this news made my face look like [:' (]

according to IBM , 80% to 90% of Cells produced last months have one of their 8 cores defected!! sugar on top sony will implement those CPU' s regardless of this in their PS3, Tom reevs , a VP in IBM said that it' s ok since ps3 will use only 7 cores and that teh experience will not change for the end-user so what do you think of all this guys?

This is a response to the supposed 20 percent yeilds that they are getting with CELL. I figured it wasn' t as bad since this is with the full eight cores. You might remember that Sony announced a while back that they were reserving one of the eight cores for redundancy. So in actuality the ps3 only has 7 SPEs. In all probability the CELL chips that are bad most likely only have one defective core out of eight which does not affect the yeilds for ps3 as Sony can use the chips that have 7 good cores. Remember that CELL will be used for other things as well. The CELL in ps3 only has 7 cores, the other one is just extra that is never used even if you have it.

If you get one with a defective core the experience won' t change as the ps3 is only meant to use 7 anyways. Even if you get a chip with 8 good cores, the ps3 still only uses 7. The spec for CELL on ps3 is 1 PPE and 7 SPEs not 8 SPEs.

This is not a new practice, many CPUs would be much more expensive if they didn' t do this. In the computer I' m using (my Moms computer) it has an Athlon 3100 XP. This isn' t a cpu you could ever buy in retail because it' s not an official spec. The 3100xp was supposed to be a 3200xp but was downgraded to a 3100 because half the cache was defective. So instead of throwing it away they renamed it. The 3200xp is clocked at 2.2 with 512kb of cache, the 3100xp is 2.2ghz with 256kb of cache.

Sony anticipated that most CELL chips would have one core defective so in order to increase productivity and save truck loads of money they made the ps3 spec with only 7 SPEs so they can use the CELL chips with one defective core. Games will be programed to take advantage of only 7 cores. No ps3 will never use 8, even if they have it. This what sony meant by 7 cores, one being reserved for redundancy.

That was the point of the 8th spu though, redundency to improve yields.

So i' m not surprised, just hope the ps3 is a reliable piece of hardware by the time i buy one.

Ok so junkie beat me too it...

But how do they control which thread is defective? and how does it software react with the defective thread, do they just switch to a working one? I think this is worrying and troublesome, but i im not going to buy one for many years, unless i get a brainmalfuction!

vx chemical that' s my point, that' s what worries me, well sony knows what it' s doing , but it' s a bit distrubing how they would control that since it should be random... it' s never reassuring when you know some part is not working right.

But how do they control which thread is defective? and how does it software react with the defective thread, do they just switch to a working one? I think this is worrying and troublesome, but i im not going to buy one for many years, unless i get a brainmalfuction!

You mean how do they know which SPE is defective (a thread is software)? Sony deactivates one SPE during the manufacturing proccess and the PS3 has to detect the functional SPEs the same way a pc knows what hardware you have. I' m not worried about it, I' ll let the engineers work out that stuff.

In the end this isnt going to affect us, unless everybodys Ps3' s blow up when pluged in becuase all the cores failed.. then we might have a problem.

Sony arent going to let every pa3 have 1 bad bad core, it will happen, but nothing major.

Sony arent going to let every pa3 have 1 bad bad core, it will happen, but nothing major.

yeah..but will they program the PS3´s with defective core differently of the others?
Or will the hardware automatically adapt to th missing of 1 core?

Sony isn' t going to release PS3s with less then 7 functional SPEs (which is spec). Many of them will technically have a defective core but thats because the actual CELL chips that IBM are producing have 8 cores, the CELL chips selected for PS3 only uses 7, even if the 8th isn' t defective. The PS3 CELL will have an extra SPE that won' t be used at all, it doesn' t matter if it' s defective or not. If a chip has less then 7 SPEs functioning the chip won' t be used for PS3 it might be discarded or used for something else.

CELL originally has 8 SPEs

PS3 CELL has 1 PPE and 7SPE' s, pretty simple, one SPE is not used since too many of them are defective.

You mean how do they know which SPE is defective (a thread is software)?

Well you got the meaning of it! I still wouldnt trust a defect in my hardware, stuff like that has tendencies to spread! Be it in harddrives motherboards or processors!

only REAL problem is, when games start to use the 8th core, people with a broken ps3 wont be able to play it.

But i suppose the devolpers will have scaled down version for 7core broken ps3' s too.

No matter how you look a it, its not really a valid solution!

I' m very curious to see the inevitable stipulations this may cause on the PS3.

Will games ever require the 8th SPE? Um...curious...what do the SPE' s do?

No silent, games will never use 8, thats what I' ve been trying to say. The spec of ps3 is 1 PPE and 7 SPEs. The developers don' t have 8 SPEs to use because the PS3 doesn' t have 8 SPEs, it has only has 7. The CELL chips are made with 8 but the PS3 only uses 7. This was done so that all the chips that have one defective core are still good because PS3 only has 7 SPEs. This is all decided in the manufacturing proccess of the PS3, all PS3 are supposed to be shipped with 7 good SPEs, if it has 8 the 8th one is redundant meaning extra.

Let me make this analogy. A car uses four wheels, It needs four wheels to function but some cars actually have five wheels if you count the spare. You can' t use all five wheels at the same time just as the PS3 can' t use all 8 SPEs. Even if you don' t have the spare the PS3 will still work just as well.

silentbomber, developers will never ever use 8 SPE ever...

Will games ever require the 8th SPE?

No, the PS3 spec is one core and 7 Synergistic Processing Elements (SPEs).

Wikipedia:

Only seven SPEs are active; the eighth is redundant, to improve yield. If one of the eight has a manufacturing defect, it is disabled without rendering the entire unit defective.

I think that is enough speculation as for the 8th SPE, junkie has explained it more than enough.

If it meant something bad for the PS3 it wouln' t have leaked out :)

after all the bad things and rumors that leaked in the past ?? !!!

aba, I think Gangsta was joking..

hey did anyone notice goodman with the neo avatr now thats funny