Sony's Kaz Hirai says new PS3s use 65nm chips after all, partly

It hasn't exactly been easy to pin down the exact type of chips used in the new 40GB PlayStation 3s, but Sony's Kaz Hirai now appears to have finally put the matter to rest -- at least for now. In an interview with the folks at Impress, he said that the new model does in fact use the swanky new 65nm process for the Cell chip after all, but not for the system's RSX graphics chip, which gets stuck with the same power-hungry 90nm chip as before. Despite that, Hirai says that the new Cell chip alone is enough to "cut the power usage of the system considerably," an amount that had previously been been reported as 120 to 140 watts (down from 200 watts before). In related news, Hirai also confirmed that neither the 20 or 60GB models (with their increased backwards compatibility) are in production at the moment, but he said that "depending on how the market reacts, it's possible for Sony to produce them again."

[Via IGN, thanks um]

[stewis @ Nov 8th 2007 5:17PM]

Its not the power of the console or the amount of games its the size of the CPU that matters now... Does size matter?

[oGMo @ Nov 8th 2007 5:59PM]

According to Insomniac, Size Matters.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000G79XQO/

[Muu @ Nov 8th 2007 5:25PM]

It should be noted that Impress initially ran an article stating that the Xbox value packs released in Japan were NOT the Falcon chips. Unluckily for them, they actually took apart one of them, and uploaded an exposed CPU which proved them to be the same Falcon chips users had found on Halo 360's. Japanese message boards ate this for lunch, and Impress was forced to run a follow-up article in which they finally bothered to use a wattmeter and said, yes, the system does use less power and therefore may be a Falcon chipset.

[chris fredette @ Nov 8th 2007 5:33PM]

Can someone tabulate the Sony lies/misinformation over the last year please? I realize there were many instances but I feel it must be done.

[Fred @ Nov 8th 2007 5:41PM]

I'm officially confused...I remember reading on something about the UK version not having backwards compatibility with PSOne/PS2 games? Is that right? So the new PS3 rolling into shops (as stated in this article) are not backwards compatible? Set me straight, they've lost me.

[Espiox @ Nov 8th 2007 5:47PM]

The UK 60Gb model is compatible with pretty much all PSone and "most" PS2 games. The new 40Gb model is compatible with pretty much all PSone games, but no PS2 games (they took out the graphics chip to reduce costs).

[oGMo @ Nov 8th 2007 6:00PM]

Actually the GPU is probably a lot less "power hungry" than the CPU. People think "PS3 power" is about how many polys the PS3 can push: it isn't. It's about how much data it can process at once. How many objects in the scene it can track at once... with full physics. How many individual AIs it can run. Etc. Power for *gameplay*, not power for *graphics*. (Not that it's a graphical slouch either.)

[umm....hello??? @ Nov 8th 2007 6:22PM]

soo....how are they going to know what the market wants when nobody's buying PS3's anyways??

j/k (I own a 60gig model myself....100%bc FTW!!!!)

My real comment: The overall market is going to
a) be too stupid to realize that the 40gig models aren't backward compatible, or
b) won't care because they already own a PS2

[Andir3.0 @ Nov 8th 2007 6:46PM]

Or they don't care, like me. I bought a 20G cause I wanted to replace the drive and didn't need Wifi or card readers. I have yet to put in any of my old games and play them. I have one of the 2 SKUs with full BC and I've only used it to test the old games to see them work on it. Otherwise, it's been pretty pointless for me. Maybe the EBay value will go up if they decide to totally drop BC.

[yourleftnut @ Nov 8th 2007 6:35PM]

how easy is it to upgrade the hard drive? Is the internet browser any good? I'm considering getting one of these as an internet browser/media player for the family room, rather than a computer. Thanks.

[Andir3.0 @ Nov 8th 2007 6:47PM]

Browser is "ok". Not great. The hard drive can be replaced by taking off a plastic cover on the side, taking out one screw, sliding the tray out and replacing the drive with another SATA Laptop hard drive. It's pretty easy.

[applefool @ Nov 8th 2007 6:38PM]

and...what about the 80 gig version? It rolled at the same time the new 40 was released -- didn't it?

[Nomi @ Nov 8th 2007 7:20PM]

No 80 gigger is older, but id think they should both be 65 nm by now. So now you'll have 80 giggers with both 65 and 90, but the 40 giggers will only be 65nm...

[applefool @ Nov 8th 2007 7:33PM]

Sounds like a mounting SKU and confusion problem to me. Any way to confirm chip size in unit without screw driver in hand? I've got so much stuff consuming massive wattage that I'll take a reduction in consumption wherever it may be had...

[JTM @ Nov 8th 2007 8:47PM]

Buy a tool for measuring power usage.

It's called a kill-a-watt and can be found at newegg.com or amazon.com as well as other retailers I'm sure

[applefool @ Nov 8th 2007 9:49PM]

JTM, cool. I was thinking about somehow riggin my voltmeter into the loop ;-) This looks like a simple and cheap way to 'go hunting'. Ordering tomorrow from newegg... Cheers, mate!

[Galley @ Nov 8th 2007 6:47PM]

60 gigger, FTW!

[Nate the Prophet @ Nov 8th 2007 7:22PM]

The 80GB version is the same as the 60 in every way accept:

20GB more storage
"Motorstorm" game for free
Backwards compatibility with PS2 games is done through emulation (software) not with all the actual chips (hardware). So not all PS2 games will play on the 80GB version


For me--who owns no PS2 games--the 40GB was the obvious choice. And right now you can save $100 on Sony's website if you sign up for their credit card to buy it. So I got my 40GB for only $299 after the rebate!

[MayorMcCheese @ Nov 8th 2007 9:25PM]

Kaz Hirai - talk about a Sony Media Tool.

[James @ Nov 9th 2007 11:50AM]

I always ask, but nobody seems to answer -- is there a good source for a cheap (can be refurb/used) 20GB units? I'm hoping they're near their bottomed-out price, before they start getting rare as people realize they're actually better in most ways than the 40GB units. I've seen a few places online, but nobody has them as cheap as (I think) they used to be at EB.