TRDCorolla said:
From the looks of things, it's pretty clear that both devices kick ass big time. From a pure processing standpoint, the PS3 appears to beat the Xbox 360, but a final determination will have to wait on actual hardware tests are done (3.2 GHz PowerPC with 3 dual-threaded processor cores---for the 360 and 3.2 GHz Cell processor with 7 single-threaded synergistic processing units cores--for the PS3).
It's mostly an apples vs. oranges comparison. They're both undoubtedly powerful, but they do have their own differences.
When it comes to the CPU, it's actually hard to say. The Xbox 360's PowerPC based Tri-Core are essentially general processing cores, and for tasks of that sort, it excells at it. The PS3's Cell processor consists of one PowerPC core and 7 SPE cores. DO NOT confuse them as general CPU cores, as they are not! SPE cores are specialized cores that have very high floating-point performance and they excell at tasks that they are programmed to do. This is why the PS3 has been so hard for so many developers to create games for. It'll take years before you see the full power of the PS3, simply because the Cell's architecture so advanced (and that can be a good or bad thing).
TRDCorolla said:
The PS3 has a few other advantages. It's completely compatible with all of the existing PlayStation 1&2 titles, which is a huge plus.
The only advantage the PS3 has is the PSOne and PS2's massive game library. The Xbox 360 has backwards compatability with over 200 original Xbox titles. It takes time though, because it's all done through software emulation due to the hardware difference. The plus for Xbox 360 backwards compatability is that all the Xbox games are upscaled to 720p+ and have 4x FSAA.
TRDCorolla said:
And its video display capabilities outstrip those of the Xbox 360, with support for true 1080p displays. Dual 1080p displays. Wow.
Not completely true. Component and VGA are perfectly capable of outputting 1080p, it's just HDMI combines audio and video into one package that's supported by HDCP (Component is analog and HDMI is digital). As for dual 1080p, Sony did announce dual HDMI output as one of the 'would-be' features of the PS3, most likely for the hype. Not anymore. Either they realized it would cost too much or they finally woke up and realized that not EVERYONE has an HDTV or the money for one, much less TWO of them.
Haha, and the funny thing is that even though Sony has hyped the PS3's HD capabilites and 1080p like no other, the PS3 does not come with HDMI out of the box.
You'll only have component and if you want HDMI you'll have to shell out extra cash for a cable. Idiots...
TRDCorolla said:
As for the GPU, oooo, it's up for grabs there. 360 uses ATi while PS3 involves nVidia with the 360 having more graphics RAM, but the PS3 has a higher overall clock speed and memory bandwidth despite the 360 getting like 512MB of GDDR3 RAM.
Both the RSX and Xenos are powerful and fast, but personally I would go for the Xenos. ATI's choice with using the Unified Shader Architecture allows the Xenos to be extremely efficient, therefore decreasing performance waste compared to the traditional seperate pixel/vertex shaders. Yes, the RSX has 50Mhz more than the Xenos, but since when did clock speed mean everything in the computer industry? Intel thought it did and look what happened! They got buttkicked by AMD. A feature that does give the Xenos an advantage is that it has a special 'daughter die' which consists of 10MB of eDRAM. What this does is give the Xenos the ability to have 4x FSAA, z-buffering and alpha blending with NO performance loss to the GPU, enhancing it's efficiency. That is why all Xbox 360 games will have up to 4x FSAA out of the box. In terms of system bandwidth, the Xbox 360 does have a very high amount of bandwidth, but it's hard to compare with the PS3 since detailed specifications haven't been released by Sony as of yet. Here is a Xbox 360 bandwidth diagram though.
TRDCorolla said:
Xbox 360, however, drops the bomb on the PS3 in a few categories as well. It's HD Media Center Extender experience will blow away anything Sony can dredge up for digital media, and will support live and recorded HDTV over your home network. Its device connectivity--including direct support for Apple iPod and Sony PSP devices--is top notch. And the hugely compelling Xbox Live service gets even better with Xbox 360. Sony has nothing like it.
Oh yeah...the Xbox 360's software is very good. After all, Microsoft has been working on software for years. The Media Center Extender is VERY cool especially if you have a PC with the Windows Media Center Edition OS. I've heard device connetion is pretty good, but I would hope the PS3 would have something too.
As for Xbox Live, Microsoft is YEARS ahead of what Sony could even come out with at launch. The only enticing thing about PS3 Online is that it's free.
Remember, pretty much everything you see on PS3 Online has or will be ripped off of Xbox Live. Seriously...look at the Xbox Live Arcade and PS3 Online Arcade or Xbox Live Marketplace and PS3 Online Marketplace. No creativity at all (-1 for Sony). If you ask me, Xbox Live is THE best unified online gaming service in the market. NOTHING touches it in terms of what it can do or provide.
TRDCorolla said:
*OMG, the PS3 is suppose to be 2x more powerful than the Xbox 360, 15x more powerful than the Nintendo Revolution, and 35x more powerful than the PlayStation 2 is.
Based on what? Sources? Proof?
Anyways, I don't know if you've seen it before or not, but GameTrailers.com has a very cool video series (if you could call it that) called Bonus Round. What they do is have a 'round table' type discussion between developers, founders and analysts. It's completely opinion based on their line of work and you won't be seeing any scripted bias. Episode 1 (the only one they have as of now, since it is new) has:
Jason Rubin - Co-Founder, Naughty Dog (Creators of Crash Bandicoot and Jak and Daxter)
Michael Patcher - Market Analyst, Wedbush Morgan Securities
Grant Collier - Founder, Infinity Ward (Creators of the Call of Duty 1 and 2)
You can watch it
HERE. Don't forget to watch all THREE parts. Enjoy!