Author: Vincent Diepeveen
Date: 15:06:28 04/16/01
Hello as this question is seen so much here:
"what hardware must i buy for my chessprogram?"
It's mid april 2001 now and confusion is something i can
understand very well.
Let's first explain what a dual is. A dual is a machine which
has 2 processors. The processor is the engine of the machine.
Most cars have 1 engine, but many ships and
speedboats have 2 engines. 1 engine is of course not so fast
as 2.
Of course one has to USE those dual machines in the right way, that
is: have programs which can work with 2 processors. Programs which can
do that are for example:
Amy
Crafty
Diep
Deep Fritz
Deep Junior
Deep SOS
Deep Shredder
Patzer
and some programs which i hopefully didn't forget. Next months
most likely more programs get parallel too as i'm helping several
now to get it to work and no doubt many who already did the hard job
keep on helping others (lucky) to get their program parallel.
So obviously for the real computerchess freaks who want the latest hardware
getting a dual computer is very interesting.
Let's first take a look to those who don't.
Small budget
If budget is limited then there are several very cheap priced processors
a) K7-duron
b) PIII-celeron
The first is made by AMD the second by intel.
Now with all respect for intel, but the duron completely blows away
for chess the celeron at the same speed. Add to that that durons
run nowadays at high speeds for real small prices, then the choice
between the 2 is very easy IMHO when talking about computerchess.
Harder to chose is between the PIII-cumine and the K7-thunderbird.
Both are very good processors, usually the k7 at the same speed is
slightly faster, and usually the k7 is slightly cheaper.
More interesting for those who want to be real fast is that the P3 only
clocks to 1 Ghz where the K7 clocks to 1.33Ghz.
Medium budget
There are 3 processors on the market which all seem very fast
- P4 at between 1.3 and 1.5 Ghz
- P3 at 1 Ghz
- K7 between 1 and 1.33Ghz (at the time of writing)
Let's deal with the P4 first. To summarize quotes of
some real hardware experts: "intel released it too quick, they
made it smaller to produce it cheaper and thereby created big
bottlenecks for the processor which makes it very slow".
The high price for machines with P4 processors is easy to explain
a) it's newest processor from intel
b) processor is way bigger and size is what you pay for
c) the memory (RDRAM) is very expensive
Now add to that that chessprograms really are demanding a lot from
processors, so if there is a big bottleneck somewhere then especially
at those high speeds it will make a chessprogram a lot slower.
My own program is a horror to run on a P4 processor. From other programmmers
i didn't hear other stories. The average speed of a 1.5Ghz P4 processor
is comparable for chess with a 933Mhz P3 or a 900Mhz K7-thunderbird.
A part of that slow speed is caused by the memory: RDRAM.
Though there are some applications where RDRAM is fast for, chess is
not one of those applications. In chess you never know what happens next,
so the random speed (latency) of memory is important. Especially that is
a bad point of RDRAM.
So the P4 as currently on the market is a real loser processor.
It is a BAD buy for computerchess, apart from that it's also
very expensive.
Left are the P3-cumine and the K7-thunderbird for a medium priced
computer.
If one is chosing between an 1Ghz P3 and a 1Ghz K7 then i couldn't
advice on which one to take. If one however goes for the topmodel K7,
then obviously the k7 is at least 33% faster as the intel, simply
because it runs faster.
Some salesmen might argue that certain processors do not work well for
databases applications which usually are crucial for offices,
which is a big sales trick usually used because they only
sell for a certain manufacturer.
Note that for database applications floating point unit (special part
of a processor which can handle bigger numbers as a few billion also)
is usually very important. K7 is way faster for this.
In short in general the K7 is the big winner when talking about
single cpu machines for office because of its price. Add to that
that most chessprograms are a bit faster on the K7 and the choice is
very clear.
High-end single cpu
For those who really want the fastest system for their K7
adviced is a motherboard not using a VIA-chipset.
Though this doesn't matter for all programs, as soon as a program
starts to dig outside the processor for information (whatever,
could be also other programs running in the background like sound)
then definitely a VIA chipset is delivering that information way slower.
Also interesting is to get a-brand memory and put inside the bios the
timings of the SDRAM from 3-3-3 to 2-2-2. That makes memory 10% faster.
Though a bit faster processor is REALLY mattering more as faster memory.
Dual and multiprocessor programs
For multiprocessor programs seemingly the choice is less obvious. A dual
intel machine is at most dual 1 Ghz, whereas a possible AMD dual would
start at 1.33Ghz.
However at the moment there is no dual AMD board available in the shops.
This long awaited motherboard which in better economic times would boom
the price of AMD stocks/shares when it gets released was delayed for quite
some period of time.
Around november 2000 finally the chipset for this motherboard was released.
Of course as usual in software and hardware world it was delayed bigtime.
Now usually a year later then such a board gets on the market. Obviously
this time they are probably trying to release the motherboard as fast
as possible. Especially now that the K7-thunderbird has no real competition
when talking about speed as it runs 1.33Ghz now and P3 at most 1Ghz.
Latest announcement i heart was that it would be released in june.
Should we wait for that?
Perhaps some want to, but it can be september/oktober also before it is
released. Note that this motherboard is NOT going to get cheap.
Where a dual P3 motherboard is like 200$ now, this AMD dual motherboard (tyan)
will be priced around 1000$ some whisper now.
Still interested in the dual AMD motherboard?
If so perhaps then it's better to wait for the improved version of the P4
to get released (as a real hardware layman i would expect that
to be around januari 2002 when the intel factories can produce
easily at 0.12 technology, whereas most factories now have older machines
that do 'only' 0.18, note the k7 is 0.18 technology) and buy the
dual motherboard announced for it then!
Does a dual 1Ghz P3 beat the fastest AMD 1.33Ghz?
Well for a program which is designed to run on 2 or more processors
i definitely can't imagine a single program which is NOT faster on the dual P3.
Even the cheapest parallel algorithm is beating of course a 1.33Ghz
because if you can use 2 processors of 1 Ghz then that's together 2 Ghz
which is so much more as 1.33 Ghz!!
At tournament level (3 minutes a move or more)
speedup of diep is 1.9 to 2.0 for a dual.
At quicker levels somwhere between 1.8 and 1.9 and at blitz
between 1.5 and 1.8, at bullet i estimate it at 1.2 to 1.5
So that would mean that at bullet usually the 1.33Ghz AMD could be equal
for it.
Now most programs use other algorithms or are slower so they get less
speedup out of 2 processors onboard. Still the vaste majority
gets a speedup in the region between 1.4 to 1.8. That means that a
dual is always beating the fastest AMD!
What is the extra price for a dual and what are extra needs?
The extra needs for a dual is a bit more pricier mainboard which
can have 2 processors and a bit more RAM.
Also a dual can of course ONLY profit from its extra processor if it
runs windows2000. Also install servicepack 1, or directly get a win2000
with sp1 included. It contains thousands of bugfixes which are quite
needed (at least for my system).
Definitely 256mb or more RAM is adviced at the time of writing.
Overclocking
Lots of people might want to tell you that you can easily put your
processor on a higher Mhz as it was tested at in the factory.
Obviously the higher a processor is clocked the less likely it
is going to work for you. A low clocked duron has a higher chance
to get overclocked as a high clocked K7-1.33Ghz for example.
Even if it has 'AXIA' or 'AXHA' as serial on it.
Remember that the manufacturer first tests a processor itself before
putting a sticker on it what speed it runs! Usually they do not
put a sticker on it that it's a 1Ghz K7 when it can do 1.33Ghz easily.
Usually P3-cumine nor K7-thunderbirds overclock very well.
the few people that usually clock their processors successfully
higher really do it in a special way usually using liquid cooling or
water coolers. Most liquid coolers like from kryotech or vapochill
are cooling at around -45 degrees celcius. That's pretty cold, and usually
cooler as your fridge is cooling things. Not to mention its price
and add to that the extra power consumption for an extra fridge.
Add to that that when cooling at such low temperatures that the
sound of the cooler is similar to a fridgesound, which can be a very
annoying sound after some time.
Don't overclock your processor without testing it very well. If you
boot and it says: "i'm running at 1.6 Ghz" or whatever then that
doesn't mean it also WORKS at 1.6 Ghz very well. More errors might
happen, like many bioses just print the speed very easy without the
processor being at such a speed!
To say it in short: don't overclock without knowing EXACTLY what you
do. If you do it then CHECK that it's faster (the processor telling
on the screen that it is clocked faster doesn't say it achieves more,
like i remember my pentiumpro bios claiming it ran 240Mhz once
where it in fact ran at 120Mhz) and also check whether it works
correct by using a program to test it like PRIME95 can do.
Note that most dual mainboards nowadays do not even ALLOW to overclock,
so then this hesitation is not there!
Best regards,
Vincent
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Last modified: Thu, 15 Apr 21 08:11:13 -0700
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