Author: Keith Ian Price
Date: 01:40:15 11/15/97
Go up one level in this thread
On November 14, 1997 at 22:23:20, Robert Hyatt wrote: >On November 14, 1997 at 21:22:36, Keith Ian Price wrote: > >>On November 14, 1997 at 08:18:06, Robert Hyatt wrote: >> >>>On November 14, 1997 at 01:52:31, Keith Ian Price wrote: >>> >>>>On November 13, 1997 at 12:19:31, Chris Carson wrote: >>>> >>>>>see article: http://www.currents.net/newstoday/97/11/11/news5.html >>>>> >>>>>Interesting article. Lots of power 400 to 700 MHZ, >>>>>Lots of RAM (up to 3 gigabytes). >>>>>128 bit cache (up to 4 megabytes L3) >>>>>64 bit power >>>>>Native Windows NT 5.0, no translation needed. >>>>> >>>>>I hope this puts pressure on Intel!! :) >>>>> >>>>>Looks like 1998 might bring some competition. >>>>> >>>>>Best Regards, >>>>>Chris Carson >>>> >>>>Intel plans to have a 450 Mhz Pentium II by the end of 1998 with a >>>>100Mhz bus and 2MB of 450 MHz L2 cache. With this size and speed of >>>>cache, I think that for computer chess, this Intel machine will easily >>>>outdistance a 600Mhz cheap Alpha, and would be price competitive with >>>>the 600 Mhz Alphas from DEC at that time. Which should be half the price >>>>they are today. Merced--IA64--due in 1999, should reach 1 Ghz by the end >>>>of 2000. This is, of course, still an unknown player. I think they feel >>>>the pressure. >>>> >>>>kp >>> >>> >>>Of course, within the year DEC's 21264 will be out, so comparing with >>>the >>>PII/450 is a poor comparison. How would a PII/450 compare to a 21264 at >>>one gigahertz? >> >>I thought we were talking about cheap Alphas. Not $10,000+ Alphas. With >>price and compatibility taken into consideration, I'd take the PII 450, >>which will be more than half the speed, most likely. Almost doubling >>speed for an additional $5000-8000 is not an option for me. Which is why >>600 Mhz Alphas don't really compare to a $2500 PII-300 today. >> >>kp >> > >Notice that you can go buy a 533 mhz alpha for under 5,000 bucks right >now, >which is about what you'd pay for a good PII/300. I can get a very nice PII-300 for $2499 from Quantex right now, with 8.4 gig 9ms hard drive and 64 MB. The new LX chipset and AGP card are also included with 17-in.monitor. And weren't you talking about the 21264? >And running Crafty, that >533 mhz alpha would be about twice as fast. The 533 Mhz Alpha would definitely not be twice as fast as the PII-300 running anything but Crafty, and I was pretty sure I heard you tell Chris Whittington that it was only 20-25% faster than his PII-300, not twice as fast. >IE the PII/300 is not quite 1.5X faster than the P6/200 due to the poor >L2 cache clock speed. The alpha/500 is 3.1 times faster than the P6/200 >running Crafty. Is this what you told Chris? I thought Bruce said that it was 1.5-1.75 times as fast as the P6-200, running Ferret. >By the time you can buy a PII/450, you will certainly be able to buy an >alpha/600 for the same price-level, and run faster. I think the PII-450 will be faster than the Alpha 600 running most chess programs, probably even Crafty. The 2MB of L2 cache at 450 Mhz is more important than the extra 150 Mhz. If the Alpha is slightly faster (running the one chess program I will be able to compile natively-Crafty), it won't be noticeable, but the software non-compatibility will be. >And it won't be >long, >after the 1ghz alphas come out, that the 750mhz version will be >price-competitive with Intel. And when Merced comes out, the PII-300 will be entry level for $1000 bucks, so what? >And then there are the PPC's which are already faster than the pentium >machines, unfortunately, and getting faster. They will be at 1ghz >before >the alpha apparently... The G3 has a better shot than the Alpha. But it's still a long shot. I'm not an Intel supporter. I've been programming computers since 1968, and the first Intel machine I bought was a 486. I've always been a value-for-money person, and right now, Intel or K6 is it. I'd love it if Digital could come out with a machine that blows the doors off anything else. I used to love the old PDP-11 I had, and I used to run Checkmo, a DECUS program that played horrible chess on a PDP-8, but it was fun to watch. I'll buy whatever I think represents the best value. kp
This page took 0 seconds to execute
Last modified: Thu, 15 Apr 21 08:11:13 -0700
Current Computer Chess Club Forums at Talkchess. This site by Sean Mintz.