IBM got OSX to work with Cell Processor?

[yoda75]

Could somebody watch this and confirm that it is OSX running on that computer monitor? I can't quite tell.

 

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=57...=cell+processor

 

It really looks to me like it's OSX. If I'm right, then there is hope for running OSX on PS3.

Edited December 27, 2006 by yoda75

[nev6]

looks to be so, you can see the finder icon in the dock

[trav1085]

That is definately Mac OS X. You can even see the Apple logo in the top left corner of the screen. As he says, it contains a PowerPC processor so it should run fine.

[subramanyam]

Wow...it wud be really cool to have OSX on PS3....

[Lostgame]

^

 

Yeah, if the PS3 cost less than a Mac Mini....

[yoda75]

^

 

Yeah, if the PS3 cost less than a Mac Mini....

 

Yeah, the PS3's Cell CPU has 9 cores. If I knew for sure that I could run OSX on it I wouldn't think twice about buying one. The new wave of high end x86 desktops are just now going to support 2 quad core cpus on a single board costing over 2 grand. Cell already has 9 cores on a single chip and is well under a thousand. Just the fact that you are comparing the price of the PS3 to a mac mini shows what a bargain the PS3 is (if you are looking at it as a computer, not a gaming console) We won't even talk about the fact that the mini has integrated graphics.

Edited December 28, 2006 by yoda75

[articquad]

Then why the heck did apple switch to the x86 infrastructure if the powerpc chips are so powerful?

 

And who's the idiot taping and asking questions?

[thedguy]

Yeah, the PS3's Cell CPU has 9 cores.

 

Number of course ain't the end all be all of power/speed. That would be like saying 10 P2 processors are faster than 1 C2d e6400.

 

Plus it has already been pointed out, if the PPC processors are so great then why did even apple ditch them?

[Guest bikedude880]

Then why the heck did apple switch to the x86 infrastructure if the powerpc chips are so powerful?

 

And who's the idiot taping and asking questions?

 

They switched before IBM had developed the Cell processor. That and Intel has better power management...

[EPDM]

Then why the heck did apple switch to the x86 infrastructure if the powerpc chips are so powerful?

 

And who's the idiot taping and asking questions?

 

Because Steve Jobs needs money and doesn't care if Apple computers stand out from the rest.

 

Ppl should stop asuming that Steve Jobs abandonded the PPC because they were suposedly not powerfull enough. This is absolutely NOT the reason because at the time that Jobs declared the Intel transition IBM had one o/t most powerfull Power4-cpus available at far more MHz than Intels puny P4 (back then).

 

The reason is simply "costs". Apple charges the same for a Intel Powermac as for a similar performing G5 Powermac. But because the Intel CPU is cheaper to obtain than a similarly performing G5-cpu, the profits are higher on the Intel equipped Powermac. That and THAT alone is the sole reason for the switch to Intel cpu's.

 

So please stop asuming that Apple did this because the PPC (or it's derivates) weren't powerfull enough. They did this solely to reap more profit.

 

Regards,

 

EPDM

[CLiDE FTW!!1]

Because Steve Jobs needs money and doesn't care if Apple computers stand out from the rest.

 

Ppl should stop asuming that Steve Jobs abandonded the PPC because they were suposedly not powerfull enough. This is absolutely NOT the reason because at the time that Jobs declared the Intel transition IBM had one o/t most powerfull Power4-cpus available at far more MHz than Intels puny P4 (back then).

 

The reason is simply "costs". Apple charges the same for a Intel Powermac as for a similar performing G5 Powermac. But because the Intel CPU is cheaper to obtain than a similarly performing G5-cpu, the profits are higher on the Intel equipped Powermac. That and THAT alone is the sole reason for the switch to Intel cpu's.

 

So please stop asuming that Apple did this because the PPC (or it's derivates) weren't powerfull enough. They did this solely to reap more profit.

 

Regards,

 

EPDM

The 'cheaper' Core2Duo's still out-perform the entire G5 line, so, in the end, the consumer still wins.

 

Edit: Another reason why Apple dropped the G5's is because they ran too hot, and you can't have an excessively heated processor in a Laptop, now can you?

Edited December 28, 2006 by CLiDE

[marliwahoo]

Right now there is no real proof that IBM does have OSX running on a cell processor. The video is very interesting - but not proof.

 

If IBM does have OSX running on a cell - who knows how well it runs ? It may run very well or it may not.

 

Apple moved to Intel for profit reasons of course. They are in business to profit. In business ..... profit is good. That's their purpose.

 

The power pc chips were very good and they were getting better. The cell chip was on the horizon when Aplle switched to Intel. They knew about it and decided against it.

 

Intel does look to have a better road map for power management and dual-boot has the potential to really raise market share. Dual boot is the BIG reason for new users to switch. For them there is no reason to not buy a mac right now. Feature for feature they are about the same price as a PC. (unless you want to buy a cheap two revs old pc for $400) Profit is up, sales are up, market share is going up. Apple is making the best pc's right now. One of the reasons is the intel switch.

 

This web site was founded because of the intel switch. (osx86Project)

Edited December 28, 2006 by marliwahoo

[asap18]

tiger would never run well on there anyway. 256 mb of ram will never cut it no matter how fast the cpu.

[non sequitur]

how fast are the cores?

yeah, the ps3 doesnt need a lot of ram. only one thing will ever run on it(officially):games. if sony really thought of the ps3 as a computer there would be a gig of ram.

[Takuro]

This was actually covered a year ago when people began to wonder why Apple was making the transition to Intel CPUs in the first place. The PowerPC line of processors couldn't break the 3.0 Ghz barrier, something they've promised for years. Today, clock speed isn't the main focus on the newest processors, so for the benefit of the doubt, let's say that wasn't a valid reason to ditch PPC.

 

It was mentioned before that the PS3 didn't need much ram because its main purpose is to run games. That's an important thing to emphasize: the hardware specs needed for a good PC and a good gaming system are quite different. This is especially true when looking at processors. The Cell Processor is excellent for playing games, but you wouldn't want to use it to encode a 2-hour video. For gaming, calculating floating point operations is an important attribute for a processor, but not as much for a common PC. That's probably why in that video they demonstrated how quickly it could render things. I can see how that would be good in something like Shake, but for most other tasks, it wouldn't be a pratical PC processor.

 

If the PS3 can run Linux, I wouldn't be so surprised if it could run OS X. The processor wouldn't be much of an issue. It'd be a matter of getting all the other things to work.

[OMX-Knuckles]

I only got a brief glimpse of the computer (it's under the table) but it didn't look at all like a G5 and it's very unlikely it was a Mac Pro. So either they were blatantly BS'ing about the performance of the realtime demo and were running a custom G5 or Hackintosh system, or they really were running OS X on a custom built Cell-based system.

[erikk]

i think most of users dont understand that the cell processor has not 9 cores like we know a core

when you check the specs from ps3 you will see that is a complete new architechture and without optimazing

its not faster than a single core 3 ghz ppc cpu.

[Zealot]

there you go:

 

PlayStation 3 Central-processing unit (aka Cell Broadband Engine)

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

Dot product performance 22.4 billion (51 billion combined with GPU)

1 of 8 SPEs reserved for redundancy

Total floating point performance: 218 GFLOPS

 

PS3 CPU information provided by Sony

 

this specifications has been copied from dpad.godfrag.com

 

follow the link if you wanna know more about it http://dpad.gotfrag.com/portal/story/35372/?spage=2

 

have fun. ---------Zealot----------

[wanamino]

i think, that we see in that video, is more probably a add-on card with the cell, working like a coprocesor ,inserted into a powerpc mac...that's only my opinion, but it's not the 1st time that ppc processors are used in that way.

 

http://www.mc.com/products/view/index.cfm?...amp;type=boards

[Shoofly]

c'mon guys...don't you think that IBM as a former supplier to Apple as a processor developer would have access to the more sensitive parts of MacOSX for R/D?! This doesn't surprise me at all that IBM would have their cell processor demo on MacOS X. I'm sure they adjusted things in the core OS to accomondate their new processor. I'm also sure just like how the x86 version of MacOS X was developed in secrecy so too will the PPC (Cell) version once it is pulled from the mainstream.

 

Apple is in the position of leveraging both platforms. Just because we are Intel today doesn't mean we can't go back to PPC via the cell processor should it prove to have surpassed the x86. It makes sense to me. Once the critical mass has been expanded with the intel swap and people migrating to the Mac for the first time, take them back to PPC, or the new fangled Intel chip or AMD...or whatever. It's no secret that the Intel transition is increasing the Mac community. That's only to the benefit of us all.

[BreakTheChains]

For everyone saying that it's just for profit (forgive me if I'm repeating this) you have to remember that it is a business and the idea is to make a profit.