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Subject: Re: Hyper Threading and Chess

Author: Matt Taylor

Date: 10:07:20 12/31/02

Go up one level in this thread


On December 31, 2002 at 08:36:14, Frank Phillips wrote:

>On December 30, 2002 at 23:38:08, Matt Taylor wrote:
>
>>On December 30, 2002 at 22:13:43, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>>
>>>On December 30, 2002 at 19:39:23, Frank Koenig wrote:
>>>
>>>>Two questions.
>>>>
>>>>One) Will Intel's HT technology be able to help chess programs above and beyond
>>>>just allowing one CPU to appear as two?
>>>>
>>>>Second) If you are running XP, will HT require XP Pro instead of XP Home to take
>>>>advantage of it?
>>>>
>>>>Thanks,
>>>>
>>>>Frank
>>>
>>>
>>>I can't answer the last question....  As to the first, you can expect a parallel
>>>searcher to run 20-30% faster using two "virtual cpus" than using one real cpu.
>>>
>>>YMMV depending on the program however, as my numbers are numbers produced only
>>>by Crafty on a 2.8ghz xeon...
>>
>>I can't really answer the last question either, but I will speculate anyway
>>(because it's fun). I checked the license agreement for Windows XP Professional,
>>and it only says that it is licensed for up to 2 processors. It makes no mention
>>of physical/logical processors, so presumably it will run either with SMP or HT.
>
>A licence restricts the configuration of the machine you can run the software on
>that you bought - incredible.

Sort've -- you can get a quad-Xeon system and install Windows XP Professional on
it, but two of your CPUs won't be powered up.

I guess they figure that, if you're running more than two CPUs, you're probably
running a server. Not very common to get more than two CPUs in a workstation or
home computer. It carries a hefty pricetag unless you count HT. :-)

>>I thought Windows XP Home supported 2 processors as well, but I only have 2
>>boxes with Windows (including my work PC) and both run XP Professional.
>>
>>-Matt



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