Aside from apparently being a bitch to program for, what is it

>>61114942

The fact that its already outdated.

>>61114942

It would take decades for people to get used to its architecture to do stuff they could normally do on any x86/x64 CPU.

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It was 8 really weak CPUs with a giant bus.
It expected everyone to be an expert at multi-threading during a time when 2 CORE multithreading was BARELY starting to take off in the desktop computer space, and gamedev retards certainly weren't about to lead the way.

Isnt that the type of cpu used in the ps3?

>>61114956
New iterations are still being produced, it's just that they're mostly only used in (for lack of a better word) supercomputers and niche applications.

>>61114975
The SPEs aren't true CPUs. The idea was for the PPE to dole out tasks to them to be completed simultaneously. To this end, Cell is really good at crunching huge numbers, really fast.

>>61114942
CellBE is essentially a single PowerPC core with 8 vector processing units. Now, you can recraft code for the vector units to crunch on and do typical work but it's really wasteful, complicated and time consuming.

The reason the Xbox 360, for example, was superior to the PS3 was that Xenos had 3 of those PowerPC cores versus 1 core and 6 (active) specialized units.

>>61114942
It was only a single normal core with a bunch of DSP-tier math units that needed explicit DMA transfers and had to work in tiny ass little non-coherence scratch memory spaces.

So you really have only a single core and a bunch of shit that's both not very useful for desktop software AND a complete pain in the ass to use if you wanted to try anyway.

Because it was trying to do what the HSA foundation has only recently accomplished. That is how forward thinking it was.

>>61114997
>(for lack of a better word) supercomputers
i believe the word you're looking for is superclusters

>>61115725
Superniggers

>>61114942
It's basically a video card. Imagine if Nvidia released a CPU that's mostly CUDA and has a couple weak general purpose cores.

>>61114942
It was Larrabee before Larrabee.

>>61116176
This, sony was retarded to think SPU's would stand in for CPU or GPU cores.

They normally go full retard designing their hardware, they should've just went for 32 SPE's instead of having a CPU and GPU. Or paid IBM to include Altivec in the PPC core.

If it's not x86, it's not practical for desktop applications, end of discussion.

>>61116400
ISA has nothing to do with Sony building a Larrabee years before the actual Larrabee.

>>61114942
programming difficulties aside, it was simply designed for highly parallel, number-crunching heavy workloads absolutely nobody who can afford better does on a desktop
>>61114997
never heard of any new iterations of the cell architecture and google hasn't either
>>61116400
that's entirely the wrong way to look at it when we're talking about a purely technical angle in which other factors like software/developer base and maturity aren't relevant

>>61116559
>never heard of any new iterations of the cell architecture and google hasn't either
Not op but there were multiple cell cpus that could be bought as full PCs or as some kinda pc on a PCI card.
They never appeared to be particularly successful and since they have server GPUs and intel phi on the market now I imagine there is little benefit although I didn't ever quite understand what a SPU was supposed to be good at so I dunno,

>>61114942
It's too slow and weak for typical parallel computing as a CPU because the SPEs are too specialized and mass parallelism is better done by GPGPUs.
It came put at exactly the wrong time.

Why are there so many threads on cell recently? Theyre all the same "why did cell fail". Its astounding

>>61116866
SPUs were an iteration on the earlier VUs used in the PS2. Simple vector processors programmed with microcode and made to be pipelined together. They can perform pretty well if you only have them do one thing but branch at all and performance tanks.

>>61114942
Now that I think about it I guess Sony was trying to force game devs to PS3 exclusives without signing deals. They trusted PS3 would force MS or Nintendo out and everybody would make their games straight to cell.

>>61118951
That already happened somewhat with the PS2's bizarre architecture.