Anyone with a brain that works (everyone except fanboys) knows the GPU in the 360 is technically superior to the GPU in the PS3. But I thought the whole idea behind the PS3 was the CELL was supposed to be the deal breaker? You know, support the GPU, use the extra co-processors to help enhance things like video quality and physics?

Doesn't matter what is the truth or not though. Because those that are objective will never convince a fanboy on any side that their platform is anything but light years ahead of the other.

Sony fans should be happy that the 360 did not incorporate dedicated GDDR3 RAM on the GPU - because then there would be NO DOUBT about which is better.

But both consoles suck. One because of the slow ass RAM, the other because of lack of RAM. Take your pic, they were both underpowered before they even launched.

Someone says something against your console and you go right into defense mode repeating Uncharted, KZ2, MSG4 and RROD.

First of all out of all you games you Sony fans point to ONLY Uncharted is actually released for people to play and judge for themselves so if you're going to lean on KZ2 screenshots you fail.

Second if you defenders would read the article you'd see he backed up his assertions with detailed evidence. But none of you Sony fans care all you saw was the title and went right into post a comment defending your master.

The FACT is and I've been saying it forever is... If you are a real gamer that cares about games more than corporations the only route is to own all three current generation consoles. But you people that sold you soul to a corporation won't do that. You don't want to think for yourself and actually play the games before forming your opinion. You take what has been told to you and run with it like its gods law. It must be fact because its the ONLY thing you WANT to believe.

I love these wannabe engineers in here posting their simple minded nonsense too. These people can barely program their microwave but know all about how the Cell and GPU work together... Yeah in your wet dreams. Fake following corporate sheep.

Its not about being a 360 fan or a PS3 fan for me... Its about having my own mind and making my own judgements without bias. You people love bias. Its the foundation for your sad lives. This is why the world is falling apart because you people care more about being "right" than being "correct". *Spits*

Look at 1.4 gettings mass disagrees for stating actual F'ing facts. But you didn't get past his first sentence to see he said that PS3's RAM is better (fact) because his first sentence wasn't favorable to your master. Sad pukes you people are.

Don't be such an idiot please.

It is obvious that the article was written by a 360 fanboy and is simply flame bate here on the N4G site.

If the PS3 was at fault for bad ports then you would not have games like COD4, DMC4, Burnout: Paradise, Dark Sector and so-forth look so good if not better on the PS3.

It is a developer issue and it is left soley up to the lack of developer talent and resources. Games that port from one console and it's architecture will not magically port over by themselves and the developers that know this pour money into the game and do it right by producing two games from the ground up. Doing so created two games that run great instead of one on the lead platform and a poorly driven port on the other platform.

Only an idiot would think that the hardware for the PS3 is what is holding it back. And yes, people bring up Uncharted, Warhawk, Heavenly Sword, UTIII, GT5:P, Ratchet and Clank, and many more when an idiot brings this topic up. Why? because these games prove the idiots wrong and they show that there are devs that care about making games for the platform and KNOW how to do so.

The RSX is much stronger than most of you think. The RSX is stronger than the 360's GPU.

There is a site, ProFX, these guys make middleware for 360, PS3, PC etc. They have a page in which there is a render, it stated that the 360 can do this render in 10 seconds, the 8800 GTS in 5 seconds. The PS3 isnt on this page, but it used to be on this page, and it was saying for the PS3, 2 seconds. (it appears it was Nvidia and/or Sony that wanted the PS3's time off this site, for reasons unkown).

There are lots of threads on the PS3forums about the RSX. There is also a thread that shows the pictures of the site when it did have the PS3's time displayed. Just search for those threads about the RSX, lots of stuff is explained and discussed about the RSX.

The thing that is holding the graphics back is, the RSX still not fully accesable. It is expected to open the pipelines for the RSX these coming months (or maybe it is allready opened, not sure).

There is also another factor that holds the graphics back, and that is the render method. Killzone 2 has great graphics because it is using deffered rendering. Warhammer will (maybe) have even better graphics then Killzone 2, Warhammer is using fully procedural rendering (it will be the first game to use fully procedural rendering). The game will be native 1080p and no anti-aliasing. For Procedural rendering there is no anti-aliasing needed, which is a plus.

There are procedural games out now, but none is fully procedural. These only use aspects of procedural rendering techniques for the textures for instance. Uncharted and MGS4 use procedural rendering for textures.

erm to be precise.. the Xenos on its own, is apparently better than the RSX.. yes, but the RSX + Cell is better than Xenos + Xenon..
I am not sure if mainman's argument about the rendering is true, i will look it up later.. but if he is right, this means that the PS3 is better even if its part by part..

but yes, like mainman says, the RSX is still not fully accessible by developers..

aside from the hardware, the problem for PS3 under performing compared to Xbox 360 is, in fact, lazy developers port.. look at burnout paradise, it was developed on PS3 first, then ported to 360, both run at the same frame rate, look at CoD4, they were both created simultaneous, no porting was involved (between PS3 and 360 that is, not sure about PC).. creating a game for a more powerful system, and porting it to a less powerful system, is much easier, and you get much more stable result.. but if you port it from a less powerful system to a more powerful system.. you get much less quality!

Without getting into too much detail, PS3 exclusives like GT5 and KZ2 are unmatched on any other console so...yea

...that was a well said post SL1MDADDY. it has always amazed me how people throw up multiplatform ports as a means to justify that the 360 is more powerful, never once even considering the notion that 360 (which is usually the lead platform) and the PS3's archetict is vastly dissimilar. the author of the article must not have done his homework, because if so he would've mentioned the fact that to date, the most graphically demanding multiplatform games perform either equal (GRID and DMC4) or better (Burnout Paradise, CoD4, Oblivion) on the PS3. he would've also mentioned the fact that to date, the 360's most graphically impressive game (Gears of War) has a similar cousin on the PS3 (UTIII) which sports enhanced graphics using an engine that internet dogma says doesn't work well on the PS3. put in exclusives, and the "PS3 is superior" argument just gains much stronger legs to stand on.

should change his name to bruceondrugs or bruceonMSpecker because this article is a load of horse dung. Both the PS3 and 360 have their pros and cons and lately most multi platform titles are nearly identical in every way.

This article is flamebait by a bias moron and nothing more.

bruce,

you do know how much this decision cost microsoft don't you?

"Microsoft had their fingers burnt by not owning the chips in the original Xbox, so for the 360 they decided that they wanted to own the rights to both processors. They sat down and co designed their GPU with ATI. By doing this they were able to optimise it’s capabilities for video game playing and also they were able to design it into the elegant system architecture of the Xbox 360. They also gave it a lot of raw power."

here's a hint:

http://www.n4g.com/industry...

The Xbox 360 recall a year ago happened because "Microsoft wanted to avoid an ASIC vendor," said Lewis. Microsoft designed the graphic chip on its own, cut a traditional ASIC vendor out of the process and went straight to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd., he explained.

But in the end, by going cheap--hoping to save tens of millions of dollars in ASIC design costs, Microsoft ended up paying more than $1 billion for its Xbox 360 recall.

To fix the problem, Microsoft went back to an unnamed ASIC vendor based in the United States and redesigned the chip, Lewis added. (Based on a previous report, the ASIC vendor is most likely the former ATI Technologies, now part of AMD.)

So yes designing your graphics chip without understanding heat dissipation wasn't such a smart idea was it?? The fact you include the paragraph praising ms for designing it's own chip says a lot about your lack of understanding about the gpu design process.

bruceongames = a middle-aged fanboy hobbyist who has no track record in the games industry

bruce you can be smarter than this and less fanboyish too

Please fully explain why the RSX is not fully accesable? This sounds very interesting and I'd like to know more about it guys, thanks!

I never said the article was totally unbiased did I? All I said was you Sonys don't even want to discuss anyhing. You've all made up your minds based solely on your emotional love for your system.

1.6 sure loves to call me an idiot yet doesn't refute anything I said. All he did was once again spout his opinion as fact and call anyone that disagrees an idiot. You list all those games as being better on PS3 yet its once again only your opinion. A lot of peopole would disagree with most of the multiplatform games you list but it doesn't matter because YOU only believe the opinion that was given to you by your master. All you care about is defending your team and calling people names.

I'm not attacking the PS3. I'm attacking blind followers that spout their garbage biased defence for everything. You people flip flop on everything from rumble being last generation to limited edition consoles being desperate for MS but awesome for Sony.

Flip flop on everything day to day then whine when your game gets .2 less score than you want claiming they were bribed.

So call me an idiot all you want... At least I take the time to experience both consoles for myself before forming my opinion. At least I have my own opinions rather than repeating the company talking points like you followers do. Go ahead and take my bubbles its a badge of honor on this crap site.

thats because those two run on umatched game engines! no games on the 360 have been in development for as long as those two, and none have had game engines crafted as good as those two.

the only thing your post and those two games you write about prove is that they are unmatched with investment aqnd man hours.

it doesn't prove that the 360 couldn't handle or run those game engines. just that nothing has yet been created to equal their engines.

fanboys should think....that includes 80% of n4g before touting supposedly unbeatable games.

and open ur eyes and see what uncharted and MGS4 can do!!

and look what will resistance 2 and killzone 2 and motorstorm 2 and GT5 and probably FF13 will do!!

i think these examples should shut up any doubters on ps3 capabilities

Correct me if I'm wrong but the 360 does have games with a longer dev time, point being Too Human. At least I think thats the game. 10 years in the process from what I heard. So yes 360 do developers take extra time to hone their games as well (even though the process started back in the ps1 days).

if you want a one-sided, totally uninformed article to laugh at. Here's one for you. Brought to you by our friendly "Gaming Veteran" bruce. Thanks for the good laugh, Bruce. Great comedian tend to act stupid and clueless to make us laugh. You are definitely a great comedian.

http://www.gamespot.com/fea...

read that...Its a good comparison of two completely different GPU's...the 360 hands down has an advantage in terms of on paper specs...but the laymen wouldn't see how arbitrary some of these specs are when comparing the two...

it goes back to the comparisons of which the cards of which the 360 and PS3 GPUs are based off of...MS used an entirely different memory allocation setup with the 360 than what ATI would use for a PC...while Sony kept the hardware more PC like (with semi-unified memory, but more or less dedicated memory to both the CPU and GPU)...the fact that the two chipsets are so different in hardware configuration in the two consoles, making on paper comparisons nearly entirely moot...

real world comparisons of actual games paints a much clearer picture though...the PS3 has a larger OS footprint than the 360 currently, by about double...when you are only dealing with 512mb total...that is a big deal...while the PS3 OS runs off of server class XDR ram, the RSX can also use that...making more ram unavailable to the RSX alos...probably a major reason that multiplatform games usually have slightly lower res textures on the PS3...

but read through that...on paper you would see that the 360 has 48 pixel pipelines compared to the RSX only having an unconfirmed 24...without any knowledge of what exactly that is, you would assume the 360 setup is superior...

http://forums.afterdawn.com...

the ATI card, as usual, has more pipelines but does not outperform the RSX with half...

I would recommend ignoring the rest between the Cell and 360 CPU...everyone knows the Cell gets trashed at general operation speed, mostly becuase of it having only a single 3.2ghz PPU...its the main reason that development for the Cell is tricky, in that it takes radical amounts of parallel code (very time consuming and very expensive) in order to get it to sing...once that happens though, there is no end in site to how much performance it delivers...there was never any question between the 360's very PC'ish 3 core processor compared to the Cell at general code...another issue of comparing apples to oranges...

overall the main point is that games show the difference...the PS3 has arguably the most impressive exclusives, with MGS4 being at the forefront currently...on paper specs between the two will point to one over the other as a hands down winner...when a developer approaches the PS3 with a pot of cash and infinite time basically, it shows without question (MGS4 and KZ2 being examples of 50+ million dollar exlusives, that have both been in development for nearly 4 years)...when you are dealing with limited resources, time and personel, the 360 has a definite edge...but just because multiplatform games (that do not push either system to the limit) generally end up slightly better (in the past more than now) on the 360...it does not mean the 360 has any true advantages of the PS3 in raw performance...

i fail to see how is it possible that ps3 has 7 SPE's and the 360 has 3 core CPU's yet they can have more on screen and we saw the opposite in games??

what he means by sprite? how is it possible the 360 CPU have have more individuals sprites on screen and not ps3 that has more CPU's???

and how is it possible that RSX is more powerful than 360 ATI GPU while it have 512 RAM??

that article is confusing and saying many bull$h!t! about specification we cant argue about it but about whats more powerful the only thing i agree about is more pipelines doesnt mean better performance!! a pipe like is just a check-house that r connected by a chain, so if a task was sent to the first pipe line then it will move to the second pipe line after the job in the first pipe line is done, and if the task was in the end of the chain and the last chain finished its operations on the task, the task wont move forward until all the other tasks in the chain is done as well, then they all move at the same time to the next step or chain!

Sony is scared of homebrew on their console so the locked up enough so that hackers can't gain access. They don't want another PSp on their hands. unfortunately this also prevents developers from accessing parts of the GPU.

I believe the RSX is holding the PS3 back. Since the Cell is so powerful any GPU would hold it back. Of course the RSX is still far better than the 360's GPU. One of the many reasons why I roll wit tha Triple.

TheKiller...who said the 360 has more 'sprites' on screen?...not sure what you are asking...

and JasnHenry...why do you keep saying that?...BOTH CONSOLES HAVE THE SAME AMOUNT OF RAM!!!...people have been saysing the 360 has more ram, for absolutely zero reason, since both consoles launched...it is simply not true...

the PS3 has dedicated ram for the CPU and the GPU...similar to a gaming PC with a dedicated GPU...it has 256mb of GDDR3 for the RSX...the CPU has 256mb of server class XDR...the RSX can borrow some of the XDR if developers see fit, but the Cell can not use any of the GDDR3, because of the drastically less bandwidth of GDDR3 compared to the XDR...hence the 'semi-unified architecture' of the PS3...and for those of you slow at math (looking at your jasnhenry) that is 512mb total ram for the PS3...

the 360 uses a fully unified ram setup, in which there is one bank of 512mb's of GDDR3...it is allocated to the CPU and GPU as developers see fit...this is an architecture similar to a budget laptop with an integrated graphics chip (I am only saying in terms of architecture, not that the 360 is running a crappy Intel GMA of some kind)...it is a result of in house GPU integration from MS, and is not necessarily superior or worse than the more traditional PC architecture...

360 512mb total (w/ 10mb for special purpose EDRAM, useless at HD resolutions)
PS3 512mb total

Until Xbox 360 gets a game as good looking as KZ2, this article is void.

The same GPU in a pc, can do way more than 1920X1080 at 60fps. (Shoot, it can go as high as 2560x1600)

Now, why would the SAME GPU, in a PS3 not be able to do it!!!! Even if you would put a 8800 GPU in it, it would just be more overkill since the PS3 will never display more than 1920X1080 at 60fps.

Now, some devs can make games already that works, so sure enough, it's not the hardware. Only thing left? Lazy devs who don't want to learn how to program the cell correctly.

Even the actual PS3 GPU is probably overkill! Think about it, 5 years old graphic cards could do 1920X1080 then.

i read the link u provided and it said 360 CPU can provide more individual sprite on screen at the same time than the ps3 cell!!

Look, I don't agree with the article. However, it's silly to praise a game that's not even out (for those of you declaring Kill Zone 2 as the best visuals on a Next Gen System). It's not due until next year. Why don't you wait unit it's out before you start bragging. It might turn out to be the next Haze.

Well, I personally can see how the Xenos could be more powerful than RSX based on specs. But all in all, it seems they are pretty comparable.

If any of you are ACTUAL computer geeks and know what you're talking about, Anand wrote up a detailed breakdown of the two consoles back during the launching days. Although things have changed in the graphic card world since then, the breakdowns are still there.

http://www.anandtech.com/sh...

"Until Xbox 360 gets a game as good looking as KZ2, this article is void."

Until PS3 releases KZ2 and it looks as good as some claim, your argument is void. ;)

this guy is a major idiot and anyone who talks KZ2 and Uncharted are idiots as well.

in my whole gaming life i own all consoles played all hyped most anticipated games and have a KICK ass gaming rig.

it goes like this

Crysis (PC) > METAL GEAR 4 > ANYTHING ELSE

best looking game ever EVER on a console is MG4

why the hell people talking about KZ2 i have no idea.

-------
if someone says how do you know about MG4, i'll spoil the whole game for him in a message.
BEST GAME EVER!

"from overclock.net

GPU

The Xbox 360 and the PS3 use two very different GPU architectures. The RSX in the PS3 is based on the G70 (N47) family of GPUs, which includes the 7800 series and 7900 series. The R500 "Xenos" in the 360 is built from the ground up, more closely related the R600 than other GPU designs of the day. Here we will examine the specs of each GPU and compare them.

RSX
Core clock: 550MHz
Memory clock: 1400MHz (DDR)
Memory size/type: 256MB GDDR3
Memory bus width: 128 bit
Memory bandwdith: 22.4GB/sec
Vertex Shaders: 8
Pixel Shaders: 24
Texture units: 24
ROPs: 8
Process: 90nm
Transistor count: 300 million
- G70 based

R500 "Xenos"
Core clock: 500MHz
Memory clock: 1400MHz (DDR)
Memory size/type: 512MB GDDR3 (shared with CPU)
Memory bus width: 128 bit
Memory bandwidth: 22.4GB/sec
Vertex Shaders: n/a
Pixel Shaders: n/a
Unified Shaders: 48
Texure units: 16
ROPs: 8
Process: 90nm/80nm
Transistor count: 337 million
- Unified Shader architecture
- 10MB EDRAM daughter die

Does the fact that the R500 has 48 shaders make it twice as powerful as the RSX? No, it does not actually. Let us dispel that misconception. The pixel shaders in the G70 architecture consist of 1 scalar ALU and 2 vec4 ALUs, while the shaders in the R500 architecture feature 1 scalar ALU and vec4 ALU. This means the RSX has 24 scalar ALUs and 48 vec4 ALUs, while the R500 has 48 scalar ALUs and 48 vec4 ALUs. The R500 does has the advantage due to having more scalar ALUs - but nowhere near double the power of the RSX. Lets look deeper into this architecture and examine how each design affects performance.

In addition to having half the scalar ALUs, the G70 is generally inefficient when it comes to pixel shader operations. Though the G70 can do more work per pixel, having 2 vec4 ALUs per shader, it is very hard for the GPU's compiler to provide enough data per pixel to keep both vector ALUs busy. If 4 pieces of data cannot be grouped together with an instruction; for example, if only 2 pieces of data are fed into the vec4 ALU, it is only being utilized 50%. This is inefficient. That is why both the G80 and the R600 have ditched the vec4 design in favor of an all scalar architecture. Scalar units can only do 1 operation per clock, but they are fully independent of each other, meaning that different operations can be assigned to each one, allowing all of them to be fully utilized. Therefore, a more efficient design.

Also, having 2 vec4 ALUs per shader even further reduces efficiency. Say a pixel only needs 2 operations performed on it. You have 6 data slots going to waste. ATI opted for pushing double the pixels, rather than double the operations per pixel. In this case, if a pixel needs 2 operations, you're only wasting 2 slots. If a pixel needs more than 4 operations, it will have to go in for another pass, but that fact that the R500 pushes double the pixels makes up for this.

You may also notice that the R500 has 16 texture units, while the RSX has 24. Do not be fooled by this, as the architecture is completely different. The RSX may have 8 more texture units, but nVidia decided to integrate the texture units into the shader hardware in order to reduce transistor count. The drawback to this is that each shader/texture cannot process a pixel and a texture at the same time. It can only do one or the other. ATI's approach uses fewer texture units, but they are completely separate from the shader hardware, meaning that the R500 can simultaneously process pixels and textures.

The R500 is designed with efficiency in mind. Though it has 22.4GB/s of external memory, it has another bus linking the main GPU core to a daughter die, with a bandwidth of 32GB/s. Within the daughter die are the ROPs and a 10MB EDRAM framebuffer. Each of the 8 ROPs has a 32GB/s link to the EDRAM, for a total bandwidth of 256MB/s. The EDRAM can be thought of a large cache. With such a large amount of bandwidth, the R500 can do 4x AA, alpha blending and z-buffering with almost no performance hit. The R500 can also get away with fewer ROPs because of this, since they are not sitting idle as much, waiting for data to be sent/retrieved from memory. In the case of the RSX, it too is not just limited to 22.4GB/s memory bandwidth. It also has 15GB/s of write bandwidth and 20GB/s of read bandwidth through the Cell processor. However, data has to pass through two memory controllers and hop over two serial buses to reach the Cell's XDR RAM. This adds a significant amount of latency, making it undesirable for a number of GPU functions.

Another feature, less known, is that the R500 features a programmable tessalator. This allows the GPU to interpolate a low poly model and convert it into a high poly model. This is used extensively in Gears of War. What this does is takes load off the CPU as it does not have to send as much vertex data to the GPU. I'll explain how this factors in later.

Since the R500s shaders are unified, they can perform both vertex and pixel shader operations. This allows for total utilization of all the shaders, and a significant reduction in bottlenecking. The fact the the R500 has more scalar ALUs, more evenly distributed vec4 ALUs, unified shader architecture, decoupled texture units and massive bandwidth gives it an edge over the RSX, and in fact allows it to keep up with its higher-clocked desktop counterpart, the R580. The ATI team behind the R500 went out of their way to eliminate internal bottlenecks and make the R500 very efficient over all. The RSX also cannot perform AA on FP (floating point) surfaces. So it is unable to perform FP-based HDR and AA. However, it can get around this by using interger-based HDR, with a slight reduction in quality. Though not incredibly more powerful, the 360 does come out on top in terms of graphics processing power. "

in development for 10 years..lol are you stupid? do you think too human is gonna run on a game engine that was made for the ps1 lol???

the idea has been on paper for that long, they started the work a couple of yeard ago.

what did i say about thinking before posting?

Dan-boy, you should steer clear of the "think before you post" argument. From what I've read from you, you'd do fine to pay attention to your own comments, rather than anyone else's.

feel free to link my previous comments, and add links that prove me wrong.

i'll check back to see what you can come up with.

otherwise....stfu.

I think if you gave two developers 5 years to create a game on both the PS3 and 360 the PS3 would undoubtedly be the superior product. In saying that the PS3 is such a pain in the ass to develop for it levels the playing field when your dealing with 2-3 year development timeframes.

stfu? I don't see why I should. As for hunting down idiotic comments of yours, I don't see why I should do that either. I'm not going to lengths just to expose a hypocrite, that would be sad.

If you really want to see it, read your own comments, rather than waiting for me to post them.
My point is, you're constantly insulting other people regarding their intelligence, while exhibiting very little yourself.

feel free to link my posts which paint me as a hypocrite, or comments where i expose myself as an idiot!?

the bottom line is, i attack moronic fanboys..of which there is plenty on here. if your claim that i am something, then atleast have something of mine to put under scrutiny.

but, the underlying reason for your to dig me out is because i said that killzone and gt are just running on superior game engines nothing else. and would most probably be able to run on the 360..

where as if i had said they were unplayable on the 360, you would've given me bubbles instead. thats how it works on here.

as you can see im out of bubbles. so if you want to continue, then pm me.

I'm not going to PM you, and I can assure you, I took no offence to anything you said in this article, or any other for that matter, that's not how I am. I also did not take away any of your bubbles, or click the disagree button on your comments, that's not my agenda.

If you want to carry on attacking these "moronic fanboys" you speak of, then that's fine by me, all I'm saying is that your arguments revolve mostly around insults against your subject's intelligence, which I feel, in some cases, is hypocritical on your part.

And if anyone wants to view your comments, they can click on your name, then click on "comments", and they'll appear in chronological order. It's simple, and doesn't really constitute me posting links to them.

If you need more bubbles, I'm happy enough to give one to you.

How do you think some game remakes are made? There is still a core code that that can be traced back to a games predecessor. Socom Confrontation has remakes of the multi player maps in the new game, from previous Socom games that still have common ties in engine coding (I think I saw that in an X play interview). Even though too human started development for the PS1, commonalities probably still exist, so it has been in development for a while, most likely due to developer issues. So maybe you should go to the open zone and spend some more time not thinking before you post.

The bandwidth between the cell and the RSX keeps the cell from really helping a lot in the rendering. Yet procedural effects that are random can use on the flp pre-made stuff sent from the cell. Like say a fractal or a volumetric volume. Procedural texturing would help the PS3 yet it would also help the xbox 360 also. The system bus is what is going to hold back your frame rate though. Lots of things go into this yet just look up the speed of the system bus for the PS3 and do the math for what you need for a true HD display. It's possible the RSX is being under feed by how the system bus is set up.

Also too if you know any thing about HD graphics you should go to the z brush forums to see what they used to make those graphics on uncharted then take a look at the in game graphics. They look good still but they have been optimized heavily. It's very possible that bandwidth with in the system it self became a problem when using two cells since intel and IBM are running into the same problems with their multicore project and the only solution seems to be GPUs in the CPU.

This stuff is more complicated than you think. It's not a matter of opening and closing stuff. The problem with the PS3 is it's stuck being a console idea with PC parts. Every one knows you need certain things to make PC parts work well. This does not mean that the PS3 will not have great graphics and games but this may mean that the system has flaws that will keep you from seeing what Mr ken want you to see on screen. You can not blame him for thinking big yet he was like 5 years too soon it seems. The GPU is very weak compare to what SONY could have gotten. I mean it's already $600 what is another $100 for a 8800?

Seriously I wish more tech sites would talk about this and many have try ars technica for one. This guys are one of the best for understanding what the metal is doing and they do interviews with the people who made the stuff meaning less PR.

Just goes to show - if you look hard enough there are still some people talking sense in here that can have a reasoned conversation.
Thanks you for restoring my faith guys..

As has been mentioned, the issue here is not to do with hardware capabilities, but ease of use. Those imbued with an understanding of the PC method of doing things, will only understand that methodology, and therefore be convinced of superiority by looking at PC techniques (like equating graphic prowess by looking a GPU functionality. Those with a broader understanding, realize this is is not the way to understand the relative horsepowers.
What cannot be disputed, is that making an architecture based on one coders had developed for for ages, together with a tool set that most coders were already familiar with meant that the power of the 360 was much more easily accessible to those that could already code for PC. I would suggest we have regularly seen the machine tapping the bulk of its potential as a result.
The non-standard approach to the architecture employed by Sony, meant that only the nimblest of developers have been able to exploit its potential as yet. Those dev house that lead with PC type code, will always struggle to port such a code structure to the PS3. Its not a structure you port to, you need to plan around its strengths to start with to enable you to obtain the power. Archaic dinosaur dev houses like E.A. find this particularly hard, as like any large company, they find it difficult to change their approach and get it right. I know, I worked for E.A. and have witnessed their issues first hand.

That 'Brucey boy' gets it so utterly wrong, is not in the least surprising. He worked in Marketing. In every software house I've worked, Marketing are despise,d as they have no idea at all about games, hardware or just about anything. They are good at wasting money on company lunches though..... and talking sh*t.
Indeed, Bruce has managed to write the worst game related tripe on the net on several occasions - often disguised with pseudo intellectual language I'll grant you, but utter rubbish in almost everything he has ever typed. I particularly remember his article proclaiming that all children should play GTA4. Ironic justice if someone were to shoot him, I must admit I wouldn't shed a tear! :)

Was making such a pain in the arse architecture in the first place - DSPs are poorly suited for general cpu type code (which is what games have lots of). Sure you can compensate for it by redoing all your algorithms to take advantage of the SPU - but the fact that you have to do that means you cannot take the time to optimize other aspects of the game.

In the end, there are certain things you can do on both machines that you cannot do on the other but there is no real advantage in technical performance. However, the annoyance in having to take the time to get the PS3 to fly is going to cost Sony in the long run. Unlike the PS2 era - MS provides good tools and it is relatively easy to get good performance from the XBOX 360. That is why you see so many PC/360 games - it just makes sense. If the PS3 was vastly more powerful then this would be irrelevant but the reality is that they are pretty close and it is a lot easier to get most of the performance out of the XBOX 360. So the XBOX 360 is going to continue to enjoy an advantage on a number of games.

And I don't buy the fact that you couldn't do any game on the other console - you might have to make some slight changes but I suspect most people wouldn't be able to see the difference when playing the game. However, if you spend the same amount of money then the PS3 version will look worse. That has to be a concern for Sony given they have a smaller install base.

on a stick, how many times do I have to read someone's uninformed opinion on why SPU's are not suited for gaming. The SPU's on the PS3 have 4 8 bit registers for data i/o. Traditional sequential processing IS NOT what the SPU's are meant for. The PPU handles that, think of it like the orchestrator and the SPU's are the orchestra. hey guys i need this scene raytraced (ok boss) and off they go. That is why you have never seen raytracing in PC games. THe CPU's can't handle it and process logic at the same time. Sony didn't go and reinvent CPU processing, they only opened up the bottlenecks that was holding CGI gaming back.

To see armchair pundits, ridicule, belittle and downright flame Sony for what I consider a damn good piece of tech is what the internet is all about isn't it? lol