PS3 - supercomputer performance at the price of an entry-level PC

[Zeus]

Research firm iSuppli have analyzed the PS3 and concluded that it is an engineering masterpiece that sets a new high mark for computing price/performance – even when comparing to the Xbox 360. "With the PS3, you are getting the performance of a supercomputer at the price of an entry-level PC," said iSuppli.
They also said "There is nothing cheap about the PS3 design. This is not an adapted PC design. Even beyond the major chips in the PlayStation 3, the other components seem to also be expensive and somewhat exotic."

<center><A href="http://www.maxconsole.net/content_img/ps3compo.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.maxconsole.net/content_img/ps3compsmo.jpg"></center></a>
<center>price breakdown</center>

[quote]
The combined materials and manufacturing cost of the PS3 is US$805.85 for the model equipped with a 20GB hard disk drive (HDD), and US$840.35 for the 60GB HDD version, according to iSuppli. This total doesn’t include additional costs for elements including the controller, cables and packaging.

At these costs, Sony is taking a considerable loss on each PS3 sold. Materials and manufacturing costs for the 20GB model exceed the suggested retail price of US$499 by a total of $306.85. For the 60GB version, costs exceed the US$599 price by US$241.35.

With Sony taking a smaller loss on the higher-end model, iSuppli said it's not a surprise the company is steering customers to the 60Gbyte version.

In contrast, the HDD-equipped Xbox 360 has a manufacturing and materials total of US$323.30, based on an updated estimate using costs in the fourth quarter of 2006. This total is US$75.70 less than the US$399 suggested retail price of the Xbox 360.

iSuppli notes that Sony has delivered an amazing level of performance for the cost for PS3. "The reason why the PS3 is so costly to produce is because it has incredible processing power," Rassweiler said. "If someone had shown me the PS3 motherboard from afar without telling me what it was, I would have assumed it was for a network switch or an enterprise server."
[\quote]

News Source: <a href="http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20061117PR200.html" target=_blank">digitimes</a>

[Rockman_Joey]

I agree with that, the price is okay but the games and the console itself need to us the PS3s tools and features its capable of. This console has potential but not if it gets delayed again *prays for a March Release*

[Mr Doctor]

PS3 could have 10 times the power and it would still have an arse controller.

Taint about power anyway (or blueray), its about games - time will tell if the PS3 will actually be good value for money or not.

[Chilly Willy]

That price breakdown is off. Many of those prices they quote are what John Q Public would pay for a single item purchased at the local computer store, not what Sony pays for bulk quantity, especially since they make many of the parts themselves. I seriously doubt they charge themselves the same price as they charge the average person buying the part in single unit quantities.

[KainXS]

if these guys said so then i beleive them

i highly recognize them, for the work they have done with mit in the past


That price breakdown is off. Many of those prices they quote are what John Q Public would pay for a single item purchased at the local computer store, not what Sony pays for bulk quantity, especially since they make many of the parts themselves. I seriously doubt they charge themselves the same price as they charge the average person buying the part in single unit quantities.
you need to do some research before posting you know that

[cory149]

That price breakdown is off. Many of those prices they quote are what John Q Public would pay for a single item purchased at the local computer store, not what Sony pays for bulk quantity, especially since they make many of the parts themselves. I seriously doubt they charge themselves the same price as they charge the average person buying the part in single unit quantities.
Really? You mean you know of a store that you can walk into and buy a Cell Broadband processor for $89 or an entire PS3 (or PS2 for that matter) case for $33? Or how about 512MB XDR memory... no way JohnQ can get that for $48, or an Emotion Engine chip for $27. I certainly don't know of anywhere to get a OEM blueray drive, let alone a laser for one for only $40 more than a PC DL DVD burner.

Many of the prices they quote are taking into account that they are manufactured in house, and are probably estimates based on known costs to manufacture similar technology in house (at quantity).

[indiraider]

The PS3 only has 256mb of Ram! It may be good for theoretical calculations for math and for science but it would really suck as a desktop. Forget working with photo or video because my laptop could do a better job.

The PS3 will probably fail and its sad to see that Sony is using the swiss army defense to justify the cost of the console. Windows XP (although a ram whore) can needs atleast 256mb. Ubuntu uses 128mb for a simple desktop with 256mb required.

[Chilly Willy]

I certainly don't know of anywhere to get a OEM blueray drive, let alone a laser for one for only $40 more than a PC DL DVD burner.

You pay $85 for a PC DL DVD burner? No wonder you think the prices they quoted are fine. :rolleyes: :p :cool:

[City Ninja]

can the PS3 do what an entry level PC can?

didn't think so. Nuff said.

Its like comparing it to Apples and Breasts...they are used for different things and even if it did have the 'power to run as a pc', Sony is not fully allowing that.

Bah, Sony is almost as good as G.W.B.

[Okami]

The PS3 only has 256mb of Ram! It may be good for theoretical calculations for math and for science but it would really suck as a desktop. Forget working with photo or video because my laptop could do a better job.

The PS3 will probably fail and its sad to see that Sony is using the swiss army defense to justify the cost of the console. Windows XP (although a ram whore) can needs atleast 256mb. Ubuntu uses 128mb for a simple desktop with 256mb required.


It has 512mb of ram to be exact, it's just split up into 2 pieces. Get your facts straight.

[psychospeedster]

The PS3 only has 256mb of Ram! It may be good for theoretical calculations for math and for science but it would really suck as a desktop. Forget working with photo or video because my laptop could do a better job.

The PS3 will probably fail and its sad to see that Sony is using the swiss army defense to justify the cost of the console. Windows XP (although a ram whore) can needs atleast 256mb. Ubuntu uses 128mb for a simple desktop with 256mb required.


in response to this ignorance or just possibly bad math. the PS3 had 2 sets of ram, 256mb of XDR running at 3.2ghz and 256mb of GDR3 at the gpu's clock speed, both parts fully accessible by both the CPU and RSX. This was possibly done to save bandwidth for ram access and part of its original design where both the cell and RSX work as a team on graphical prowess.

[siotus]

I heard on 1up that the current version of linux thats avalable for the ps3 has a compatability error that only allows it to access about 128mb of ram (which seriously limits what you can do, and how fast you can do it) . Hopefully that should be fixed when the yellow dog comes out (the linux avalable right now is fedora code 5.)

[Murc]

no, an "entry-level PC", you can buy one for under 500 bucks...and it includes a monitor, speakers, keyboard & mouse, printer, etc.


the PS3 isn't any better then the 360...so everyone attempts to justify its high price point by talking up its cell power....lame.
people buy game consoles first and formost because they like gaming, not because they want to have fun crunching numbers.

[Trashcat]

125$ for bluray drive? To be fair at least another 75$ should be moved here from the mysterious "other". And whats the point to have 2 different hard drive size if the difference in price is 11$? Charging 100$ more for 60GB version is bullshit. If this bullshit list is true UK customers will be paying the full price for the 60GB version like many other regions, so cry me a river about losing money on this piece of future technology. And stop repeating this supercomputer bullshit, good results in scientific calculations can not be applied to the system's game performance.

in response to this ignorance or just possibly bad math. the PS3 had 2 sets of ram, 256mb of XDR running at 3.2ghz and 256mb of GDR3 at the gpu's clock speed, both parts fully accessible by both the CPU and RSX.
And whats the source of this information? I remember GPU can access RAM but nothing about CPU accessing VRAM.

[InsaneNutter]

the PS3 isn't any better then the 360...so everyone attempts to justify its high price point by talking up its cell power....lame.
people buy game consoles first and formost because they like gaming, not because they want to have fun crunching numbers.

Well said.

[Azariel]

Emtpy talk, PS3 numebrs doesn't emans works as a "worskation", entry PC level..yes...is exactly the same price, except you get monitor, mouse keyboard, and better HDD.. otehr is even PS3 with it's multicore hyped processor, is not directed to more than games..so if you want it to play...excellent...but don't wait to have a nice performance editing video, or making a special FX ona rogram like After FX, and Fusion... its hardware dedicated engine is optimal for game performance, and as it posses soemthing that computers don't , standard hardware on every PC, so you get high performance on PS3 because programers know what everycomponent can do..without compatibility issues.
Entrylevel PC? yes..for MSN and mail does the job...

[wigsplitta]

Everyone knows that the RAM severely cripples the PS3 while running linux. Thank you ign video.

[Mr.Do!]

here we go again.. i remeber PS2 being called a "super computer" also.. we all know how powerful that was.. YEAH OK..

PS3 may be a powerhouse on paper.. but that justifies nothing about its value in the video game market.

As powerful as it is.. You cant even use it as an everyday computer. So comparing it to something in the PC market or even something that is REALLY considered a "super computer" Is pointless.

I mean Ps3 barely keeps up with 360 right now.. So having a super computer that can barely perform the tasks it was built for is far from an engineering masterpiece if you ask me.

[Azariel]

You can buy a Laptop with PS3 's price, and guess what? you can burn DVD's, watch Divx, and take to anywhere.. you can run emualtors, play your favorite games on Snes, ps1, sega :) adn still connect your PS2 controller via USB adaptor...and is half the weight :D

[deadsoulasis]

must be a lousy video card in that laptop for only 600 bucks though ...
I bought a laptop for 700 bucks and It has a ATI IGP-64meg-...its excellent for playing games at 8-12 fps.when tweaked *rolls eyes*

[Azariel]

Sure, you must choose carefully :D

[deadsoulasis]

nah acually 600 bucks doesnt buy you a great laptop....
double that ...$1,200 can ...not the best but at least a dx9 card with good decent speed ...but it depends where you get it as well ..I meant brand new laptops as well so ...but The PS3 is not a super computer ..Thats just Sony marketing talking ...they done it for 10+ years
Id figure people would 'get it' by now ...anyhow

[Ridl3y]

This site is made to pretty much bash PS3 all over the place... We all know why you guys do it though...

Middle school/high school kids that can't afford it. Oh well kids, maybe next Christmas?

[deadsoulasis]

they could afford it if they did a good 2 months of hard work *shrugs*

[amptor]

I still find it odd that a company would release a product and take a bath on it. Like someone said in a previous reply, they make the majority of the parts so why would they charge themselves so much money. The tooling is what costs the most. They'd have to retool in order to make a new console so of course these prices can be legit as shown, but after some time they're going to be making a profit off the game system as well. Look at what happened to things such as sandisk pro duo cards. Do you realize that the material in those things is probably not even worth close to a dime, yet if you have one that can hold 2 gigabytes it is worth a great deal more than one that only can store 256 megs of data. What you're paying for is the technology, research, and tooling in these situations until the market is saturated. Then they aren't making as big of a profit so they can lower prices down and already have been well compensated for the R&D. Right now you can buy a PS2 for $129.99 and I believe it was $249.99 when it came out. Are they losing money on a $129.99 unit? The thing is smaller than the original one, uses less materials, the materials are cheap to begin with, and they've already sold millions of units. Watch the 60gb PS3 actually have price drops of $100+ in the future. They know that they can't keep it at $599 forever, sony isn't dumb.

[The Bat]

This site is made to pretty much bash PS3 all over the place... We all know why you guys do it though...

Middle school/high school kids that can't afford it. Oh well kids, maybe next Christmas?

Why bash this site? Another source quoted a research firm which praised the processing power (alone) of the PS3, and this site reported the story without saying anything to counter the claim. So how is this site "made to pretty much bash PS3 all over the place"?

Also, the study is misleading, in that people don't buy game consoles to run simulations of drug interactions and calculate more exact values of Pi, but to play games. Of course details such as how well it can display imagery, how much of a performance hit on the processor such rendering takes, and how bottlenecks in programming can be avoided and worked around are important. If you look at just the graphics rendering component, you could say the same thing about the power in the 360 compared to PCs and the PS3, but that would be an inaccurate basis for the console as a whole as well.

[Azariel]

This site is made to pretty much bash PS3 all over the place... We all know why you guys do it though...

Middle school/high school kids that can't afford it. Oh well kids, maybe next Christmas?

He is a noob, .. dooesn't look around internet so much... and the forum is a place for discussion, if you are going to other places than "www.sony.com" you must be prepared to hear some comment about the real things.

[deadsoulasis]

PS3 is always gunna get bashed cause of the price ..
My $6900 comp runs circles around playstation anyhow ...

PS3 is not super-computer with blocked out hardware...reality...