Playstation 3 Unveiled!
(hx) 03:17 AM EDT - May,17 2005
At a press conference held in Los Angeles Sony Computer Entertainment revealed the outline of its
PLAYSTATION 3 (PS3) computer entertainment system, incorporating the world's most advanced Cell processor with super computer like power: The PS3 will be fully "backward compatible," playing all existing PlayStation and PlayStation 2 games. It will come equipped with a Blu-Ray DVD drive and support the sharpest format for HDTV, 1080p. The PS3 is due for launch in the spring of 2006.
PS3 combines state-of-the-art technologies featuring Cell, a processor jointly developed by IBM, Sony Group and Toshiba Corporation, graphics processor (RSX) co-developed by NVIDIA Corporation and SCEI, and XDR memory developed by Rambus Inc. It also adopts BD-ROM (Blu-ray Disc ROM) with maximum storage capacity of 54 GB (dual layer) , enabling delivery of entertainment content in full high-definition (HD) quality, under a secure environment made possible through the most advanced copyright protection technology. To match the accelerating convergence of digital consumer electronics and computer technology, PS3 supports high quality display in resolution of 1080p(*) as standard, which is far superior to 720p/1080i.
PLAYSTATION3 Specifications:
CPU Cell Processor PowerPC-base Core @3.2GHz 1 VMX vector unit per core 512KB L2 cache 7 x SPE @3.2GHz 7 x 128b 128 SIMD GPRs 7 x 256KB SRAM for SPE * 1 of 8 SPEs reserved for redundancy total floating point performance : 218 GFLOPS
GPU RSX @550MHz 1.8 TFLOPS floating point performance Full HD (up to 1080p) x 2 channels Multi-way programmable parallel floating point shader pipelines
Sound Dolby 5.1ch, DTS, LPCM, etc. (Cell-base processing)
Memory 256MB XDR Main RAM @3.2GHz 256MB GDDR3 VRAM @700MHz
System Bandwidth Main RAM 25.6GB/s VRAM 22.4GB/s RSX 20GB/s (write) + 15GB/s (read) SB 2.5GB/s (write) + 2.5GB/s (read)
System Floating Point Performance 2 TFLOPS
Storage HDD Detachable 2.5" HDD slot x 1
I/O USB Front x 4, Rear x 2 (USB2.0) Memory Stick standard/Duo, PRO x 1 SD standard/mini x 1 CompactFlash (Type I, II) x 1
Communication Ethernet (10BASE-T, 100BASE-TX, 1000BASE-T) x 3 (input x 1 + output x 2) Wi-Fi IEEE 802.11 b/g Bluetooth Bluetooth 2.0 (EDR)
Controller Bluetooth (up to 7) USB2.0 (wired) Wi-Fi (PSP) Network (over IP)
AV Output Screen size 480i, 480p, 720p, 1080i, 1080p HDMI HDMI out x 2 Analog AV MULTI OUT x 1 Digital audio DIGITAL OUT (OPTICAL) x 1
Disc media * read only CD PlayStation CD-ROM PlayStation2 CD-ROM CD-DA CD-DA (ROM), CD-R, CD-RW SACD SACD Hybrid (CD layer), SACD HD DualDisc DualDisc (audio side),DualDisc DVD side)
DVD PlayStation2 DVD-ROM PLAYSTATION3 DVD-ROM DVD-Video DVD-ROM, DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD+R, DVD+RW
Blu-ray Disc PLAYSTATION3 BD-ROM BD-Video BD-ROM, BD-R, BD-RE
The complete coverage can be found on
Joystiq,
AnandTech,
PS3.IGN (
+ first shots of the controller),
GameSpot,
DesignTechnica and
ByteSector