.g GOD OF WAR 3 should be mind blowing graphically and gameplay wise, look at god of war on the ps2 and it is better than most next gen games, personally i prefer god of war 1&2 to devil may cry 4, yeay devil may cry 4 had sweet graphics but gameplay wise and boss fight is nothing compared to god of war........i think this is proof that crysis can run on the ps3 if the bulid it from ground up with the ps3 hard ware and not a port from the pc version.
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Tony Scarboni - 597 days 13 hours ago
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7 - Eat your heart out 360
That's why I laugh at ppl who complain about the PS3's price point. It's relatively cheap when you consider the cell technology. We're talking about a processor that was built for supercomputers, and is commonly used in them.
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miked808 - 597 days 9 hours ago
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7.1 -
The CELL they tested is not the CELL that is in the PS3. It's the CELL in IBM Blade servers its a totally different chip.
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Marceles - 597 days 2 hours ago
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7.2 - Oh yeah that makes sense...
...no wonder why they put "PS3's Cell CPU" in their title and added a pic of the PS3's Cell chip in the article, because it's not the same chip as the PS3, thanks for clearing that up.
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PimpHandHappy - 597 days 13 hours ago
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8 - yea its all greek to me
i dont really understand the cell but i know its a math monster.

All i want is time travel and a cure for cancer. Two things the cell is good at

lol

anyway

i wonder what they will do with the cell 3 years from now
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Chuck Norris - 597 days 11 hours ago
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8.1 -
"All i want is time travel and a cure for cancer."

Chuck has the answer.
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kewlkat007 - 597 days 12 hours ago
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9 - It's 2008, Good year for gaming on all Consoles.
by now I would of thought the "Superiority Complexes" regarding the PS3 would of gone by now. We seen it before and After the Ps3's release.(Not much have changed regarding the Games, we have out now)

We heard wait till this comes out..from end of 2006/2007/2008, now I hear 2009..it' doesn't stop.

Looking at the games out and the technical issues getting sh^t to run properly at Maxed (promised)resolution...This sh^t does not matter. At least not to me.

Let us not look at the hardware but what comes out of it. The End results.

Consoles with hardware ahead of their time:

-Sega Saturn
-Atari Jaguar
-Panasonic 3D0

There is more to a console then Raw specs. As of right now, yeah the PS3 can do many flops per sec...etc, I still think the memory architecture and the GPU will limit the Hardware, eventually. But were not there yet, maybe only then, the "Cell" can come in to help but what 5 years from now?

Right now, there is no Superiority between the games coming out this year between the consoles. Plenty of good games. Fanboys will always need something to feel super about. Looking at the End results, nothing super about that.(currently)

Continue...with the Jibber-Jabber
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DJ - 597 days 11 hours ago
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9.1 - You obviously know nothing.
Sega Saturn's CPU was built with a focus on 2D, not 3D game engines. Playstation's CPU was far more advanced because it pushed 3D so hard, along with the N64.

"There is more to a console then Raw specs."
-Like what, magic? Ignorance?

"there is no Superiority between the games coming out this year between the consoles."
-I've been playing this game for the past few weeks. That's all I need to say to That.-
http://www.smh.com.au/ffxim...
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kewlkat007 - 597 days 9 hours ago
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9.2 - why don't you count Multi-Plat form games?
I mean Poly does not make games for the 360 so picking 1 exclusive is irrelevant. Unless both consoles had that same game.

"Sega had used technology from both their 2D and 3D arcade boards and dual processors. But this would be a problem for programmers. Programming for 2 processors would be difficult. Few programmers found it easy to program for the Saturn in this way and so most used C programming language, thus these games do not use the full power of the Saturn."

My point about them consoles I posted, is they were trying many other things that was ahead of the time. The Saturn had processing power for 3D gaming, the damn thing has 2 Processors..

Anyhow..this is the same ol BS, i wont get into tit and tat about specs.
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9.3 dantesparda | 597 days 3 hours ago - User only got 1 bubble - Show
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strembones - 597 days 12 hours ago
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10 -
now if developers could just figure out how to make games on it we would all be fine.
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11 THE TERMINATOR | 597 days 12 hours ago - User only got 1 bubble - Show
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mistertwoturbo - 597 days 12 hours ago
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12 -
This is great and all, but let's see some more friggin games putting it to use properly
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DJ - 597 days 11 hours ago
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13 - Cell's a gorgeous CPU design.
Haters like KewlKat obviously can't appreciate it, but Cell architecture has some really neat features and performance advantages.
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40cal - 597 days 11 hours ago
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14 - The Cell is a beast.
There is another great study out there by Alan Heirich and Louis Bavoil called Deferred Pixel Shading on the PLAYSTATION 3. Great info for anyone who is interested.
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miked808 - 597 days 9 hours ago
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15 - The Headline is Misleading
They are not testing the PS3 Cell they are testing the IBM Cell.
PS3 Cell = 6 SPE
IBM Cell = 8 SPE
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Varsarus - 597 days 9 hours ago
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15.1 -
They're both the same, whatever they test will be the same with what they test on PS3's Cell.

@below

It doesn't matter about "cost", they're still both the same, how come scientists are using the PS3 for scientific w.e stuff?, how come the US Air Force want about 300 PS3's for stuff?
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miked808 - 597 days 9 hours ago
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15.2 -
They are far from being the same the cost of a CELL Blade chip is more than a PS3.
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Bombomb - 597 days 9 hours ago
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15.3 - I just noticed that IBM's CELL
misleading article, umm what else is new on here..obviously the cell in the PS3 is less powerful..

one of those articles...ps3's cell have games running at 640p and calm superiority..
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gnothe1 - 597 days 8 hours ago
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16 -
one things for sure, that guy DJ touts around here an TRIES to sound technical like he know's what he's talking about when the fact remains he doesnt!! I have caught him in lies an slanting the truth towards the PS3 many of times. he gets away with this crap because it SOUNDS like he knows what he's talking about. that guy is a fanboy with one agenda, MAKE THE PS3 SOUND BETTER AT ALL COST. back on topic this article isnt even about the cell in the PS3 or the XENON chip in the 360, so this story isnt about either of the respected system but guys are in here arguing like it is. GO FIGURE!
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ip-student - 597 days 8 hours ago
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17 - This article is pointless
If you go and read the paper you will realize several things:

1) The ability of the Cell to handle the particular software problem at issue has little relation to the issue of handling gaming code.

2) There is a point made that the software has to be specifically optimized for the cell architecture - so basically it requires software developers to reinvent the wheel for every algorithm.

Basically this article reinforces what everyone in the know has long realized - the Cell architecture (the Cell blade is not the same as the PS3 cell but the difference is not major - just more of the same) can crank on certain problems but makes a terrible general purpose machine and many people would have preferred a more flexible platform for the PS3. So Sony did no one any favors by selecting the architecture for the PS3 but IBM has a nice supercomputing design - at least for certain problems.
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