Steve Jobs Apple CEO rejects Cell: "less effective than PowerPC"

[tranCendenZ]

http://news.teamxbox.com/xbox/8504/Steve-Jobs-Not-Impressed-with-the-Cell-Processor/

"In an editorial titled “What's Really Behind the Apple-Intel Alliance”, the New York Times has revealed that at one time Apple considered the Cell processor as an alternative to the existing PowerPC roadmap.

An executive close to Sony told the newspaper that Steve Jobs met in California with the CEO of Sony at that time, Nobuyuki Idei, and Ken Kutaragi, the so called “father of the PlayStation”.

Mr. Kutaragi tried to interest Mr. Jobs in adopting the Cell chip, which is being developed by I.B.M. for use in the coming PlayStation 3, in exchange for access to certain Sony technologies. Mr. Jobs rejected the idea, telling Mr. Kutaragi that he was disappointed with the Cell design, which he believes will be even less effective than the PowerPC."

Note that XBOX360's Xenon CPU is a custom tri-core Power PC chip.

 

[DarkStar]

Hmm.....

All this back and forth is really becoming confusing. It's really just a "wait and see" kinda thing for me at this point.

 

[Xune]

For who's benefit are all these technical aspects being discussed?

People who buy consoles will do so for the games they can play not the processor that powers it.

 

[CommunistPenguin]

For who's benefit are all these technical aspects being discussed?

People who buy consoles will do so for the games they can play not the processor that powers it.

Not true unfortunately. There are plenty of people I know that judge games by graphics. Not too long ago some kid critizized me for playing the original Tribes because of how old it's graphics looked.

 

[jonbob]

Apple wanted to ditch IBM, moving to Cell is hardly going to help. Besides, Hannibal mentioned that Cell is really quite naff for non-multimedia type stuff.

 

[Xune]

Not true unfortunately. There are plenty of people I know that judge games by graphics. Not too long ago some kid critizized me for playing the original Tribes because of how old it's graphics looked.

There you go then, the kid criticised the graphics (a sure sign of being a console kiddy), not the hardware that was runing it. The average console gamer doesn't know didly squat about their hardware, apart from the (questionable) BS that they are plied with by the manufacturers.

 

[Noobulon]

Not true unfortunately. There are plenty of people I know that judge games by graphics. Not too long ago some kid critizized me for playing the original Tribes because of how old it's graphics looked.

But the flipside of that coin... when was the last time a console generation was dominated by the most powerful hardware? Certainly not the current gen! Or last gen, or last-last gen. Nor for any of the previous handheld generations.

Games sell consoles. Unfortunately though, it's the 'coolness' of said games which matters, not their quality. A machine with the latest GTA and NFSU = win. Equally sad tbh.

 

[Asuka]

Interesting.

 

[<RJMC>]

dam I will like someone say te truth

I saw in a comparation that the PS3 pocesor power or something like that was very similiar to the x360

 

[jonbob]

Neither the Xenon CPU or Cell would function too well in a desktop because they are lacking when it comes to branch prediction and completely lacking OOE. These two areas aren't useful in media applications where you want to process steady streams of data in a similar but are absolutely vital in most everything else - like AI and netcode for example.

Apple have made a wise choice with Intel: they have the cream of the mobile processor crop with the Pentium M and massive fab capacity, which is exactly what IBM didn't have. Apple had enough trouble getting IBM to fulfill G5 orders and that situation was hardly going to improve when IBM started shifting processors for MS, Sony and Nintendo too.