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Subject: Re: How Good is the Pentium 4 2.2 Gig Processor for Chess?

Author: Matt Taylor

Date: 15:22:53 12/19/02

Go up one level in this thread


On December 19, 2002 at 17:55:47, Robert Hyatt wrote:

>On December 19, 2002 at 16:45:44, Matt Taylor wrote:
>
>>On December 19, 2002 at 11:48:42, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>>
>>>On December 19, 2002 at 05:00:05, Matt Taylor wrote:
>>>
>>>>On December 19, 2002 at 02:57:11, Brandon wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>AMD chips are generally better (mhz per mhz) for chess than Intel chips. I use a
>>>>>dual xeon 2.2 ghz for chess on ICC and I get some pretty crazy nps (I use chess
>>>>>programs that use multiple cpus). Generally speaking, if the machine is going to
>>>>>play chess only and is going to be a single cpu system, I'd stick with AMD..
>>>>>best bang for the buck in this case. However, if you are going to be doing video
>>>>>editing or using "graphic intensive programs", Intel generally is better. If you
>>>>>want to have a multiple cpu system (like a dual cpu system), I would stick with
>>>>>Intel, as they have been in the multiple cpu business for many years while AMD
>>>>>is pretty recent in this area (~1.5 years experience, at the most). I have heard
>>>>>reports of inefficiencies and problems with dual amd configurations, so research
>>>>>it out carefully. www.tomshardware.com is a good place to start... good luck.
>>>>>
>>>>> - Brandon S.
>>>>>
>>>>>P.S. - Programs like Crafty have been compiled by several different sources to
>>>>>provide optimizations for the P4 and the AMD, so that muddies up the whole issue
>>>>>of "which cpu is faster with chess progs" and what not..
>>>>
>>>>Tom's Hardware posts a lot of crap. Half the articles are poor attempts to cover
>>>>up lack of knowledge. When they do make an error, instead of fixing the problem,
>>>>they try to explain to you why it's not an error.
>>>>
>>>>I own an AthlonMP system at home and have one on my desk at work. I haven't seen
>>>>any inefficiencies; they do lack the quad-pumping stuff Intel does. So does the
>>>>P3 Xeon.
>>>>
>>>>Overall quite happy with my system. It doesn't perform as well as high-end P4
>>>>Xeon systems, but it's hard to beat with a pricetag of $1,100 and comparable
>>>>hardware minus SCSI.
>>>>
>>>>-Matt
>>>
>>>
>>>My only comment is that I will _never_ own another IDE-based system.  too slow.
>>>Hogs the bus.  Devices are slow.
>>
>>I have IDE RAID. It's not SCSI, but it's SCSI-like. No more bus hogging, and
>>slow devices aren't as big of an issue. The IDE RAID cost me an extra $300 for
>>the controller and a pair of disks.
>>
>>>My 2.8 is using ultra-320 scsi with 15K drives and it can eat EGTBs like a
>>>gorilla eats bananas...
>>>
>>>SCSI is also a nice way to offload queueing issues as well.  Let the
>>>controller decide which read/write to do next...  Since an operating system
>>>really can't uderstand variable device geometry anyway...
>>
>>Yes, which is why it's nice that my IDE RAID controller functions as a SCSI
>>device. :-)
>>
>>-Matt
>
>
>Now show me your 320mbyte/sec bursts and 15K rpm (2ms latency) rotational
>speeds..  :)

Around 700 MB/sec burst in 8-way. I only have 2-way, so I only get about 120
MB/sec burst. Of course, SCSI RAID hits even higher speeds, and my latency is
still not as nice as SCSI. The latency is mostly due to spindle speed, I think.
I haven't seen any 10k or 15k rpm IDE disks for sale.

-Matt



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