NickMali

The only channel I lament not having on Dish Network is TWC. All the others are either carried by Dish or I don't care about.

"Oh, and for anyone in the know, like NickMali (for example), I'd love to know what we can expect, and as such I'd also love to hear your thoughts on what I just mentioned."

It seems to me that they are just making it cheaper. This doesn't mean less quality just cutting corners slightly. They probably shaved a good $10-$20 off the cost to offset the inclusion of the upgraded scalar chip and the hdmi connector. It most likely costs around the same as the premium board.

Things like these don't usually change power consumption on a grand scale. Scince the cpu and gpu are the same I'd gather that the power consumption would only be a watt or two different. Though this sets them up for a good price cut once the 65nm tapes out and enters production.

my notes on the new board:

gaurantee it is not 65nm... the die of the cpu would be smaller.

A thing to note about the coils: there are less turns which means that the current passing through the coils is greater...

Also three mosfets are missing on the new board, noted on the right side. This means they chose to use a three phase power supply instead of a four phase, Note three per coil. Generally, the more phases the less ripple/noise for the power output.

The capacitors are all different, all skinnier now; note that this probably means they went with a higher voltage rating or less farads.

The amount of surface mount caps next to the cpu has increased. This is most likely from the switch from 4 phase power to 3 phase power.

Generally looks like they are cutting costs across the board ;) pun intended.

Oh and the epoxy to prevent board warping is painfully hillarious!!!!

We need to call the spe what they are, self contained vectorized processors. They have tremendous ability to accelerate any algorithm. If a task for background downloading is put into the queue by the PPE the first availible spe will procees it. Or you could assign a SPE an autonomous micro OS where it would be able to execute its own background downloading. The ability of the chip is there. It is up to Sony's devestatingly slow coders to put it to good0 use.

Posted at 2:31PM on Dec 7th 2006 by Rask "Torched - You misunderstand me. This wasn't a dig on the HDD. It was a dig on Blu-Ray."
You comment seems to contradict itself if the HDD install save time. I would rather have a HDD cache the data like a PC does. The time I save in loading screens will overcome the time I spend installing files to the HDD. Besides, we would not be wasting our time discussing wasting time if the X360 fanbois didn't just taste a mouthful of shoe.

Posted at 9:28AM on Dec 7th 2006 by Gamer G "Its funny because it was not a problem for Sony to have multi discs in the past was it?"
Yes It was a problem then and it will be a problem in the coming years with X360. It doesn't change the fact that all the ~27GB of data would have fit on a DL HDDVD.
"if Sony had thought of that they could have saved them and their customers a fortune!"
If microsoft would have included HD DVD they could have stomped bluray and sony in one small step.

Don't pretend for a second that had microsoft included HD DVD and sony went with DVD you would be all over sony for having to disk swap. Don't pretend that its not inconveinient to have three different disks for a game.

Posted at 1:00PM on Dec 7th 2006 by Rask "I bet you it takes less time to get up and swap a disk twice in a 40-60 hour game than it takes to dump a huge section of the game to the HDD because of that extremely slow Blu-Ray drive."
Oh yeah, THAT inconveinient HDD that was included in my PS3. Gosh, I hate that thing.

Wow... Three disks for Blue Dragon. I thought DL DVD's were enough for this generation.

Its funny how companies like nVidia and ATI can sell $500 to $600 video cards for gaming yet no one lambastes them for the prices. Then to add insult to injury they suggest not only buying two cards but now three of the same cards to improve your gaming experience. If they want me to upgrade my 9800pro they need to start offering high-end video cards at a more compelling price. Freaking 1500 to 1800 dollars for physics enhanced high definition gaming. Sounds like the PS3 to me.

I have to agree with #49 the amount of energy wasted in low product life cycles probably wastes more energy. For things like silicon chips the transition from a low to a high voltage is taxing. I too have had my launch ps2 on standby for nearly the life of the console and only had to repair it when the tray busted from pulling it off the shelf while playing it.

I think ultimately it is the corporations faults for assuming the device will be plugged in all the time. Also low tech homes with unintelligent power. I think most "non-critical" devices should have a intelligent power management like PFC built into the power supplies and also adding devices like the cmos switches to enable lower power standby. New chips like the FPF2501 just are hitting the market and should beable to remedy this if manufacturers design for lowpower.

Great "novelty" charts. I think that coming to the conclusion that the PS3 will fail from a launch price comparison is rediculous, and frankly, unscientific.
Lets take a look at basic console economics. As someone has said before "content is King" Most, if not all, console manufacturers sell consoles at an initial loss then make up the initial loss by the sales of games and perephrials. By time the middle of a consoles life rolls around, the cost of manufacture has typically receeded enough to turn a small profit on the main hardware and even more on the software and perephrials. Of course there are always exceptions to these rules.
Now, let's tie this all together. The success of any next-gen console is the same as the last gen: Content. Look at the inflation graph again and look at the sucessful(as in what we are talking about: content) consoles: Atari SMS NES S-Genesis SNES PSX PS2 XBOX All these consoles had amazing content for their time. And relatively speaking they were all sucessful regardless of price.
Now lets take another look at the reasons for sucess in our modern market: Value added features. If you think that Sony is the only one who stuck a golden salt shaker in with your lunch then you are gravely mistaken. Any one who has studied marketing should know that the more value a product "seems" to have, the more likely it is to be sucessful. What reason would you have to buy a console from nintendo, sony, or microsoft if all the features were the same. If system X looks like it can do more than system Y, Joe consumer will pick X over Y. A good example is the guy who said "Yawn...I'm glad I can afford the best. That's why I'm buying a PS3." A very uninformed decision. However think of how many "joe's" there are out there that think like this or might no even know the "value" of the competitors. Lets look at it like this:

3 consumers walk ito a convenience store.
consumer1: Hmm 3 brands of cola soda. Coke, Pepsi, or brand X. I think I'll get a coke because all the commercials tell me to. An plus, I might win a sweepstakes.
consumer2: Oh wow, They have my favorite, Pepsi.
Consumer3: Hmm, brand X is new. Let me look at that bottle. OMG it has twice the caffine and some extract that will make my wang produce more wii.

All consumers got a bottle of cola. And yet all consumers were satisfied with the value they got.

In the end, all consumers who buy a console, be it sony, microsoft or nintendo will get a game machine that satisfies their own needs. And they will make that decision based on factors other than price.