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Subject: Re: OK then, so it seems to me that CPU/Mhz speed is almost ground to a

Author: Anthony Cozzie

Date: 05:38:03 10/26/04

Go up one level in this thread


On October 25, 2004 at 22:55:14, stuart taylor wrote:

>On October 25, 2004 at 18:29:05, Anthony Cozzie wrote:
>
>>On October 25, 2004 at 11:58:31, stuart taylor wrote:
>>
>>>I think it's approaching 4 years now that I got my 1.4 Ghz. AMD computer and
>>>setup, being determined that this time, I'd wait untill speed is tripled before
>>>upgrading again. I was determined that I might even be prepared to wait for over
>>>2 years, this time, and would not give in, until it has tripled, AND is at
>>>reasonable price.
>>>But AMD has not yet even reached 2.8 Ghz. which is double. The 64 bit makes only
>>>a very slight difference. So what great accomplishment have I gained with a new
>>>computer even NOW? (other small things for other small purposses were also
>>>almost sufficient [in my computer of] almost 4 years ago, though, I hadn't been
>>>able to exploit all its uses for personal reasons, of not having my own living
>>>quarters).
>>>
>>>I'm however, aiming at getting the best laptop for chess as soon as possible.
>>>Can someone tell me a) which that is now, and b) which it will be soon?
>>>Thanks!
>>>S.Taylor
>>
>>There are a number of reasons, which you can figure out by reading the various
>>hardware sites on the net.
>>
>>However, don't forget multiple cores/cpus! 4 years ago it would have been almost
>>impossible to buy a dual CPU system, while in another year or two I bet you'll
>>be able to get a 4 core opteron for <3000$, which should be 6x faster than your
>>Athlon 1.4 or so ;)  Of course all good chess programs can use multiple
>>processors ;)
>>
>>anthony
>
>Excuse my ignorance! Do you mean that more than one proccessor (cpu) can be put
>into one computer, and used as a normal singal computer? If so, is that the
>reason why cpu speed has not been increasing so quickly, being there no need for
>it, with this option available???
>S.Taylor

Yes, no, no.

For example, Gothmog on my 2x1.8 opteron is the same speed as Gothmog on a 1x1.8
opteron, because the program isn't parallelized.  Programs that *are* parallel,
however, will be about 1.7-2.0x faster, depending on how well they are written.

The list of parallel programs:

x2 CPUS only:  Baron, Zappa (buggy on >2, but I'm going to fix that ;)

x4 or more: Crafty, Diep, Fritz, Shredder, Junior, Sjeng, SOS

The reason people are turning to multiple cores is that while the number of
transistors available is increasing, the time it takes a signal to cross a chip
is also increasing :)  The Pentium 4 has entire pipeline stages that do nothing
but move data across the chip.  Since the designers have all that real estate
anyway, they might as well plunk down another core or twelve ;)

anthony



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