Guerrilla Dev: New Intel CPUs Not as Powerful as the PS3 Cell CPU - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 01 January 2020 / 5,724 Views
Guerrilla Games co-director and technical director Michiel van der Leeuw says speaking with GameInformer in a recent interview said the PlayStation 3's Cell CPU is more powerful than current Intel Desktop CPUs.
"Even desktop chips nowadays, the fastest Intel stuff you can buy is not by far as powerful as the Cell CPU, but it’s very difficult to get power out of the Cell,"said Leeuw.
"I think it was ahead of its age, because it was a little bit more like how GPUs work nowadays, but it was maybe not balanced nicely and it was too hard to use. It overshot a little bit in power and undershot in usability, but it was definitely visionary."
"The PlayStation 3 had such a bucketload of power," he added. "Making use of it and really getting performance out of the PS3 was hard, because you had all the SPUs and the power was not easy to unlock. You had to write a lot of special-case code.
"Once we were done and we got all the physics stuff and the ragdolls and there was so much stuff we did, it was good, but everything took a long time. And you need quite a skilled team to do it."
With the difficulty to develop for the PlayStation 3, Sony did a 180 and made the PlayStation 4 easier to develop by using the x86 architecture. Sony next-generation console, the PS5, will use the same architecture as the PS4.
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel dedicated to gaming Let's Plays and tutorials. You can contact the author at wdangelo@vgchartz.com or on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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Ultimately, an architecture that's easy to develop for is better than the cell which was potentially powerful. Remember this quote, "it was too hard to use." I would argue the CPUs of PS360 consoles aged much better than GPU capabilities, even if they were impressive for 2005/2006.
They should have stuck with cell. All major devs had adjusted to it and the ps3 became the lead console instead of a cheap port. What the ps3
I very much disagree. Sony wanted to streamline development and using common tech accomlished that.
PS3 eventually outsold 360 by small percentage and selling at a big loss, but it never beat Wii. Furthermore, PS4 is selling even better than PS3 so why would you suggest changing specs? Pride?
The problem is cerni started on development on the ps4 , just before the ps3 started to become acceptable by 3rd party devs and was producing amazing results. Had they waited another 2 years, i'm sure they would have stuck with cell, as all the major devs got used to it and was able to use it's power. They could have developed the cell further and given a cpu better than the jaguar we got.who knows we could have had better results with the ps4, and possibly would have gone further onto the ps5. Now we're on the same page as xbox. Seems abit boring to me.
Back then, developers often considered the Cell a single core CPU - and used only the PPE, leaving the SPEs alone because it was really hard to program for them. Perhaps that's what he meant: comparing the Cell to a modern x86 core.
Yeah he seems to say a fully utilised Cell holds up better than expected but it comes with time and expertise. The problem seems to be the journalist interpreting "intel CPU is not by far as powerful" to be less powerful, were as that looks to me to be broken english for Intel CPU power margin isn't as large as you would think,coupled to the first part of my reply.
What good is a bucketload of power if it took you a decade to get to it. Game development really doesn't have that kind of time. Also a CPU is a much simpler architecture then your GPU which is the whole reason to leave the Cell behind.
The point is they finally cracked the code, got used to the cell and were producing amazing results, both first and third party devs. Shame it didn't continue, since the hard work of finally adjusting and working with it. A next gen cell would have been better than the jaguar setup that's for sure.
And so the Power of the Cell legend grows...13 years after the PS3 launched.
Mmm, no, I don´t think so... Why? Considering its instruction per clock were higher than those of Intel´s 9900K (which probably aren´t), you have to take into account the number of cores (which I also doubt it exceeds those of the 3950X with 16 cores and 32 threads), or EVEN the clock speeds (which I´m also pretty sure doesn´t exceed those of a 9900KS which can go up to 5.2 GHz). So yeah... No...
Mmm, no, I don´t think so... Why? Considering its instruction per clock were higher than those of Intel´s 9900K (which probably aren´t), you have to take into account the number of cores (which I also doubt it exceeds those of the 3950X with 16 cores and 32 threads), or EVEN the clock speeds (which I´m also pretty sure doesn´t exceed those of a 9900KS which can go up to 5.2 GHz). So yeah... No...
Well people will say that is just in some scenarios anyway.
But this is just one of those proves that consoles go for a much lower level than PCs to extract all the benefits from the HW.
The new Intel CPU is crap. Not just against The Cell, but also against the new AMD Ryzen. End of story.
Teh Cel.
Spin. Protential and reality are two different things. If this statement was true than Sony would have comtinued using the Cell to cover the cost of its RnD. Not the case. Ill takeca Intel CPU over the Cell anyday of the week.
Sony talked about how the PS4 came down to two choses the PS4 we know, the other was a more powerful Cell 2 . they went with ease of use and X86 pathway forward rather than what was on paper a more powerful configuration but one that would have some of the same negatives of the original Cell, so power wasn't the issue and in this case he's not saying the Cell is more powerful just that the Cell holds up better than expected against today's CPU but this comes with the caveat that you need expertise and time to get that outcome and ironically it's biggest strength was its greatest weakness and ultimate downfall, but like AMD said part of the cell lives on in the form of the cu's in the PS4and xbox
Sadly they ditched the cell early on ps4 development, prior to ps3's cell finally getting accepted by the devs , who until were struggling with it. By the time they mastered it, it was to late, they had invested on ps4 with the jaguar instead of further cell development into next gen.
He is telling us that a product which would probably cost 50 bucks nowadays is more powerful than something from Intel for some thousand bucks but it'S just hard to get the power out of it? What? I hope he just got misquoted
Yeah, his quote calls for the DOUBT meme from L.A. Nior
No he says "is not by far as powerful" by saying that and the translation isn't great,so this is just my take on it, is the cell is less powerful but when fully optimised around the spu's it holds up better than you would expect it too against today's cpus ,but this all comes at a cost which he then outlines.
This bs could be beliaveble in 2006.
Get over the cell Sony. If it's still more powerful than any cpu today... use it. Surely, after 13 years this mythical power can be unlocked? Sorry... desktop cpus have ran circles around that nightmare forever now.
Looks like PS3 fans are upset at your comment.
the article said it for you. It isn't something that developers really get use on the Real world application.
What they did with uncharted 2 and cell, and the limited ram is unprecedented, when compared to pc games at the time.
Essay Pro