cell processor

[eagles051387]

does anyont think that the cell processor will find its way into the server environment and eventually the desktop and video card environments? thinking bout that processor in a video card is giving me the shivers.

[port5900]

The Cell processor is made for game developers to write games around it. Its not made for running things like CPU applications and OS's (Windows, Linux). A Quad Core Chip has four cores to run any task. The Cell processor has one main core and I think 6 or 7 mini cores custom made to run custom task, like lighting, physics, shading and so on. If you where to have the Cell processor run Windows/Linux the mini cores would be useless since those apps wont take advantage of the mini cores. That would making the applications run slower then it would on a Quad core. So you cant have a QuadCore Vs Cell processor thing, and you cant bring the Cell processor over to CPU land. Now as a XBOX fan I would say the Cell processor is made for gaming where as the XBOX's processor is not. The XBOX's processor is just a Intel Xenon chip not custom made for gaming. Huge advantage and disadvantage for PS3. Sorry about the wall of text :happysad:

[Spartan Erik]

Port is exactly right. However, nVidia recently stated that they will make a software installation of Ageia physics software that can be ported to the GPUs of nVidia 8-series graphics cards (hooray my 8600GT counts)