Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. ( SCEI ) furnish the first detailed stipulation of its next - multiplication PlayStation 3 games console on Tuesday and said it be after to establish the gadget during the first half of 2006 .

Until now , the company has kept details of the simple machine a closely guarded secret but is using this week ’s E3 show in Los Angeles to showcase the console . The PlayStation 3 will contend against Microsoft Corp. ’s novel Xbox 360 , details of which were announce last workweek .

At the heart of the PlayStation 3 prevarication two very herculean processor . One , the chief processor , is a young chip yell Cell that was developed for use in the console by SCEI , its parent company Sony Corp. , Toshiba Corp. and IBM Corp. The chip is based on IBM ’s PowerPC computer architecture and will have seven gist , each running at 3.2GHz , to give the chip a full performance of 218GFlops ( float point operations per secondly ) .

That ’s 35 prison term the performance of the central processor inside the current PlayStation 2 , according to Koichiro Katsurayama , a spokesman for SCEI in Tokyo .

Running alongside the prison cell will be a artwork processor explicate by Nvidia Corp. that is capable of care full eminent - definition ikon and vaunt performance of 1.8TFlops . Together , the two micro chip will give the PlayStation 3 a total system performance of 2TFlops , or about threefold that claimed by Microsoft for the Xbox 360 .

The processors will be backed up by 256 MB of Rambus Inc. ’s XDR ( Extreme Data Rate ) memory prevail at 3.2GHz and 256 Bachelor of Medicine of GDDR3 ( Graphics Double Data Rate 3 ) graphics remembering running at 700MHz . system of rules bandwidth between the processors and memory is as high as 25.6Gbps ( bits per instant ) for main memory and 22.4Gbps for graphics memory .

SCEI has made considerable changes throughout the PlayStation 3 compare to the current PlayStation 2 .

communicating interfaces have been kick upstairs and the PlayStation 3 will include three Ethernet porthole , 802.11b / g wireless LAN and Bluetooth . In gain , there are six USB 2.0 interfaces and card slot for Memory Stick , Secure Digital and Compact Flash ( CF ) memory cards . The console also includes a slot for a obliterable 2.5 - inch hard - disk drive .

SCEI is offer a number of controller choice , admit a Bluetooth - based wireless controller and a wired model that connects to the console table using USB . Users can also utilise a PlayStation Portable as a controller over a wireless LAN .

For gamers , the PlayStation 3 ’s upgrade art will likely be the most authoritative advance . In summation to the extra performance offered by the novel chips , the PlayStation 3 will also be capable of eminent - definition output up to 1,080 dividing line in progressive scan , which is the highest range quality of several signaling types loosely grouped as high - definition signals .

Besides playing games , the cabinet will also reduplicate as a player for mellow - definition movies on Blu - ray Disc . PlayStation 3 games will also follow on Blu - re Disc and the parkway will support almost all flavors of compact disk and DVD media and Super Audio CD .

SCEI did not disclose any details regarding the regional launch agenda or pricing .

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