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Subject: Re: Apple's G3-300MHz chip v.s. Pentium II 400. Integer scores interpreted

Author: Richard A. Fowell (fowell@netcom.com)

Date: 00:21:26 06/01/98

Go up one level in this thread


On May 30, 1998 at 21:00:37, Oliver Y. wrote:

>Just read the latest Byte magazine which mentioned ByteInteger scores
>for the G3 chip as 9.8/292MHz v.s. about 5.4? for the PII-400, approx...
>

The light dawns ... that's why the company that bought Byte shut Byte
down!
( Mac-owner paranoia? Or the solution to a mystery? )

>Questions:
>1.  Why is the difference in scores not reflected in the SpecInteger
>measurement (12.? v.s. 11.?); and which is more relevant to the strength
>of Hiarcs6?

Actually, the HIARCS 6.0 benchmarks I have
(details at http://www.gambitsoft.com/chess/games/hiar6me.htm)
 give "only" a 1.56 factor speedup from PII to G3 at the same MHz)
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Mac G3  /266  266MHz 750    39,934 nps   150 nps/MHz Sys 8, no
extensions
Pent II /266  266MHz PII    25,604 nps    96 nps/MHz

>
>2.  How did the developers port Hiarcs to the Mac?  Did they do a
>thorough job, with the foresight to consider the issue in the following
>question?

Hmmm ... the fellow that did the port used to watch this group
occasionally,
but since he parted ways with the HIARCS team, I don't know if you'll
get a solid answer on this.

>
>3.  How much is the performance of Hiarcs affected by the size of the
>backside cache? as well as the speed?

Well, I have a good benchmark if some HIARCS Mac owner has the
hardware and the inclination.

>
>4.  I understand that the harddrive is not accessed much, but how
>important is the system bus speed?
>
>5.  Any other considerations re whether the G3 Desktop system's design
>makes it a reasonable choice for those who just want to surf and
>analyse?
>
>I already know that FP doesn't matter for chess analysis...
>I don't know much about computers.
>Why does the SSDF not rate the H6 on a Mac?

At last - an easy question!
The SSDF members mainly have PCs, and use Auto232.
No-one has made a Mac clone of Auto232 that I know of.
Even did they, the hardware issue means the SSDF, with
their limited resources, would likely be reluctant to
rate it. It's really not necessary, anyway - absent the
fact that the Mac version has a fixed hash table size of 256K,
the engines are identical, and my ca. 30-problem benchmark
shows that the chess speed differential between two hardware
platforms doesn't vary much for HIARCS.

>
>6. Any guess as to what Hiarcs 6 could be rated at if the Byte score is
>correctly construed to effectively be analogous to a "1050MHz PentiumII?
>Approx...

Well, this would take a recompile of HIARCS, alas.
*IF* the smaller HIARCS Mac hash size is not an issue,
my benchmark indicates the 300MHz G3 is "only" a "467MHz Pentium II".

>
>Any comment would be helpful.  The iMac debuts in August, and though it
>has some limitations, it could possibly be a nice unit to analyse with
>Hiarcs, or any other Mac software...

If reminded, I could probably stop by the local Mac sales office and
add it to my HIARCS 6.0 Mac benchmark stats.





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