Sony's PlayStation 3 is renowned as being the most powerful current generation games console available. The main factor behind the machines impressive number-crunching ability is the Cell Processor. In this article we'll explore this revolutionary processor in a little more detail.
The Cell Processor (sometimes known as a Broadband Engine) was developed by a group of electronics giants including by Sony, IBM and Toshiba. The unit wasn't solely developed for the PS3 but its first commercial use was in Sony's games console. It is a state-of-the-art piece of electronic engineering and the structure of the Cell Processor can be broken down into three distinct areas.
The first is the main processing element which can be considered similar in design to a PC's multi-core processor. This is the central focus of the Cell unit and is responsible for controlling and overseeing the remainder of the processors activities.
The next level of the Cell Processor is the Synergistic Processing Elements (or SPE's). These are an additional level of processors controlled by the main processing element that provides the Cell with its number crunching abilities. The Cell contains eight SPE's although only seven are actually used. This allows the rejection of fewer defective units in manufacture, therefore increasing yields and lowering costs. Each of these elements has roughly the same power as a PC's dual-core processor so you can see where the PS3 gets its impressive power from. In conjunction with the main processing element the PS3 has the processing power equivalent to eight high-end desktop computers.
The final part of the Cell's structure is the Element Interconnect Bus (or EIB). This section of the device serves to connect everything together allowing the main processing element and the synergistic processing elements to talk to each other as well as connecting them with the controllers, Blu-Ray drive, graphics processor, sound device and network connection.
The PS3 has a reputation amongst the gaming community as being more difficult to work with than its main rivals the Microsoft Xbox 360 and the Nintendo Wii. This is especially true when it comes to writing and developing games for the console. The main reason for these problems surrounds the relationships between the main processing element and the synergistic processing elements and getting the software to use the synergistic processing elements for the main processing calculations. Traditionally games consoles have employed an architecture much closer to that of the PC with just one main processor to handle functions and a graphics card for the graphical elements. Incidentally, the PS3 still employs a graphics processor as a separate device to the Cell Processor to handle the graphics output. With each new generation of games the software developers are getting more and more out of the PS3's hardware. I believe we are still a couple of years away from seeing the true potential of this console.
As can be seen, the PS3 is an advanced processing machine with a clear advantage over its main rivals. To date there has generally been little difference between games released on the PS3 and Xbox 360 platforms but as developers get to grips with the technical challenges of the Cell Processor we'll see the difference between the two rivals increase. If you've still not moved into the world of the latest generation games consoles you can get a free Sony PS3 from gadgets-4-free.co.uk. If you've already bought into the PlayStation experience then a free Xbox 360 is also available form the same website. Make sure you take advantage of these great offers and enjoy the latest games (and movies in the case of the PS3) in glorious high definition with the sound to match.
A few days ago, Seesmic CEO Loic Le Meur (@Loic) sent out a retweet with a link to a screenshot of his CTO's Seesmic Web client showing 1,200 Tweets across nearly 20 columns. The joke was that his CTO was trying to achieve a "world record" for how many Tweets could be loaded up into a Twitter client at one time. (It's not a world record. Competitor TweetDeck can display an unlimited number of Tweets and columns as well). If you click on the screenshot and pan across the enlarged version of it, there you'll find a dialog box with Loic's old avatar doing a hang-10 while kite surfing. The juxtaposition is comical, if a little sadpoor @Loic lost in the overflowing stream of Tweets his company is trying to tame.The image reminded me of another screenshot (see below) that I once took of an earlier Twitter client called Twhirl, which Seesmic bought before developing its current product. About a year and a half ago, I complained that Twhirl took over my desktop when I first installed it with a constant stream of pop-up messages. I wrote in that post:This highlights a bigger problem with the Web today. There is too much to pay attention to and not enough ways to reduce the noise.It's 18 months later and the problem hasn't been solved. The screenshot I took back then still resonates because the noise is worse than ever. Indeed, it is being magnified every day as more people pile onto Twitter and Facebook and new apps yet to crest like Google Wave. The data stream is growing stronger, but so too is the danger of drowning in all that information.
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