18th May 2005, 3:58 PM
Compatability or no compatability, CPUs are designed to handle math. Inherently, all the spreadsheet functions, databases, equations, etc are software written functions that call up the mathematical functions in the CPU, so it boils down to math logic circuits within a CPU.
ALL programs are going to use calculations, and games much more than anything else for the average user. CPUs are designed with software in mind, but CPUs are not designed for specific software. I can agree that you can probably streamline that design process a bit more for consoles because you basically have no software in mind, BUT the amount of circuitry and complexity of design to acheive X speed is going to be comparable in a PC processing X mips vs a console CPU doing the same X number of mips. Hence, if you're going to acheive that, you're making a CPU that is equally as expensive to manufacture as its PC equivalent. The same goes for the graphics processor, especially since these cards are packing some serious shit.
Regarding the RAM, Windows doesn't swallow up most of your RAM, but besides the point really. Even with a GB of RAM, Windows can max out a basal rate of about 500 MB usage for good performance. Even then RAM isn't the most expensive part of the package either in comparison to other components like the video system and the CPU on these systems. RAM isn't a big deal on the console since you're not running a basic set of instructions for the OS as you said above.
ALL programs are going to use calculations, and games much more than anything else for the average user. CPUs are designed with software in mind, but CPUs are not designed for specific software. I can agree that you can probably streamline that design process a bit more for consoles because you basically have no software in mind, BUT the amount of circuitry and complexity of design to acheive X speed is going to be comparable in a PC processing X mips vs a console CPU doing the same X number of mips. Hence, if you're going to acheive that, you're making a CPU that is equally as expensive to manufacture as its PC equivalent. The same goes for the graphics processor, especially since these cards are packing some serious shit.
Regarding the RAM, Windows doesn't swallow up most of your RAM, but besides the point really. Even with a GB of RAM, Windows can max out a basal rate of about 500 MB usage for good performance. Even then RAM isn't the most expensive part of the package either in comparison to other components like the video system and the CPU on these systems. RAM isn't a big deal on the console since you're not running a basic set of instructions for the OS as you said above.