The Four PS3 SKUs

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The Four PS3 SKUs

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The Four PS3 SKUs - Nov.-23th-2007 17:31:35

RuJoshin

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Joined: Mar.-23th-2007
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Joystiq Posted Up A Nice Guide To Help Discern Which PS3 Is Right For You.
And I thought it would be nice to have the INFO at the ready on the Forums.

We'd love to say picking up PlayStation 3 is as easy as going to the store and grabbing the first box with the console's name on it. For better and worse, this generation of consoles gives consumers many choices at the (potential) expense of causing confusion at the store.

So it's with this in mind that we present you this handy guide for discerning the difference between the various PlayStation 3 versions (aka SKUs) out there. Please note that the red and green coloring is not only festive decor for the holiday season but also a subjective highlight of what each version excels in (or subsequently lacks).

Notes:

* This model is discontinued. The price on the chart represents the listed price before Sony axed it.
** See explanation in F.A.Q. below.

Let's say I plan to buy a used PlayStation 3 without a box, how can I tell how big the hard drive is?

Unfortunately, you'll have to take the word of whoever is selling you the system. If it's GameStop or some other local used game retailer, chances are they'll let you boot it up in the store to check the listed drive space. Remember, though, that the HDD is easily upgradeable, so you may want to go ahead and buy a 2.5-inch drive and install it yourself.

How do I go about replacing the disk drive in my PS3?
There's a great tutorial, with pictures, right here.

Why do some systems have full backwards compatibility, some partial, and some no compatibility with PlayStation 2 titles?

You can find a more thorough explanation here, but the gist is internal hardware: the initial PlayStation 3 consoles (20GB and 60GB) shipped with the core PS2 components -- the CPU and GPU -- and as such functioned as a PS2 for emulation. Hence, full backwards compatibility.

The 80GB model (and 60GB model for PAL territories) did not include the PS2 CPU and instead had written software that relegated the Cell processor to handle CPU duties. (The GPU remained within the system.) The process isn't perfect and there are hiccups, but it does play most PS2 games.

The 40GB model eschews the PS2 hardware entirely but does not include software for emulating the GPU. Therefore, no PS2 compatibility whatsoever.

What about PlayStation One games?

PS One games are backwards compatible on all versions.

How can I determine that backwards compatibility on a used, unboxed system?
The 20GB model doesn't have the chrome trim (and also lacks a flash card reader), so you can be guaranteed backwards compatibility with that one. On the other end of the spectrum, the 40GB only has 2 USB 2.0 ports, so you can tell which model has no PS2 backwards compatibility.

PlayStation 3 Specifications and Details Product name: PLAYSTATION 3
CPU: Cell Processor

PowerPC-base Core @3.2GHz
1 VMX vector unit per core
512KB L2 cache
7 x SPE @3.2GHz
7 x 128b 128 SIMD GPRs
7 x 256KB SRAM for SPE
* 1 of 8 SPEs reserved for redundancy total floating point performance: 218 GFLOPS

GPU: RSX @550MHz

1.8 TFLOPS floating point performance
Full HD (up to 1080p) x 2 channels
Multi-way programmable parallel floating point shader pipelines

Sound: Dolby 5.1ch, DTS, LPCM, etc. (Cell-base processing)
Memory:

256MB XDR Main RAM @3.2GHz
256MB GDDR3 VRAM @700MHz

System Bandwidth:

Main RAM: 25.6GB/s
VRAM: 22.4GB/s
RSX: 20GB/s (write) + 15GB/s (read)
SB: 2.5GB/s (write) + 2.5GB/s (read)

System Floating Point Performance: 2 TFLOPS
Storage:

HDD
Detachable 2.5” HDD slot x 1
Communication: Ethernet (10BASE-T, 100BASE-TX, 1000BASE-T) x3 (input x 1 + output x 2)
Wi-Fi: IEEE 802.11 b/g
Bluetooth: Bluetooth 2.0 (EDR)
Controller:
Bluetooth (up to 7)
USB2.0 (wired)
Wi-Fi (PSP®)
Network (over IP)