RSX Reality Synthesizer

The Reality Synthesizer (RSX) is a proprietary graphics processing unit (GPU) developed jointly by Nvidia and Sony for the PlayStation 3 video game console. Based on Nvidia's GeForce 7 series, specifically the 7800 GTX, the RSX utilizes a hybrid design incorporating elements of the G70 and G71 (previously known as NV47) architecture. It features separate vertex and pixel shader pipelines and supports advanced graphics rendering features such as high dynamic range, anti-aliasing, and S3 texture compression, with a theoretical floating-point performance of 192 GFLOPS.

The RSX includes 256 MB of GDDR3 SDRAM, clocked at 650 MHz with an effective transmission rate of 1.3 GHz. It can also access up to 224 MB of the console’s XDR DRAM main memory through the Cell Broadband Engine, the PlayStation 3's CPU, allowing for a combined maximum of 480 MB of usable memory.

While the RSX handles the majority of graphics processing tasks, the Cell processor assists with graphics-related computations, offering a complementary role in rendering workloads.