X360 vs. PS3 Specsheet

**Diff-chan** · 20 May 2005, 04:48 PM

The first two are innacurate and irrelevent because those DSPs aren't DSPs at all.

Keep in mind, the second graph is just a redrawing of Sony's FLOPS graph during their press conference.

**Cowdisease** · 20 May 2005, 04:49 PM

Originally Posted by outRider

Take note of who Major Nelson is. He doesn't work for Sony, that's for sure.

And, at first glace those graphs aren't exactly correct.

The first two are innacurate and irrelevent because those DSPs aren't DSPs at all. If they were it would be the stupidest hardware decision ever made in video games.

This man knows what he's talking about.

Originally Posted by outRider

I could go into detail, but I don't think anyone is really interested in the nuts and bolts of it.

And he understands the TNL audience perfectly. outRider is truly a genius.

**Chux** · 20 May 2005, 04:59 PM

Who the fuck is he again?

**Omni** · 20 May 2005, 05:01 PM

Originally Posted by outRider

The first two are innacurate and irrelevent because those DSPs aren't DSPs at all. If they were it would be the stupidest hardware decision ever made in video games.

They're not DSP's but the idea is the same. Work is split between 7 "SPE" execution units running at 3.2 GHz each.

**Schlep** · 20 May 2005, 05:02 PM

To me it just represents that Sony and Microsoft can spin these numbers however they want.

It was obvious during Sony's press conference that they were trying to spin as hard as they could based off of the Xbox 360 specs that had been released days earlier. Half their powerpoint slides were broken. There was one where the legend was even screwed up.

**kingoffighters** · 20 May 2005, 05:23 PM

I vote Revolution. I KEED! I KEED!

**outRider** · 20 May 2005, 05:29 PM

Originally Posted by OmniGear

They're not DSP's but the idea is the same. Work is split between 7 "SPE" execution units running at 3.2 GHz each.

Which is no different than work split between 6 threads on 3 cores really, with some caveats. Those SPEs should be included in his first graph because they do execute code. As he has it now, his first graph is really "6" 360 CPUs vs 1 PS3 CPU. His memory bandwidth graph is all the 360 bus bandwidths combined vs the main memory bandwidth of the PS3.

What the hell kinda graph is that?

These machines are different enough that 3 bar graphs won't give you an accurate picture at all.

(Major Nelson is a programmer at the Xbox Live division for anyone who cares.)

Edit: Sorry, some corrections are in order now that I have the specs for both machines in front of me. The memory bandwidth is the sum of all the 360s memory buses, but it's mostly the bandwidth of the 10MB of RAM for the GPU (256 of the 280GB/s). The PS3 I think has this as well IIRC (12MB ?), though I don't know how fast it is, probably comparable if it's there.

And the CPU graph literally reads 3 CPUS vs 1, not performance or anything, simply 3 vs 1. Sony's pie chart will no doubt say 8 vs 3 in their favour. And their memory speed chart would probably read 3.2GHZ vs 700MHZ and be equally misleading.