Author: Adam Oellermann
Date: 09:54:49 06/30/02
Go up one level in this thread
On June 29, 2002 at 10:36:42, Robert Henry Durrett wrote: >On June 29, 2002 at 02:43:02, Adam Oellermann wrote: > >>On June 28, 2002 at 19:29:38, Robert Henry Durrett wrote: >> >>>DEFINITION: Apologetic SPAM: >>> >>>All discussions of spam [a canned version of ham?] and a variety of associated >>>apologies. >>> >>>_ _ _ _ _ _ >>> >>>These fall into a normal distribution where the independent variable is time. >>> >>>Or is it a different statistical distribution? An "abnormal" distribution? >>> >>>Are there any spamish computer chess statisticians here? >>> >>>:) :( :) :( :) :( :) :( :) :( :) :( >>> >>>_ _ _ _ _ _ >>> >>> >>>Bob D. >>> >>> >>>P.S. Back on the topic of computer chess: >>> >>>I am curious. What is the next step up from a PC for chess engines? >>> >>>Are we talking $15,000? $30,000? Or what? Surely not a super computer! >>> >>>How much chess for the buck? Is the PC the ultimate? >> >>Not even close. There was a brief discussion here about an IBM system running >>dual Power4s for about $15000 which would, judgine from benchmarks, have a >>significant advantage over PCs. Another $11000-odd allows you to upgrade it to 8 >>Power4 CPUs; together with plenty of cache and lots of RAM, this would leave a >>PC without chances. Of course, you can keep going if you have money - there are >>32-way versions etc... and if you have *real* money, you could start thinking >>about supercomputers, but would probably have to develop a "special" chess >>engine to take full advantage. > >I want to see some dollar figures here. As soon as I get rich, I plan to >purchase one. > >Bob D. Those were dollar figures for the entry-level p690 machines, which run AIX (probably Linux as well within 6 months). Once you're rich, I'm sure your friendly IBM salesman would be happy to talk you through some of the bigger boxes :) However, it may be just as well if you're not planning on getting rich soon. Competition from the lower end of the market (ie fast 32-bit Intel/AMD stuff) and imminent, serious competition from the likes of Itanium and Opteron is forcing the IBMs and the Suns of the world to do some serious engineering. Expect prices to fall on multiple-core-per-die architectures with silly amounts of on-die cache. I think the next few years will be interesting, especially if your spare room has industrial-strength airconditioning and raised tiles!
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