PS3 beats Xbox 360 in console (folding) war
by Justin McElroy 
{ May 5th 2007 at 4:36PM }
Vijay Pande, the man behind the Folding@home project, is the ultimate fanboy. So dedicated is he to the PS3 and PC, that he turns his nose up at the Xbox 360 even if it could help your grandma remember things better. "OMG d00d, so sorry," we imagine he's said at one point, "it's just not l33t enough." OK, so maybe he's not writing off the 360 entirely, but he did tell Pro-G that the 360's processor would be of limited help to his Alzheimer's Disease research project, saying that "the cell processor in the PS3 is much more powerful for our calculations than the CPU in the Xbox 360." Now sure, he's the expert, and we know he's crunched the numbers on how valuable the 360 could be to his important work. But we'd bet some of you would still like to use your 360's limited brain power to solve the world's ills (as long as it doesn't cost any points). How about it Vijay? Can we volunteer our 360 to be the Otis to the PS3's Lex Luthor?
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
TheGrimace @ May 5th 2007 4:43PM
He probably means that it would be more trouble than it was worth in results to program folding for the 360. Why does everyone always jump to the fanboy conclusion?
liqwid @ May 5th 2007 4:46PM
The 360 is made for gaming, and that's what I use it for. If I want to fold, I'll use my computer.
Negativecool @ May 5th 2007 4:55PM
I would piss myself if he later came out and said that he would love to one day harness the power of the Wii's processor.
"Holy JESUS christ! Why didn't someone tell me about this little piggy?! That little bastard could fold faster than superman on laundry day. We need Wii's to fold!!!"
Moe @ May 5th 2007 4:56PM
The 360 would break apart trying to calculate 1+1. You'd get the red rings before it even flips any bits.
letmethinkaboutit @ May 9th 2007 10:14AM
Dang too bad it cant fold textures as good and fast as the 360!
Matt @ May 5th 2007 5:06PM
You know there are version of Folding@Home that run on GPU's, right? GPU's kick ass at floating point calculations. Any standard NVIDIA card would beat out the Cell if it was doing the same type of "specialized" processing that the PS3 client does.
Thus the 360's GPU would beat the PS3, but i don't know how well the PS3 would do if it used it's GPU.
Smoke_Dawg_187 @ May 5th 2007 5:13PM
Moe, you're such a troll. Just like FranktheCrank. You both should be banned.
Martez @ May 5th 2007 5:16PM
If this is like half of the PS3 stories, Folding is going to be announced for 360 in a couple months.
CakeOrDeath @ May 5th 2007 5:18PM
A 360 folding program which actually gave you points for folding would catch up the PS3 in no time. Superior processer or not.
Drools at prospect of folding for points.
sigmagoat @ May 5th 2007 5:35PM
I love my 360 as much as my PS3 before I get accused of fanboyism but there is NO WAY I would leave my 360 on for any great length of time- you have to treat them carefully Ive already had 2 red ring of death incidents. The big difference between the 2 next gen consoles is their engineering. Say what you will about the PS3 but its solid as a rock. It is a beautiful piece of engineering. I cant even take the power lead out of my 360 its just jammed in? The thing sounds like an old vacuum cleaner. And I know its only a small detail but I love the way I can unplug my PS3 and it remembers what time and date it is- the 360 doesn't. You can really tell which console was rushed out. The PS3 is just really solidly reliable and I have no qualms about leaving it on to do the folding stuff- The 360 has to be treated really carefully its such a shonky piece of kit (with great games) I'm not knocking it - everything Ive seen graphically puts them more or less on par with each other- I do believe in the PS3s potential to overtake it in time though when devs get used to its architecture.
SSJRafiel @ May 9th 2007 10:58AM
I don't care about stupid folding trash not nonsense sony will never get it(CELL TRASH)games come first bring the games. They lost there touch. Im about games the 360 is gaming at it's best . Trust me Trolls will become xbots.
Edge of Blade @ May 5th 2007 5:58PM
This whole thing REEKS of payoff and vested interest.
Why would an organization snub a potential source of processing power like this? It's like saying "Thanks PC's for lending us your processing power, but we don't need you any more. Don't let the door hit you on the way out."
Someone here has a vested interest in making the PS3 fanboys crow in irrational exhuberance...just like they have been.
Come on! We 360 supporters want to have clouds of smug pouring out of our pores too.
azz0r @ May 5th 2007 6:13PM
How terribly professional of him.
Something is a miss here, the PC is probably worse at folding than potentially the 360 is, yet he doesn't slam the PC?
What a douche-bag, total fanboy. To think this guy is trying to solve diseases with such a terrible perspective and scewed view on technology.
Moe @ May 5th 2007 6:13PM
@Smoke_Dawg_187: I'm not a troll. I just thought that was funny at the time. Because... you know... the 360 doesn't have the best track record of holding itself up as the most reliable hardware in this generation of consoles.
Noid @ May 5th 2007 6:34PM
Why would you not want the xbox 360s power. Think about it, Xbox has more machines online then any other console. PCs would kill both of them for the amount of machines online. Also I dont beleive that the Cell is as powerful as sony claims it is. I find it really hard to beleive that it is more powerfull then a common pc. When running linix on my 1.5 ghz pc its over 2 times as fast as the ps3 when benchmarked. I just find it hard to beleive that a $600 machine is as powerfull as a $2000 PC. It would be interesting to run linix on the 360 to benchmark it as well.
jsn @ May 5th 2007 6:37PM
Azzor: Exactly... the 360 would be vastly superior compared to a dual core pc. Either he simply doesn't know what he's talking about and is going off numbers he saw but didn't perform and verify himself, or he's got an agenda.
And while people think the ps3's architecture will allow to overtake the 360 "eventually", all those SPU's aren't going to make it push out extra polygons. It will certainly help it with physics, but at the pace developers are using heavy, good real time physics, it will be years before that benefit shows itself.
Michael @ May 5th 2007 7:02PM
@ 5.
Nvidia GPUs ran at about 10-20% of the speed of the same gen ATI cards, due to fewer shaders and not using a unified architecture. The G80 may get a client, but the folding at home team is still in debate about it. The PS3 with it's cell processor is powerful enough to warrant the software development like the ATI GPU was (latest gen). The fact is, nvidia used every shortcut they could to get their 3D numbers up, I don't blame them, they should, ATI is approaching graphics in a pioneering stage right now, which is going to scale with the future.
Nvidia and the Xbox 360 system will not scale to the PS3 and ATI GPU numbers (They are both too slow in this specific area of computation). This isn't fanboydom talking, it's reality. So put down the uneducated fanboy stick before you post next time. ;D
Moe @ May 5th 2007 6:50PM
Actually i really am just a sony troll. I have no life and the even worse part is I have no idea what to do with my ps3 the only things on it worth playing well trust me theres not much. This thing is going to bomb as bad as the psx.
LongshotX @ May 5th 2007 6:55PM
Yeah that's why PS3 GPU is a last gen 7800gtx. That sounds pretty limited when it comes to gaming and then you add the Memory Bottleneck and the fact that floating point calculations don't really mean shit in gaming and the fact that the Xbox 360 is doing what it is supposed to do which is function as a video game system then this Folding@Home bullshit really doesn't mean shit especially considering Folding@Home isn't getting PS3s off of dusty store shelves or folding creativity into good games, which the PS3 barely has. End of Rant.
Ian Von Porter @ May 5th 2007 7:00PM
Heres the freaking quote "the cell processor in the PS3 is much more powerful for our calculations than the CPU in the Xbox 360" ... which is true...
You xBots are taking it out of context; hes not laying any hate on the 360, not saying that PCs suck, or ruling out using 360's to fold.. those are your ideas. Calm the freak down, doods.
konajinx @ May 5th 2007 7:15PM
Screw folding. I bought my 360 to play games. Granted, the PS3 folks don't have any of those, so they should make use of their consoles any way they can, even if it means leaving it turned on 24/7 to collect dust while acting as a lousy heater.
potatobbq @ May 5th 2007 7:20PM
you can all stop crying now... seriously. who cares.
horngreen @ May 5th 2007 7:19PM
Well I didn't pay $400 to let some other fuck get all the glory for curing a horrid illness. Write a grant you useless piece o shit like other "scientist" do. I'm just glad I didn't pay $600 for a game console with no games...Whew! Dodged that bullet! Gotta go my 360 just froze!
syco @ May 5th 2007 7:32PM
I have said this before: The very fact that the Cell is so damn good at folding proteins is indicative of how very incorrect Sony was to choose it for the main chip of a console. Gaming is not an embarrassingly parallel problem, game developers have to work pretty hard to even utilize the 360's 3-cores... Can you imagine what writing a game for the PS3 must entail? Every individual thread running on the 6 different SPU's has to be designed to run independently, until it no longer can, at which point it has to communicate with the other threads for missing data. Making a game parallel enough to actually use the Cell to the point of catching back up to the 360, much less surpassing it (which is, of course, technically feasible) is a software engineering nightmare.
Dan @ May 5th 2007 7:47PM
Who fukking cares how good the 360 would be at folding, I'm too busy playing games on mine...
Now don't get me wrong, I'm going to buy a PS3 as soon as FFXIII comes out, but right now, if folding is the most exciting thing going on in the PS3 space, I'm staying clear.
Digi Smalls @ May 5th 2007 7:54PM
hey Michael, before you imply anyone else is uneducated, you might want to be aware of the fact that ATi is in the 360 and nVidia is in PS3, not the other way around. that's the "reality", as much you'd like it not to be. might wanna change your argument now. fanboy.
.
Dave @ May 5th 2007 8:08PM
Not sure why he'd say something so stupid. Folding's been running on PCs for years... before the average computer was slower than the current 360. Processing power is processing power, isn't it? Why snub any?
I mean, that said, I'd never leave my 360 on over night or even make it crunch anything intense for more than a few hours. It's just not that well built.
aegies @ May 5th 2007 8:43PM
I've heard the 360 fanboy label (or Xbot, I guess) thrown at me more than once, but the doctor is right. The PS3's processor is practically designed for this kind of calculation, and while the 360 wouldn't be a slouch at it, writing the program would take time that I don't think Microsoft would be willing to spend. While they've admitted more than once that in certain regards, the PS3 has a more powerful processor, giving a quantifiable numerical rating for how much better the PS3's processor is in this regard would probably be considered a PR... mistake. Which is disappointing in some regards, given the charitable nature of the program. But Microsoft would be better served building a folding component into Vista.
http://eat-sleep-game.com/news
GWolf @ May 5th 2007 9:50PM
If PS3's cell were such a miracle of modern computing, where are they besides a few university science project systems.
All those extra math co-processors in cell will be largely ignored by developers. Some will sweat blood to try and utilize them and they may go broke doing so.
How many games have been/ will be cancelled or scaled back because of the complexity of using cell? PS3 will effectively have one useful general purpose processor to 360's 3.
I am sure the PS3 is great at some kinds of processing, just not games. Remember it was originally intended for graphics processing.
Watership @ May 5th 2007 10:32PM
360 can be left on with no problems. My friend hasn't turned his 360 off in over 15 days. 360 that break will break. Not every one of them will. FUD.
hahnchen @ May 5th 2007 10:37PM
I can't believe the ignorance and downright asininity in this thread. It's either trolling or Joystiq just has a stupid readership.
Azz0r: Current PC processors are more likely to be more efficient at Folding than the 360 is. There are a crapload of PCs out there compared to the 360. It takes minimal effort from Stanford to adapt the code to x86 architecture processors.
The Folding guys know what they're doing. They have limited resources, they'd rather concentrate their development onto the projects that will give them most long term benefit. Which seems to be GPU folding, and multicore x86 folding.
They're not "shunning" the 360, if Microsoft gave them the resources to create a folding client for the 360, then they'd do it. There's a reason why he's out there conducting protein research on a world beating distributed computing project, and you're not. He knows what he's doing, whereas you, don't.
ONI5 @ May 6th 2007 12:48AM
Not once in this statement has he said that he tried this on the system. His words mean nothing unless he can give 360 users a way to contribute and then showing numerical data.
cmonkey @ May 6th 2007 1:21AM
Actually, there's no foul play, marketing, or bullshit of any kind going on here.
The PowerPC architecture that the 360 cores (and one of the Cell cores) is based on just isn't suited for the type of computing that GROMACS, the protein simulation software that Folding runs on, needs.
This can be seen with the folding stats on pre-Intel Apple computers. I have an old 1.6ghz P4 that puts out far more points per day than my friend's 1.67ghz Powerbook.
Aberu @ May 6th 2007 1:43AM
He has to decide if it would be worth his time working on a version for the 360 that's what this is about, not what yields the most power. In a few more years the two systems will be about equal in console sales, simple as that. The 360 has exponentially less calculations per second on it's main processor, and although you may say he could port over his ATI GPU client of F@H how many 360's can be left on for 30 days (like my PS3) in a row computing this stuff? I STILL haven't turned off my PS3 and it's been like 40-somethin days. I don't know anyone who has been able to leave their 360 on for more than a day. This is about when you aren't using something, you can use it to help out. Well the 360 isn't reliable enough in fact to handle that.
Aberu @ May 6th 2007 1:47AM
@31 The PS3's Cell Processor is PowerPC-based. The only Linux versions you can install for it are PowerPC only Linux's like Fedora Core. Ones that were originally made for turning an OS8-10 system into a Linux machine, before they started using Intel-based processors.
Aberu @ May 6th 2007 2:07AM
@5 Actually there are no F@H clients for Nvidia cards, he hasn't made any since he felt ATI cards were more suited and standardized to handle it. With Nvidia cards each one is so different to him that there wouldn't be as broad an audience due to lack of massive support for cards with the client. The GPU client is only available for 1x series Radeon cards ATM. Research your shit kthx. Also the RSX's only number that is lower than the R600 in the 360 is Vertices available, the RSX graphics chip has it beat on FLOPS and other stats by a decent amount. Go look it up on wikipedia.
@8 You base this on what? Cuz last time I checked the Cell Processor was responsibly for increasing medical imaging computations 50 fold. Last time I checked the PS3's have accounted for more than half the overall calculations ever done with F@H in a few months, whereas PCs have been over the 100,000 cores per day mark for a couple years. Your 360's processor thinks almost exactly the same way as an Intel based chip thinks, and has far less cores, which if utilized correctly, are the main factor in deciding computations per second. Last I checked the PS3 was capable of over 2 trillion calculations per second. No home computer I know of can do that yet. Research plz kthx.
@10 Considering that Sony has never even invested in Third Party development with contracting deals (like Microsoft and Nintendo have) this is a pretty groundless statement.
@16 The reason why the RSX is only a slight upgrade above the 360's specs is these reasons; Unlike the 360 the PS3 uses the cell Processor to process practically EVERYTHING including Physics besides what a graphics processor is solely designed for, polygons, shaders, lightning, textures. Other than those things, all AI, Physics, overlay filters, are processed by the cell processor. The 360 leaves all of those tasks up to the GPU and the processor just frontends the games loading procedures. So in that case the PS3 has more design potential for software engineers by far. But if they want to have it released on both systems, two companies have named/displayed obvious setbacks, due to the older technology of the 360.
The other reason it isn't as powerful per se is because Sony really believes that texture and polygon count aren't everything to making a game next-gen. Obviously interaction, game 3.0, AI, physics, graphic filters, are more important to them, and that's all governed by the Cell Processor. But even then, it's barely behind the 360 on only about 2-3 statistics/ratings of GPU speed.
@27 Everyone offered this same reason for the Genesis (the first contender to do well against Nintendo), PS1 (first console to take first against Nintendo), and the PS2 (best selling console of all time sans Atari 2600). All those times they were supposedly difficult to program on. Obviously the developers that whine about this are lazy and not willing to challenge themselves to harness new technology and power to convey their art. I find them weak, and if that's how they want to be, so be it, GTFO. Go develop games for the Wii and the DS because it's "easy". They won't be missed.
@23 I play my 2 blu-ray dvd's on occassion. Blazing Angels is fun. I have to get through Dragon Quest VIII still, and Resistance is sweet, but the cool part is, when I'm not using it, I'm helping out with the F@H project. It just adds to one more reason to own one. Check my myspace www.myspace.com/aberu and the list of reasons in my About me why I bought a PS3.
Andy @ May 6th 2007 2:10AM
Hmmm, someone on the Sony payroll as a third party developer (think about it, that's what this is) says the 360 is slower than the PS3. Surprising? Hardly. Also these retarded @home projects never accomplish anything. Remember SETI@home? That didn't do s***. This project isn't going to accomplish anything either.
Aberu @ May 6th 2007 2:20AM
Andy: Seti@home is under the impression that there is alien life, which there is no evidence there is even, it's like shooting in the dark. They KNOW that many "incurable" diseases are caused by protein folds of a certain kind, and they know if they could pinpoint it, there is a way to fix it. This actually has an end result, and a certain amount of work units to perform on till completion. That number is still increasing as they supply more WU files to their database from all the different protein straing possibilities in the body, but it's nowhere near the infinitismal scope of radio chatter from the Universe. Don't try to downplay Folding@home by comparing it to something that A}Isn't attempting to cure any horrible diseases and B}Doesn't have any REAL scientific proof backing it up. Your analogy is flawed.
ck @ May 6th 2007 2:21AM
Aberu: I think you're confused. PS3 Linux runs on the PPE. which is a PowerPC controller whose job is to handle the actual Cell SPEs which are where the real horsepower lies. A quick read of Wikipedia would have enlightened you if you cared to check before spouting 'facts'.
As for the fanboys saying the 360 GPU would dust the PS3 CPU, yes, it would. The problem is that GPU folding jobs are *extremely* specialised and not much use to the project on their own. You still need the PCs to be doing their GPUs folding for the general jobs.
The order of things is like this:
PC CPU (slow / general purpose jobs)
PS3 CPU (fast / specialised jobs)
GPU (extremely fast / extremely specialised jobs)
So the PS3 has the middle ground of flexibility and speed which is why I think the Folding team went for it as a client. The 360 doesn't really add anything to the mix as there are already folders out there using their GPUs and the type of jobs they can send their way are quite limited.
Aberu @ May 6th 2007 2:24AM
But the other person trying to state that the PS3 WASN'T PowerPC based in some way, so much that to run an OS on it, the OS has to be equipped for PowerPC and not something else for instance, x86, is pretty obvious that he was wrong. That's all I'm saying, I was actually not being some Sony fanboy or anything, I was saying both the 360 and PS3 at the base of things have the same PowerPC architecture, one is just infinitely better at calculations per second.
ck @ May 6th 2007 2:25AM
Oh OK.
Me = guilty of skimming.
Digi Smalls @ May 6th 2007 2:31AM
aberu,
please name your source where you got that the 360 does physics and AI on the Xenos GPU.
not only do i think you're wrong, i think you're very wrong.
.
wackychan @ May 6th 2007 5:00AM
@9 "you have to treat them carefully Ive already had 2 red ring of death incidents."
I heard if you pull the 360 out of your ass before you turn it on, then it wont overheat. Good luck with your next one. Dont try to suck so bad at being a mediocre lameass next time.
Just_a_guy @ May 6th 2007 5:02AM
I personally beleive that whoever said that not putting folding on the 360 is stupid: the more help the better! Why don't they also put it on the wii so that we can at least have all the help we can get?
Kum0 @ May 6th 2007 5:09AM
You fold at home, while 360 users play GAMES on a Gaming Console! Funny how that works hey?
Hasan @ May 6th 2007 5:44AM
This endorsement would be great for marketing for PS3's edge over 360. Though game developers failed to prove that (pity on you guys), Folding@Home proved it.
And shouldn't Vijay and team be developing/talking with MS about Folding@Home for 360? Userbase of 360 is 3 times more than "ever powerful PS3".
Steve @ May 6th 2007 6:51AM
#43 is right. Holding@home is successful on the PS3 because there is nothing else to do with one of those pieces of crap. And this entire 'folding' thing sounds like nonsense to me anyways....probably doesn't even accomplish anything. It's a scam just like 'carbon credits' for people who feel guily about polluting the environment. What a load.
hahnchen @ May 6th 2007 7:29AM
#42 - Because it takes time/money to create a Folding client which will work on a machine that may not be all that powerful for Folding, and they have invested their resources into streams with richer potential. This has been stated this so many times, but idiots keep on suggesting that because there is no 360 Folding, then it must be useless. Jealousy is such a bad thing.
#35 The guys at Stanford? They're scientists. Their priority is science, not your idiot console war crap.
ck @ May 6th 2007 7:33AM
#45, Steve: You're obviously not a scientist. At the moment I'm going to assume "dullwit" until you prove otherwise.
Sergio @ May 6th 2007 8:08AM
How, exactly, can protein folding make Halo 3 look better on my 360?