Straight from Sony's press conference here at E3 comes the big news we've all been waiting for...PlayStation 3 is real, baby. The first word: The name of the next Sony super system is definitely PS3 or PlayStation 3. Nothing fancy or surprising there. And, at least Sony didn't go with PlayStation 361 to outdo Microsoft.

Full Hardware Specifications

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<>

System Floating Point Performance

• 2 TFLOPS
  

Storage

• Detachable 2.5" HDD slot x 1
  

I/O

• USB Front x 4, Rear x 2 (USB2.0)
• Memory Stick standard/Duo, PRO x 1
• SD standard/mini x 1
• CompactFlash (Type I, II) x 1
  

Communication

• Ethernet (10BASE-T, 100BASE-TX, 1000BASE-T) x 3 (input x 1 + output x 2)
• Wi-Fi IEEE 802.11 b/g
• Bluetooth 2.0 (EDR)
  

Controller

• Bluetooth (up to 7)
• USB 2.0 (wired)
• Wi-Fi (PSP)
• Network (over IP)
  

AV Output

• Screen size: 480i, 480p, 720p, 1080i, 1080p
• HDMI: HDMI out x 2
• Analog: AV MULTI OUT x 1
• Digital audio: DIGITAL OUT (OPTICAL) x 1
  

Disc Media

• CD PlayStation CD-ROM, PlayStation 2 CD-ROM, CD-DA, CD-DA (ROM), CD-R, CD-RW, SACD, SACD Hybrid (CD layer), SACD HD, DualDisc, DualDisc (audio side), DualDisc (DVD side)
• DVD: PlayStation 2 DVD-ROM, PlayStation 3 DVD-ROM, DVD-Video, DVD-ROM, DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD+R, DVD+RW
• Blu-ray Disc: PlayStation 3 BD-ROM, BD-Video, BD-ROM, BD-R, BD-RE
  

PlayStation 3 Release Date

Sony has announced the PayStation 3 in a big damn way. The latest news is that the system will ship in 2006, with no chance of wacky 2005 surprises.

Unfortunately, Sony has not pinned down a month or quarter in which the system will launch, but Microsoft's Bill Gates recently said that he will launch the Xbox 360 version of Halo 3 to combat the PS3 launch, which he indicated could be as early as the Spring of 2006.

Source : IGN PS3