The Patent filling for Cell processor (http://www.blachford.info/computer/Cells/Cell0.html) ,shrouded beneath layers of technical detail, is difficult for most non-technical geeks to completely understand, which is why information on the technology has been so hard to come by. An article by a Linux distro programmer attempts to explain Cell chip architecture (http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=/netahtml/srchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=6,809,734.WKU.&OS=PN/6,809,734&RS=PN/6,809,734)
Im Going read the whole explanation in a bit. But from the snippet I did read looks like this chip will have some serious potential. Enough to topple PC's possibly eh?
Enough to topple PC's possibly eh?
No. It a cute little chip, but makes no comparison to the Canterwood and Springdale sets that are coming into effect. To say nothing of the new hardware being developed to take advantage of PCI Express.
This system seems to be theoreticaly fast, but also seems to be insainly hardware dependant. They are working to correct this, but it wont be good for too much (because of price) until then.
One of the first applications for this chip will be new super computers to replace the current clusters since they dont care about backward compatibility. Coders are writing for this system so by the time the cost comes down enough to be used for consoles, it will also be going into PC's. Since a PC is far easier to customize they will still remain faster as people continue to modify the hardware.
I would like to see this system used in coordination with PCIE.
Some will no doubt be turned off by the fact that DRM is built into the Cell hardware. Sony is a media company and like the rest of the industry that arm of the company are no doubt pushing for DRM type solutions.
Yeah, no kidding people wont like that.
Of course this wont happen overnight and there's nothing to stop PC makers from including a Cell processor on a PCI / PCIe card or even on the motherboard. Microsoft may be less than interested in supporting a competitor but that doesn't mean drivers couldn't be written and support added by the STI partners. Once this is done developers will be able to make use of the Cell in PC applications and this is where it'll get very interesting. With computationally intensive processing moved to the Cell there will be no need for a PC to include a fast x86, a low cost slow one will do just fine.
Micro$oft is working with Intel on a similar project.