Serverworks LE versus VIA Chipset

[Markus Lechner]

Am Fri, 22 Dec 2000 schrieben Sie:
> I'm a little confused... I was reading up on the specs and I'm not sure
> how you justify that a PS2 is (according to NBC) "up to a 1000 times more
> powerful than current consumer pc's" According to the hardware specs
> released by Sony (I'll post it after this) it doesn't appear that the
> system is much more than a low end Alpha... Can someone explain where
> all this "power" is coming from?  Is it the 128 bit cpu? <- in light
> of everything else the system has, it seems a moot point, but maybe I'm
> wrong... Please explain.
>

I had and have a hard time understanding where all this power is coming from.
I hope to find the articles that explained why the PS2+ is so much more 
powerfull than any highend PC.

What i wrote was what i remember after reading the articles.

First point:
There is a difference between the Playstation2 and the Playstation2 plus. The 
PS2+ will come to the market maybe this year or next year. PS2+ will be able 
to run linux and can be used as a normal computer. And the PS2+ includes new 
highly integrated circuits which are much more powerfull than the ones of the 
PS2 as it's out now.

Second Point (as i understood it):
It's the combination of parts. Just like the sum of the parts is more than 
just the sum of the parts. All the components can be 'abused' to form a 'new' 
kind of computer which is massive parallel and highly optimized to the 
particular problem one wishes to solve. All the DSP, vector, matrix and FFT 
computations are what this machine is built for. It can do complex 
computations just like a normal PC can do simple computations. More DMA, more 
single cycle commands, higher bandwitdh, parallel execution and high 
reconfigurability. This are the differences. I hope to deliver the facts and 
numbers soon because this is of course just a very unscientific explanation 
that i gave you for now. But nevertheless this are the point where the PS2+ 
differs from the PC.

I'm quite sure that it will take time to unveil the powers of this machine. 
The first linux ports wont be that fast but should be much faster than a 
highend PC nowadays is.

Really, i was very surprised when diving into the PS2+ specs. I thought, hmmm 
nice but after digging deeper and getting a few more explanations from other 
articles i am sure the PS2+ is the first 'real' computer. With real i mean 
there is no need to upgrade every one or two years to a new PC or buy new 
components because it lacks the functionality or the speed for new 
applications. It's enough power for a longer time inside this machine. And 
it's very, very cheap.

Maybe the best proove for short is that it is not allowed to be sold inside 
japan because 'they' categorize it as a supercomputer. A beowulf is allowed 
in japan but a PS2+ is not.

Markus Lechner