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Sony PlayStation 3 Hardware Overview

The PlayStation 3 is convex on its left side, with the PlayStation logo upright, when vertical (the top side is convex when horizontal), and has a glossy black finish.

The PlayStation 3 uses the Sony, Toshiba, IBM-designed Cell microprocessor as its CPU, which is made up of one 3.2 GHz PowerPC-based "Power Processing Element" (PPE) and eight Synergistic Processing Elements (SPEs). The eighth SPE is disabled to improve chip yields. Only six of the seven SPEs are accessible to developers as the seventh SPE is reserved by the OS. Graphics processing is handled by the NVIDIA RSX 'Reality Synthesizer', which can output resolutions from 480i/576i SD up to 1080p HD. The PlayStation 3 has 256 MB of XDR main memory and 256 MB of GDDR3 video memory for the RSX.

The system has Bluetooth 2.0, gigabit Ethernet, USB 2.0 and HDMI 1.3a built in on all currently shipping models. Wi-Fi networking is also built-in. The system supports up to 7 controllers that are connected via Bluetooth 2.0 technology.

PS3 is the most advanced computer sytem that serves as a platform to enjoy next generation computer entertainment contents in the home, realized through the combination of Cell and RSX™ processors.

Having Giga-bit Ethernet and a pre-installed hard disk drive (HDD) as standard in PS3, users will be able to download a variety of contents as well as access on-line games and services over the network.

Equipped with basic input/output ports, PS3 supports a broad range of displays from conventional NTSC/PAL standard TVs to the latest full HD (1080i/1080p) flat panel displays, offering the joy of the most advanced computer entertainment contents to homes around the world. For use in living rooms, maximum heat and noise reduction has been achieved with a noise level equivalent to that of the current slim-line PlayStation 2.

With the overwhelming computational power of the Cell processor, PS3 is capable of playing back content from Blu-ray (BD) disc at a bit rate of multiplex 48Mbps with ease, the maximum bit rate defined in BD standards.

  
ENLARGE IMAGE
 

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

CPU

   Cell Processor
     
Core:
   PowerPC-base 3.2GHz
     
Vector unit:
   1 VMX per core
     
Cache:
   512KB L2 cache
     
Synergistic Processing Elements:
   7 x SPE @ 3.2GHz
    7 x 128b 128 SIMD GPRs 1
    7 x 256KB SRAM for SPE
    1 of 8 SPEs reserved for redundancy total floating point performance: 218 GFLOPS
     

GRAPHICS

   RSX @ 550MHz
     
Floating Point Performance:
   1.8 TFLOPS
     
HD:
   up to 1080p x 2 channels
     
Shader Pipelines:
   Multi-way programmable parallel floating point
     

SOUND

   Dolby 5.1ch, DTS, LPCM, etc. (Cell-base processing)
     

MEMORY

   System memory
     
Main RAM:
   256MB XDR @ 3.2GHz
     
Video RAM:
   256MB GDDR3 @ 700MHz
     

SYSTEM BANDWDTH

    
     
Main RAM:
   25.6GB/s
     
VRAM:
   22.4GB/s
     
RSX:
   20GB/s (write) + 15GB/s (read)
     
SB:
   2.5GB/s (write) + 2.5GB/s (read)
     
System Floating Point Performance:
   2 TFLOPS
     

STORAGE

   HDD in 80GB, and 160GB
     
Detachable:
   Detachable 2.5” HDD slot x 1
     

I / O

    
     
USB:
   x 2 (USB2.0)
     
Memory Stick:
   standard/Duo, PRO x 1
     
SD:
   standard/mini x 1
     

Communication

    
     
Ethernet:
   (10BASE-T, 100BASE-TX, 1000BASE-T) x3 (input x 1 + output x 2)
     
Wi-Fi:
   IEEE 802.11 b/g
     
Bluetooth:
   Bluetooth 2.0 (EDR)
     

CONTROLLER

    
     
Bluetooth Controllers:
   Up to 7
     
USB2.0
   Wired
     
Wi-Fi
   PSP
     

OUTPUTS

  
     
Screen size
   480i, 480p, 720p, 1080i, 1080p
     
HDMI
   HDMI out x 2
     
Analog
   AV MULTI OUT x 1
     
Digital Audio
   DIGITAL OUT (OPTICAL) x 1