HowStuffWorks: How Video Game Systems Work

HSW: "Video games have been around since the early 1970s. The first commercial arcade video game, Computer Space by Nutting Associates, was introduced in 1971. In 1972, Atari introduced Pong to the arcades. An interesting item to note is that Atari was formed by Nolan Bushnell, the man who developed Computer Space. He left Nutting Associates to found Atari, which then produced Pong, the first truly successful commercial arcade video game. "

[riddlesticks]

I love howstuffworks!

For the forward thinkers among us, get the "Stuff You Should Know" podcast from howstuffworks.com

:D

[Pandamobile]

According to HowStuffWorks, the PS3's CPU is nearly identical to the ones found in the G5 Mac computers from 2005.

:|

They also compare its transistor count to the Intel Pentium Extreme Edition 965 (which is terrible by today's standards).

[blu3print]

what are you getting at?

[Pandamobile]

Nothing. Just pointing that out.

[LostDjinn]

What you're saying is pretty one-sided. Why are you leaving out the rest of what the piece says?
http://electronics.howstuff...

Oh, and what are current computer CPU's based on?

I'll just leave you with the last line of the article on the Cell.
"All of this amounts to unprecedented power for a piece of consumer electronics."

[Pandamobile]

What hate?

"All of this amounts to unprecedented power for a piece of consumer electronics."

Unprecedented for 2005 hardware. The cell's not that great by today's standards.

[LostDjinn]

I'll answer it for you.
Let's take, say, the i7.
It's based on the Conroe architecture first released in 2006. The same year the Cell released. Care to guess which is the better CPU for gaming, video or audio? Which has more cache memory? Which has more power?
Now you're correct in that today’s CPU's are ahead of the Cell in most tasks. You do however seem to be overlooking the fact that a G5 is what the Cell is based on. Not what the Cell is.

As for your "what hate?" question, "According to HowStuffWorks, the PS3's CPU is nearly identical to the ones found in the G5 Mac computers from 2005.

:|

They also compare its transistor count to the Intel Pentium Extreme Edition 965 (which is terrible by today's standards)." tell me that's not a backhand.

[Pandamobile]

No, the i7 is Nehalem. The Core 2 series was Conroe. Nehalem was made in 2008.

The i7 has more L2 cache too.

The only thing the Cell will beat a modern CPU at is video encoding. That's about it.

[LostDjinn]

My comparison was between Cell and Conroe.
Look Panda. The Cell is being beaten now by current chips but not by as much as you let on. It's bound to happen. It's taken a long time in tech terms to get there though.
If I were to say my PS3 beats my work station (not the little Pentium D I use for surfing or my 360 for that matter, as it does) I'd be lying. I've got an i7 (that's the work station) and it blows the Cell away in almost all areas. After three years of the Cell being released, how by the grace of God could it be any other way? For what it is, the Cell is still a very nice piece of equipment. To state otherwise seems to be an attempt on you part to downplay that fact.

[Pandamobile]

I know it's still pretty good.

But it's no where near as good as the PS3 fanboys play it out to be. I'm not really badmouthing it.

[LostDjinn]

I'm glad we had this little back and forth.
It shows me you're no fanboy yourself.
;)
Good to have met you.