Parallel & Multi-Core Processing

Gaming: PS3

 

Sony PS3

 

PS2

 

Processor: 128-bit "Emotion Engine"

Processor clock speed: 300 MHz

Floating point unit (FPU) co-processor operating at 6.2 gigaflops

 

PS3

 

The Playstation 3 is equipt with a cell processor.  The setup of the Cell processor is like having a team of processors all working together on one chip to handle the large computational workload needed to run next-generation video games.

 

The "Processing Element" of the Cell is a 3.2-GHz PowerPC core equipped with 512 KB of L2 cache. The PowerPC core is a type of microprocessor similar to the one you would find running the Apple G5. It's a powerful processor on its own and could easily run a computer by itself; but in the Cell, the PowerPC core is not the sole processor. Instead, it's more of a "managing processor." It delegates processing to the eight other processors on the chip.

The computational workload comes in through the PowerPC core. The core then assesses the work that needs to be done, looks at what the SPEs are currently processing and decides how to best dole out the workload to achieve maximum efficiency.