PS3 or 360? which is really more powerful?

XBOX 360 / PLAYSTATION 3 PERFORMANCE COMPARISON

SUMMARY
Now that the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 specifications have been announced, it is possible to do a real world performance comparison of the two systems.

There are three critical performance aspects of a console:

• Central Processing Unit (CPU) performance.
  
• The Xbox 360 CPU architecture has three times the general purpose processing power of the Cell.
  
• Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) performance
  
• The Xbox 360 GPU design is more flexible and it has more processing power than the PS3 GPU.
  
• Memory System Bandwidth
  
• The memory system bandwidth in Xbox 360 exceeds the PS3's by five times.
  

DETAILED ANALYSIS OF PERFORMANCE SPECIFICATIONS

CPU
The Xbox 360 processor was designed to give game developers the power that they actually need, in an easy to use form. The Cell processor has impressive streaming floating-point power that is of limited use for games.

The majority of game code is a mixture of integer, floating-point, and vector math, with lots of branches and random memory accesses. This code is best handled by a general purpose CPU with a cache, branch predictor, and vector unit.

The Cell's seven DSPs (what Sony calls SPEs) have no cache, no direct access to memory, no branch predictor, and a different instruction set from the PS3's main CPU. They are not designed for or efficient at general purpose computing. DSPs are not appropriate for game programming.

Xbox 360 has three general purpose CPU cores. The Cell processor has only one.

Xbox 360's CPUs has vector processing power on each CPU core. Each Xbox 360 core has 128 vector registers per hardware thread, with a dot product instruction, and a shared 1-MB L2 cache. The Cell processor's vector processing power is mostly on the seven DSPs.

Dot products are critical to games because they are used in 3D math to calculate vector lengths, projections, transformations, and more. The Xbox 360 CPU has a dot product instruction, where other CPUs such as Cell must emulate dot product using multiple instructions.

Cell's streaming floating-point work is done on its seven DSP processors. Since geometry processing is moved to the GPU, the need for streaming floating-point work and other DSP ****programming in games has dropped dramatically.

Just like with the PS2's Emotion Engine, with its missing L2 cache, the Cell is designed for a type of game programming that accounts for a minor percentage of processing time.

Sony's CPU is ideal for an environment where 12.5% of the work is general-purpose computing and 87.5% of the work is DSP calculations. That sort of mix makes sense for video playback or networked waveform analysis, but not for games. In fact, when analyzing real games one finds almost the opposite distribution of general purpose computing and DSP calculation requirements. A relatively small percentage of instructions are actually floating point. Of those instructions which are floating-point, very few involve processing continuous streams of numbers. Instead they are used in tasks like AI and path-finding, which require random access to memory and frequent branches, which the DSPs are ill-suited to.

Based on measurements of running next generation games, only ~10-30% of the instructions executed are floating point. The remainders of the instructions are load, store, integer, branch, etc. Even fewer of the instructions executed are streaming floating point-probably ~5-10%. Cell is optimized for streaming floating-point, with 87.5% of its cores good for streaming floating-point and nothing else.

GPU
Even ignoring the bandwidth limitations the PS3's GPU is not as powerful as the Xbox 360's GPU.

Below are the specs from Sony's press release regarding the PS3's GPU.

RSX GPU

• 550 MHz
  
• Independent vertex/pixel shaders
  
• 51 billion dot products per second (total system performance)
  
• 300M transistors
  
• 136 "shader operations" per clock

"PS3 or 360? Which is really more powerful?"

the fact that people have to ask the question speaks for itself. both systems are obviously very similar.

XENON > CELL

And the proof is Gears of War ;)

Your thread is way too long... Anyway, the games speak for themselves, games on the PS3 are outperforming games on the 360 so far... Heavenly Sword, Ratchet & Clank, and Uncharted say hi! Who knows, maybe Alan Wake will put the 360 back in the forefront.haze_blaze

That article is nearly 3 years old.Floppy_Jim

Not only that, we've seen more advancement on PS3 games in 1 year than we have on the 360 in 2 years. I'm interested to see how much further devs can push the 360... it really has to push the graphics this year if it's going to stack up against the games we're seeing for the PS3 this year.

Either way, gamers are going to enjoy games on both systems anyway. Just as plenty enjoyed games on the PS2 even with inferior graphics in most games.

[QUOTE="haze_blaze"]Your thread is way too long... Anyway, the games speak for themselves, games on the PS3 are outperforming games on the 360 so far... Heavenly Sword, Ratchet & Clank, and Uncharted say hi! Who knows, maybe Alan Wake will put the 360 back in the forefront.0rin

I agree, but of the games unnanounced for the 360 so far, Alan Wake is the only one that comes to mind which may be able to compete visually with some of the titles announced for the PS3. We won't know for sure until we actually see some gameplay footage, but I'll be interested to see.

just look at the games and the crap frame rates...the answer is obviousPMatt722

dude wtf thats not my gamer card.....

Your thread is way too long... Anyway, the games speak for themselves, games on the PS3 are outperforming games on the 360 so far... Heavenly Sword, Ratchet & Clank, and Uncharted say hi! Who knows, maybe Alan Wake will put the 360 back in the forefront.haze_blaze

[QUOTE="haze_blaze"]Your thread is way too long... Anyway, the games speak for themselves, games on the PS3 are outperforming games on the 360 so far... Heavenly Sword, Ratchet & Clank, and Uncharted say hi! Who knows, maybe Alan Wake will put the 360 back in the forefront.0rin

MGS4, and FFXIII are most likely going to be down graded quite a bit also. Why? Becasue I said so, so it must be true.

that guy for sure knows what he's talking about...

lol 360 has more processing power than ps3.

that's a joke.

KAMEO - Best looking launch title ever

MASS EFFECT - best looking console title ever

FABLE 2 - ALAN WAKE - Most detailed, next gen lit - shadowed and most VAST worlds ever created in a video game

I would say 360 with ease

XENON > CELL

And the proof is Gears of War ;)

el_ken

uncharted disagrees

[QUOTE="el_ken"]

XENON > CELL

And the proof is Gears of War ;)

mingo123

uncharted disagrees

so does the new gameplay video og KZ2. you think GOW looks good? thats laughable.

My contribution to this thread is:

Meh, they're both alright consoles. The PS3 does have a more powerful but more fiddly processor.

The fact remains these systems are really close in terms of performance. They have each not reached their potential in games yet, and the only thing that could determine which system's games look better is how lazy the programmers will be. The Orange Box - Valve didn't put enough effort into the PS3 port and it showed.

The gap is much smaller than PS2/Xbox, as the Xbox was significantly more powerful than the PS2.

Killzone 2 looks great, as does Alan Wake

i say the PS3 will pack a more powerful punch then the 360 as u can see the Developers ARE! understanding the Cell abit better and gettin 2 c multiplat games on the ps3 gettin up to the 360 its true my friend

i think them charts r Fake anyways yea the 360 Gpu is more powerfull but With Sony addin the Cell which can create and Texture the whole map or characters in a matter on seconds it wouldnt have to use the RSX that much Which means once the The Developers start to use the cell to the fullest im not being mean but the games look and handle much more then the 360

60FPS at full 1080p

You have to really decide on what you're specifically talking about. Peak theoretical performance goes to the PS3. Peak real world power is pretty much a wash. Due to the architectures, devs will likely be able to get a higher percentage of the power available from the 360 than they will with the PS3. 90% of the 360 utilized will end up being roughly equal to the 70-80% of the PS3's peak that devs will probably get.

It all makes a lot of sense when you think about it. The 360 has a better GPU, and the PS3 a more powerful CPU. Sony uses the CPU to make up for the shortcomings of the GPU, which takes away from the PS3's CPU advantage, rendering both pretty much equal.

[QUOTE="el_ken"]

XENON > CELL

And the proof is Gears of War ;)

mingo123

uncharted disagrees

PS3 is better becuase it has better games and they have better graphics and th eps3 has more frames per second and it has more processing powere!:D

PS3 is better becuase it has better games and they have better graphics and th eps3 has more frames per second and it has more processing powere!:D

hckeystar3

And then you saw how Gears and Mass Effect look, and you knew no PS3 game can even touch them in graphics

Im sick of it. didnt want to do this but you made me. I going to give 3 reasons your wrong.

1) I said so.

2) Dont care you dont care I said so.

3) Dont care, you dont care, I dont care, You dont care I said so.

So see clearly your wrong.

That article is nearly 3 years old.Floppy_Jim

You really want to know whats more powerful? Just listen to one of Criterions podcast for Burnout Paradise. They Debunked, the fact that everyone says the 360 GPU is much more powerful. They were careful with there words, but had said GPU vs. GPU the PS3's was only slightly inferior.

But Cell+GPU vs XENON+Tricore is very different. The Cell gives the RSX an advantage according to Criterion because its much more flexible then the tricores, and the XENON. Again they were careful with there words and didnt bash the 360 out right but had the game been PS3 exclusive and not running on amultiplatform engine, the game would have looked much better. It already plays awesome on either platform and they said thanks to DVD's limiting space, the PS3 version runs faster because the BD disc isnt filled and the data could be read much faster.

They actually used Uncharted to further there point. Love it or hate it from a technical standpoint Uncharted blows Gears and Unreal out of the water graphically, console wise. PLUS these charts are like 3 years old, and Major nelson WORKS for MS so give me a break lol. I got both sytems love both, butundeniably the PS3 exclusives look better than the 360's and multiplats are really catching up or are better on the PS3 as of right now.

Find Criterions podcast, I think I found it here on GS in the forums somewhere. For once a 3rd party tells it like it is. From what I have seen and plaed the PS3 looks to be the more technically sound console, power wise.

You really want to know whats more powerful? Just listen to one of Criterions podcast for Burnout Paradise. They Debunked, the fact that everyone says the 360 GPU is much more powerful. They were careful with there words, but had said GPU vs. GPU the PS3's was only slightly inferior.

But Cell+GPU vs XENON+Tricore is very different. The Cell gives the RSX an advantage according to Criterion because its much more flexible then the tricores, and the XENON. Again they were careful with there words and didnt bash the 360 out right but had the game been PS3 exclusive and not running on amultiplatform engine, the game would have looked much better. It already plays awesome on either platform and they said thanks to DVD's limiting space, the PS3 version runs faster because the BD disc isnt filled and the data could be read much faster.

They actually used Uncharted to further there point. Love it or hate it from a technical standpoint Uncharted blows Gears and Unreal out of the water graphically, console wise. PLUS these charts are like 3 years old, and Major nelson WORKS for MS so give me a break lol. I got both sytems love both, butundeniably the PS3 exclusives look better than the 360's and multiplats are really catching up or are better on the PS3 as of right now.

Find Criterions podcast, I think I found it here on GS in the forums somewhere. For once a 3rd party tells it like it is. From what I have seen and plaed the PS3 looks to be the more technically sound console, power wise.

Realm_of_Mania

OK, then I am going to ask some very basic questions. They're just questions so cows there is no need to get upset!

(1) Why is it that the new Intel Nehalem CPUs, the new 8 core processors have 2 threads per core similar to that of the 360! Why wouldn't they follow the Cell model, if it is so clearly superior?

(2) The actual Cell CPU is fairly ordinary. Its the 7 SPEs that make the whole thing so unique! Why is it that even only the most dedicated PS3 devs only ever use a few of them when mulit-threading tasks!

(3) What do you say to the very experienced devs such as Gabe Newell, who slated the PS3 for having over-hyped hardware?

(4) What do you say to various claims that the SPEs, whilst good at basic number crunching are not well suited to the huge range of general purpose processing tasks that games require leaving much of the burden on the CPU?

(5) What do you say to the fact that technically, we havent seen anything that cannot be done on the 360, considering even the textures and bump mapping are technically no higher on the PS3 than on the 360?

(6) Finally, why, if its sheer number crunching power is anything to go by do we see games with inferior framerates or removed graphical features?

In my opinion, games such as uncharted, when cited as technically proving suuperiority over the 360 do not show anything except for very good animation and art direction. The actual resolution of the textures, the size of the environments and hence the poly count are nothing superior to the 360!

GT5, it is very easy to render high resolution textures, with nice straight lines and reflective maps applied to make a car look photo-realistic. Take out the physics and focus all your machine's power on the cars and there you go!

Face it guys, there is nothing unique about the Cell! It's not this magical super powered processor that has 'untapped' power!

KAMEO - Best looking launch title ever

MASS EFFECT - best looking console title ever

FABLE 2 - ALAN WAKE - Most detailed, next gen lit - shadowed and most VAST worlds ever created in a video game

I would say 360 with ease

saolin323

Kameo - Crap, uninspired just crap.

Mass Effect - Uhh... That game was a ****ing slideshow. The framerate and pop-in was horrible.

Fable2 - Never trust a Peter M. Molyneux is dreaming in the pipe with this one. I'm putting $100 down that it will not live up to the hype at all.

Alan Wake - expect a seriously nerfed un-optimized game compared to the PC release. Less lighting effects, and a choppy framerate are my predictions.

I would say PS3 with ease.

Doesnt matter which is more powerful m8.

You want to play GofWars+2-Halo3-Forza2-Lost Odyssey-BioShock-Mass Effect-Ninja Gaiden 2-Fable then go 360

You want MGS4-GT5-FF13-Tekken6-GodOFwar3-Uncharted-KZ2-NGsigma-FF13versus-Resistance2-Mstorm2 go PS3

Now if you dont care that much aboutgames and you need only the most powerful console,then go PS3.

*Posts the IGN M$ paid for joke article that has been the laughingstock of the Internet for years now*
o0HAPPY0o

Whoops!

LOL.

You need to do more research, you just owned your entire thread!

The tests and graphs your provided are kinda wrong because, the 2 systems are so different in how they process information. If the same test was done on both systems (using the same methods on both systems) you don't get an accurate result.

The only way to get an accurate result is to use the right programming technique for both systems to get the maximum power out of each system, thus getting a more accurate result (both systems at maximum power).

The tests and graphs your provided are kinda wrong...

dream431ca

No, they are Wrong.

This was a M$ Analysis, not IGN's. This article was propaganda used against the PS3, by M$. It has been a joke for years now.

The TC either deliberately screwed up his own link so no one would realize this, or he honestly didn't know.

I think it was deliberate. Click on his link for proof.

[QUOTE="Realm_of_Mania"]

You really want to know whats more powerful? Just listen to one of Criterions podcast for Burnout Paradise. They Debunked, the fact that everyone says the 360 GPU is much more powerful. They were careful with there words, but had said GPU vs. GPU the PS3's was only slightly inferior.

But Cell+GPU vs XENON+Tricore is very different. The Cell gives the RSX an advantage according to Criterion because its much more flexible then the tricores, and the XENON. Again they were careful with there words and didnt bash the 360 out right but had the game been PS3 exclusive and not running on amultiplatform engine, the game would have looked much better. It already plays awesome on either platform and they said thanks to DVD's limiting space, the PS3 version runs faster because the BD disc isnt filled and the data could be read much faster.

They actually used Uncharted to further there point. Love it or hate it from a technical standpoint Uncharted blows Gears and Unreal out of the water graphically, console wise. PLUS these charts are like 3 years old, and Major nelson WORKS for MS so give me a break lol. I got both sytems love both, butundeniably the PS3 exclusives look better than the 360's and multiplats are really catching up or are better on the PS3 as of right now.

Find Criterions podcast, I think I found it here on GS in the forums somewhere. For once a 3rd party tells it like it is. From what I have seen and plaed the PS3 looks to be the more technically sound console, power wise.

DAZZER7

OK, then I am going to ask some very basic questions. They're just questions so cows there is no need to get upset!

(1) Why is it that the new Intel Nehalem CPUs, the new 8 core processors have 2 threads per core similar to that of the 360! Why wouldn't they follow the Cell model, if it is so clearly superior?

(2) The actual Cell CPU is fairly ordinary. Its the 7 SPEs that make the whole thing so unique! Why is it that even only the most dedicated PS3 devs only ever use a few of them when mulit-threading tasks!

(3) What do you say to the very experienced devs such as Gabe Newell, who slated the PS3 for having over-hyped hardware?

(4) What do you say to various claims that the SPEs, whilst good at basic number crunching are not well suited to the huge range of general purpose processing tasks that games require leaving much of the burden on the CPU?

(5) What do you say to the fact that technically, we havent seen anything that cannot be done on the 360, considering even the textures and bump mapping are technically no higher on the PS3 than on the 360?

(6) Finally, why, if its sheer number crunching power is anything to go by do we see games with inferior framerates or removed graphical features?

In my opinion, games such as uncharted, when cited as technically proving suuperiority over the 360 do not show anything except for very good animation and art direction. The actual resolution of the textures, the size of the environments and hence the poly count are nothing superior to the 360!

GT5, it is very easy to render high resolution textures, with nice straight lines and reflective maps applied to make a car look photo-realistic. Take out the physics and focus all your machine's power on the cars and there you go!

Face it guys, there is nothing unique about the Cell! It's not this magical super powered processor that has 'untapped' power!

When developers say we used 40% of PS3 capabilities for motorstorm and ONLY 60% for uncharted i think you can understand why.

Then again,big developers like Square said "PS3 is tricky,yet".Yet means alot. As more tools and programs will come and make developers life easier with the PS3,games will advance rapidly.So now not only 360 is far more easier console to work with,not only 360 use much more of its power to make games like Gowars or Halo3 but its been on the market 1 year mor so developers know it better...

The tests and graphs your provided are kinda wrong because, the 2 systems are so different in how they process information. If the same test was done on both systems (using the same methods on both systems) you don't get an accurate result.

The only way to get an accurate result is to use the right programming technique for both systems to get the maximum power out of each system, thus getting a more accurate result (both systems at maximum power).

dream431ca

My point exactly. PS3 developers claimed that made Motorstorm with 40% of PS3 capabilities and Uncharted with 60%!!!!!!

What will happen if developers can get 100% out of this magic box and take advance all 7cores+1 ..I cant imagine.Now they simply cant. Cause its a "tricky" (as square said) console yet,and games dont need such power to be made..Till now

Doesnt matter which is more powerful m8.

You want to play GofWars+2-Halo3-Forza2-Lost Odyssey-BioShock-Mass Effect-Ninja Gaiden 2-Fable then go 360

You want MGS4-GT5-FF13-Tekken6-GodOFwar3-Uncharted-KZ2-NGsigma-FF13versus-Resistance2-Mstorm2 go PS3

Now if you dont care that much aboutgames and you need only the most powerful console,then go PS3.

AzatiS

Agreed. The PS3 is more reliable to boot.

[QUOTE="dream431ca"]

The tests and graphs your provided are kinda wrong because, the 2 systems are so different in how they process information. If the same test was done on both systems (using the same methods on both systems) you don't get an accurate result.

The only way to get an accurate result is to use the right programming technique for both systems to get the maximum power out of each system, thus getting a more accurate result (both systems at maximum power).

AzatiS

My point exactly. PS3 developers claimed that made Motorstorm with 40% of PS3 capabilities and Uncharted with 60%!!!!!!

What will happen if developers can get 100% out of this magic box and take advance all 7cores+1 ..I cant imagine.Now they simply cant. Cause its a "tricky" (as square said) console yet,and games dont need such power to be made..Till now

You Guys, this thread FAILED.

The TC's LINK fails, but if you could see the article, it clearly was made by M$ and says so.

This thread is a disaster for the TC, hurt his rep.

[QUOTE="dream431ca"]

The tests and graphs your provided are kinda wrong because, the 2 systems are so different in how they process information. If the same test was done on both systems (using the same methods on both systems) you don't get an accurate result.

The only way to get an accurate result is to use the right programming technique for both systems to get the maximum power out of each system, thus getting a more accurate result (both systems at maximum power).

AzatiS

My point exactly. PS3 developers claimed that made Motorstorm with 40% of PS3 capabilities and Uncharted with 60%!!!!!!

What will happen if developers can get 100% out of this magic box and take advance all 7cores+1 ..I cant imagine.Now they simply cant. Cause its a "tricky" (as square said) console yet,and games dont need such power to be made..Till now

But at the same time, what is 40% or 60%? We will not know until the consle is completely maxed out.

the ps3 doesn't have 7 cores, it has 1 with 7 spus,stop making things up cows.-wii60-

[QUOTE="-wii60-"]the ps3 doesn't have 7 cores, it has 1 with 7 spus,stop making things up cows.micky4889

Both consoles are nearly the same, one can go deep into technical specs as much as he wants and throw graphs and charts as proof but in the end both consoles have yet to show their true potential.

Seeing Assasins Creed, COD 4, Burnout Paradise, Devil may cry 4 etc... unless you have laser sharp eyes you wont notice any differences...

Also its always up to devs and their knowledge in hardware/dev kits they use and what Game engine uses most of the Console's technical capabilities...

Also do not compare PC's to Consoles since they're totally different... Who has a console wont spend $$$ every couple of months to upgrade it because otherwise he wont be able to play new games coming out due to hardware specs required...