>>17277767The Cell is actually scary powerful compared to even the latest Intel Sandy Bridge CPUs. That's more a function of it being a glorified server CPU and the PowerPC architecture. I'm pretty sure the i5-2500 only gets around 80-90 gflops in Linpack.
The RAM allotment on the PS3 is pathetic though. The 512mb shared on the 360 was very up-to-date for a mid-range 2005 desktop. Even though 1gb was common, games were designed around having roughly 512mb free and the low-overhead version of XP that is used in the 360 leaves about that much.
You're right though, Sony is still probably kicking themselves over choosing to use the Cell, taking on the 7800GT at the last second (The Cell was supposed to handle GPU duty though but was too hard to port too), and skimping on RAM. It's a bad piece of hardware.