RUMOR #5: The PlayStation 3's Cell processor will run at a whopping 4.6 gigahertz.
Source: The Microsoft-console-lovin' collective known as Team Xbox.
The official story: Sony reps did not respond to solicitations for comment.
What we heard: Though it didn't cite a source, the Team Xbox article did present an awful lot of detail about the Cell chip. Sound very much like a technical manual, it described the processor as "a multicore chip comprising a 64-bit Power processor core and multiple synergistic processor cores capable of massive floating point processing. Cell is optimized for computation-intensive workloads and broadband rich media applications, including computer entertainment, movies, and other forms of digital content." It went on to break down many features of the chip, including how it simultaneously supports multiple operating systems, its flexible on-chip input/output interface, and its 90-nanometer architecture. While all well and good, all that information was already public, thanks to papers Sony filed last year in preparation for the 2005 IEEE International Solid-State Circuits Conference. What is new is the Cell's speed--4.6 Ghz. That processor speed is a milestone, especially considering that Intel had to abandon its 4GHz chip due to heat issues. According to Team Xbox, representatives from all three companies working on the Cell--Toshiba, IBM, and Sony--will reveal the speed and present the chip in detail at the IEEE ISSCC in San Francisco in February.
Bogus or not bogus?: Almost certainly not bogus--we'll know for sure next month.
