Author: Roy Brunjes
Date: 12:23:50 11/06/00
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On November 06, 2000 at 14:57:05, Garry Evans wrote: > > > Comparately speaking, Is an Athlon 550 decent hardware to run chess programs? This is kind of like asking "how long is a piece of string"? Fast enough to do what? Beat you 95 times out of 100? That depends on how strong a player you are. If you are not a titled player (NM, FM, IM, GM) then I would say Yes, providing you run a commercial program. Even some freeware (Crafty comes to mind) will most likely thrash you on that hardware 95 out of 100 times (perhaps even more than 95% of the time). Or did you not want to play the computer but rather use it for other purposes such as Analysis of GM/IM games, playing your favorite program vs other programs on the Internet (or in your home if you have 2 PCs)? ... the list is rather varied. If you want to challenge other computers on the Internet, then speed is your biggest asset (and perhaps Gambit Tiger ;^) There are folks out there running 1.2 Ghz machines that will out perform your 550 MHz by a good bit. Does that mean your program won't have a chance? Not necessarily so. If you were running on a Pentium at 90 MHz vs 1.2 Ghz, then I would say your program would suffer miserably vs such mammoth hardware. But at 550 MHz you are likely to be at a 2:1 disadvantage and that is worth somewhere between 30 and 75 ELO points depending on who's opinion you believe and what program you are running. I myself use a 500 MHz laptop to analyse GM games. Is the analysis perfect? Of course not, that is not possible today (if ever). Does the program show me why move xyz is not as good as the move played by a GM? Very often, yes, the answer is clearly displayed in under a minute (usually). Sometimes, the program has *no clue* as to why your suggested alternative move is good (or not good) and then you shrug and make a note of it so you can later post here to ask the collection of very bright people that frequent this bulletin board. Have I answered your question? Probably not! Have I helped you at all? I hope so, Roy
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