PS3 vs Computer

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Does any one here know how power the PS3 is compared to a computer. If so, which wins and why. I am asking this question as I am playing on upgrading my PS3 HD and downloading Windows XP or Linux.

 

Yeah, because a PS3 isn't a computer at all, it works by magic

 

Well...let's start with the basics.

Computer has:
Input devices - Keyboard, pointing device, tablet, game pad, joystick, etc.
Output devices - VGA/DVI/S-Video, eSATA, USB, Fire Wire, serial, perallel, etc.
RAM - Most MoBos support 8GB+ of DDR2
HDD - Connect as many as there are ports. Add a PCI card and connect even more! OH, and don't get me started on RAID.
Video Card - PCI Express cards currently come with 512-320MB of GDDR3 RAM and can be set up in SLI or CrossFire.
Oh, and apps...don't forget about the hundreds of apps, along with everything else a computer has, and can do.

As for the PS3, well...it has a few of the things a PC has...but it is *meant* to play games. Just because it can try to act like a PC doesn't mean it can replace one.

 

PC wins hands down. More powerful, more practical, more versatile. Better games imho too.

 

Wow. Theres a very long answer to this, and a long answer.

As for your question about WinXP and Linux, WinXP will never ever work on a PS3 ever. As in never.

Okay for the slightly longer answer:

The PS3 and a PC are vastly different beasts. Vastly different CPU, RAM, graphics, everything. The reason that a PS3 cant run windows XP, is because windows only runs on x86 processors. Common examples of x86 processors are your Athlons, your Pentiums and your Core 2 Duos. They are called x86 because they all implement a common instruction set, the x86 architecture. They all do so in different ways.

PS3 on the other hand, is not x86 at all, its not even a brother or a cousin of x86. It probably has more in common with your cellphone than a PC.

PS3's CPU is a RISC CPU - Reduced Instruction Set Computing, while x86 is a CISC - Complex Instruction Set Computing.

To explain the difference, we need to understand what an instruction set is. Think of an instruction set as the language your computer understands. All code that it runs has to be written in this language. Reduced and Complex refers to the size of their vocabulary - Complex meaning much larger than Reduced. But dont think that makes Complex better, it doesnt. The reason for this is that in a normal program, most of the instructions used are only the most basic ones. Most programs dont even use the huge instruction sets offered by x86. having bigger instruction sets makes a CPU more complex and expensive to design, so they have to make trade offs in other areas. Consequently, RISC CPU's are often faster, when compared Mhz for MHz.

So, where does that leave us? Well Windows XP wants to use the big vocabulary offered by x86, and PS3 just doesnt support it. Nothing you can do short of emulation (dont ask).

The other question - which is faster - depends on the application, but overrall I would say a PC will win in most cases. Its very difficult to directly compare them though.

 

It totally depends what you want to use it for. If you primarily play games and use it for some simple secondary tasks, I would say why not? I don't really know what kinda hardware is in the PS3 or what the prices of PC hardware are at the moment, but consoles are usually pretty cheap for the quality of hardware that is in it (most of the profit is made on the highly priced games). If you, besides playing the latest games, use it for reading e-mail, word-processing and surfing the net, I think the PS3 would do a decent job, as those operations won't require you to use a state of the art machine. Especially if you compare the price of a PS3 with a PC which is able to do those tasks and run the latest games (or the price of having both a PS3 and a PC).

The PC wins with versatility and tough jobs, but with a light OS and simple use, I don't think the PS3 would do so badly. And besides that, it has Blu-Ray, which basically is the future (as for why, ask Sony).

 

As I understood it, they were originally planning to ship the PS3 with Linux already installed, so no special Linux kit is necessary. There is an "Install Other OS" option in the PS3 system, which should allow you to install various flavors of Linux. (Like the popular Ubuntu).

 

Yellow Dog Linux is the "official" linux for PS3, which means that it should be easy to get it running. A few other distributions can be made to run on a PS3 as well (Ubuntu, Fedora Core 5/6, Gentoo).

 

Power-wise, a PC beats a PS3 in everything except PS3 games any day of the week.

However, seeing you already have a PS3, using it for light tasks with Linux should definitely be possible - even if I have heard that installing Linux on a PS3 is more than a bit tricky. You won't be playing any heavy PC games on it, but it should be just fine for browsing the web and such.

Blu-ray being "the future", then again, is utter and I have a feeling we have a fanboy among us.

 

No, not really. I hope we'll stick to regular DVDs for the moment, instead of switching to a new technology, as I have little interest in replacing my DVD players. But a change is gonna come some day, and my bet was on Blu-ray, since I thought they had most of the movie companies behind them. I mean, they can make very nice HD DVDs, but if the movie companies won't use them, it will never be a success (since music and computer data have less need for a new kind of storage device, with a possible exception of games). But after doing some reading up, the support for Blu-ray seems to be less unanimous than I thought. So, not a fan boy, just a little bit misinformed.

 

I am asked the question because the PS3 has a very powerful graphic card compared to my computer. I believe the PS3 has a 8800 GT or a 7800GT with a built in physic processor. Where as my computer has a 6600 LE grapic card.

As for the OS on PS3 I was doing some extensive research and found out that Linux does run but is not designed to utilized the mutiple CPUS so it runs much slower than it could. From my conversation with friends and in a PS3 forum it appears that an individual is trying to get a hashed up version of Windows XP onto the PS3 and it may use 2-4 of the PS3 CPUs. Hmmm...

I have a good computer and will continue to use it for my computing; though I wonder truly how powerful a PS3 really is with the 6 or 7 CPUs it can use at one time. That is where I am curious. Especially since most of the PS3 game out now only use one maybe two of the CPUS on the PS3.

As for PS3 games I am patiencly awaiting Assisan Creed; I have pre-order the game and hopefully they won't delay it more than the August date.

 

The ps3's gpu (RSX) is more similar to 7800, being a G7 card.

From a gaming perspective, Blu-ray is a hell of a lot better than HD-DVD and way better than DVD's. Some game developers, namely rockstar are having difficulty fitting all of their content on a single dvd for the xbox 360 whereas this problem is non-existent for the ps3 version. Since HD-DVD is little more than a dual-layer dvd with better compression, blu-ray disks have much larger capacities and are a far better product as a result (imho, at least).

Just to reiterate, pc software is not optimized to run on the ps3. It will not make use of the multiple processors, will be crippled by the 256mb of ram and will be so bottle necked by this that the gpu won't really be of that much use (your current pc would probably be way better in this respect). The PS3 is great for people with high def TV's and for ps3 games (which are optimised to the hardware) and for blu-ray movie disks (if you have the aforementioned 6foot wide high-def tv).

 

The new HD media is great, the quality is *a lot* better than on a standard DVD. Once you have seen a movie in HD format (with the proper equipment) you do not want to view DVD quality movies anymore, simply because they look horrible in comparsion.

 

Two comments here.
First, since both formats are getting so much backing, Quad-Format drives (CD/DVD/HD-DVD/Blu-ray) will probably become a common feature in most computers. Look at what happened to DVD-R and DVD+R. They just made drives that support both.

My other comment is sort of off topic, but I'll ask it here anyway. DVD's come in 4.7GB for a single layer and 8.5GB for a dual layer disk. My question is, since a dual layer disk is just two layers, one being opaque...shouldn't the total size for a dual layer DVD be close to 9.4GB? There's literally almost a full gigabyte of space missing from dual layer DVDs... Surely, it doesn't take 900MB to tell the drive that the disk contains two layers...

 

Blackthorn: yeah sorry, my bad - For some reason I thought that the actual data capacity of a single-layer HD-DVD disk was in the same ballpark as a dual layer DVD (it's not - HD-DVD is 15Gb, whilst dual layer DVD's are around 9). Blu-ray disks have capacities of around 30gb but HD-DVD's are able to deliver similar movie quality through better compression methods (Blu-ray movie disks lack this compression atm, although higher quality video could be achieved through the use of HD-DVDesque compression)

Kitrax: yeah, and this difference is even more pronounced with Blu-ray and HD-DVD with the former going from 30->50 and the latter from 15->25. As for why, I'd imagine that the pits in the disks would have to have different spacings for the two layers to reduce interference. I could be way off though.