Sunday, May 07, 2006



PlayStation 3 :

This is my first article on my Blog and I want it to be something that is one of the futuristic consoles, PlayStation 3. A great technological masterpiece. The Specs are not okay, they are GREAT. Get ready for the next-generation goodness. This beauty will be soon in over a million households.



Hardware Specifications :
This is where the PlayStation 3 outperforms the competition.

CPU :

It has a 3.2 GHz multi-core processor, which has 8 3.2 SPEs. The PPE has a 512 KB L2 cache and one VMX

Only seven SPEs are active; the eighth is redundant, to improve yield. If one of the eight has a manufacturing defect, it is disabled without rendering the entire unit defective.

Graphics processing unit (GPU) :

Custom RSX or "Reality Synthesizer" design co-developed by NVIDIA and Sony:

  • Clocked at 550 MHz
  • 1.8 TFLOPS
  • 136 shader operations per clock
  • 74.8 billion shader operations per second (100 billion with CPU)
  • Full high definition output (up to 1080p x 2 channels
  • Multi-way programmable parallel floating point shader pipelines
  • 128-bit pixel precision offers rendering of scenes with high dynamic range imaging
  • 512 MB Graphics Render Memory
  • Sony has hinted it may also handle audio (possibly Nvidia's Soundstorm 1) PS3 Block Diagram
  • 1.1 billion vertices per second.

Memory :

  • 256 MB Rambus XDR DRAM clocked at CPU die speed (3.2 GHz)
  • 256 MB GDDR3 VRAM clocked at 700 MHz.

Audio/video output :

  • Supported screen sizes: 480p, 480i, 720p, 1080i, 1080p
  • Two HDMI (Type A) outputs (Dual-screen HD outputs)
  • S/PDIF optical output for digital audio
  • Multiple analog outputs (Composite, , Component video).

Sound :

  • Dolby Digital 5.1 minimum, DTS, LPCM (DSP functionality handled by the Cell processor)
  • May be handled by a Soundstorm 2 embedded in the RSX.

Storage :

  • Blu-ray Disc: PlayStation 3 BD-ROM, BD-Video, BD-R, BD-RE.
  • DVD: PlayStation 2 DVD-ROM, DVD-Video, DVD-ROM, DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD+R, DVD+RW
  • CD: PlayStation CD-ROM, PlayStation 2 CD-ROM, CD-DA, CD-DA (ROM), CD-R, CD-RW, SACD, SACD Hybrid (CD layer) SACD HD
  • Hard Drive: Standard 60 GB, 2.5", detachable/upgradeable, with Linux pre-installed.
  • Memory Stick standard/Duo and standard/mini slots
  • CompactFlash
  • SD/MMC slot

All PlayStation 3 games will ship on Blu-Ray Rom discs.

Communications :

  • Gigabit Ethernet Hub (x3) (one IN and two OUT connections)
  • IEEE 802.11 b, g Wi-Fi
  • Bluetooth 2.0
  • USB 2.0 (x6) (four front and two rear ports).

Networking :

SCEI's press release indicates that controller connectivity to the PlayStation 3 can be provided via:

  • 802.11b, g Wi-Fi. Integrated for mesh networking and connectivity with the PlayStation Portable
  • TCP/IP networking (wired ethernet)
  • USB 2.0 (wired)
  • Bluetooth 2.0 (up to 7 Bluetooth devices).

Controller :

On March 23, 2006 at the Game Developers Conference, Phil Harrison announced that the "boomerang" design has indeed been scrapped and a new controller was

Physical dimensions :

  • 32 cm (L) x 24 cm (W) x 8 cm (H)

Overall floating-point capability :

In a slide show at their E3 conference, Sony presented the "CPU floating point capability" of the PlayStation 3's Cell CPU, and compared it to other CPUs. In their official press release, the same statistic regarding the PS3 as a whole was reported to be 2 TFLOPS.
The figures are rounded estimates based on addition of the theoretical maximum floating point performances of the processing units in the Cell CPU and those of the RSX GPU. Inevitably, real-world performance for both systems will be lower. Additionally, programmers may find it difficult, initially, to optimize their game engines to make the best use of the highly parallel architectures of both systems, further reducing real-world performance.

Region coding :

During a Q&A session at the 2006 Game Developers Conference, Sony Computer Entertainment Worldwide Studios President Phil Harrison confirmed that the PlayStation 3 will indeed feature region-free gaming.

Blu-ray movies will still use a region code. However, the Blu-ray region code will be different from the DVD region code.

Isn't this sweet to hear, but these features are not yet cofirmed. But i'm looking forward for this beauty.

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