Playstation 3 – the specifications

Sony has as you might have noticed presented its next generation gaming console, Playstation 3, and quite interesting part of this is of course the official specifications. We earlier wrote about the system’s capacity but now it’s time for some numbers that without a doubt leaves you feeling a great need for a PS3. The next generation of consoles seems to be something out of the ordinary and even if Xbox 360’s specifications is migty impressive it will have to face being second behind Sony’s coming console, Playstation 3.

 

Sony has released the official specifications for PS3 and even if it will take a while before we will see the console in stores, Sony tells us PS3 will be available during the spring of 2006, this should be a good indication. 

Specifications for Playstation 3;

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

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 2.0 (EDR)

Controller

Bluetooth (up to 7)
USB 2.0 (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

CD PlayStation CD-ROM, PlayStation 2 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: PlayStation 2 DVD-ROM, PlayStation 3 DVD-ROM, DVD-Video, DVD-ROM, DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD+R, DVD+RW
Blu-ray Disc: PlayStation 3 BD-ROM, BD-Video, BD-ROM, BD-R, BD-RE

The centre of the system is of course the Cell-processor with a PowerPC core working at 3.2GHz with the help of 7 SPE units working at the same frequency. The specifications for nVidia’s graphic circuit are also mighty impressive and will have better shader performance than 6800 Ultra graphic cards in a SLI-system.

The system has a specified performance of 2 teraflops, compared to 1 teraflops for Xbox 360. Thus twice as fast on paper, something you should take with a pinch of salt since these values are strictly theoretical.

Other noteworthy specifications are support for surround sound, an external harddrive (similar to Xbox 360), support for Blu-ray, a bunch of connecting interfaces and and a cardreader, 2 HDMI graphic outputs etc. Short and simple it looks like Sony will try to better MS Xbox 360 in more or less every possible way, and as it seems by the hardware it has succeded. Below you can find a short comparison hardware-wise.

Tabel from IGN.com

It might be worth mentioning that Playstation 3 looks bigger than Xbox 360, something those of you who doesn’t like the latters outer dimensions should consider. But then again if you consider what inside the shell it’s really no surprise.

We will supply you with more information on Playstation 3 as it is revealed during E3!

Source: IGN, Gamespot