Sony slaps a cooler chip into the PS3

RSX processor may help Sony turn a profit...

Sony is about to make its Playstation 3 a whole lot more attractive for all concerned by bunging an improved RSX graphics chip into the console.

The RSX chip was developed by Sony with help from Nvidia and is based on the NV47 chip, roughly equating to the Geforce 7800 series. Originally punched out on a 90nm fab process, the chip was a window into the current Nvidia Fermi GPUs, being expensive to manufacture and running extremely hot. Sony had to employ an array of cooling techniques to keep the PS3 working, all resulting in rising manufacturing costs.

The chip was respun on a 65nm process in 2008 and finally the "Reality Synthesizer" is now being produced on a 45nm fab process.

This manufacturing maturity will help Sony, which initially lost vast sums of money on each PS3 sold, to finally turn in a profit on the console. The chips will also reduce the cooling requirements of the console which in turn is expected to result in a quieter system.

It isn't uncommon for console manufacturers to incorporate newer fabrication processes in their existing consoles, with Microsoft using the same technique to mitigate its costly "red ring of death" problem in its Xbox consoles.

Sony, however, was desperate to ramp up the fabrication process as fast as possible in a way to reduce manufacturing costs and in turn keep the firm competitive in its gaming hardware price war against Microsoft's Xbox 360.