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Subject: Re: What's the latest Athlon for Chess?

Author: Bob Durrett

Date: 11:36:26 12/21/02

Go up one level in this thread


On December 21, 2002 at 12:27:24, Matt Taylor wrote:

>On December 21, 2002 at 10:18:30, Bob Durrett wrote:
>
>>On December 21, 2002 at 01:17:52, Matt Taylor wrote:
>>
>>>On December 20, 2002 at 15:59:23, Bob Durrett wrote:
>>>
>>>>
>>>>I guess everybody is agreed that Athlon is the "choice of chess champions," so
>>>>to speak.  I guess I'll have to buy one next month, or maybe February.
>>>>
>>>>Is the AthlonXP 2.52 GHz the latest?  I suppose not.  What is, or will be by
>>>>February 2003?  Who sells it?  Compaq?  Dell?  IBM?  Hormel?
>>>>
>>>>Better yet, if someone would care to provide all the procurement specs, I'll buy
>>>>one for everybody.   [Just kidding.]
>>>>
>>>>Bob D.
>>>
>>>In March, the latest will be the AMD Clawhammer/Opteron (I hope!) which will be
>>>sold under the name "Athlon64." This is the K8, the next generation.
>>>
>>>Another point which seems agreed on by most people here is that chess programs
>>>are hurt by latency (because of hashing). The K8 sports a lower memory latency.
>>>For this reason, AMD estimates it will be 25% faster than current Athlons in
>>>32-bit code clock-for-clock. Since the K8 should be releasing at a clockrate
>>>on-par with the current Athlons... :-)
>>>
>>>-Matt
>>
>>Now THAT was a good answer!  Gets right to the point!  Super.
>>
>>I will wait for the Athlon64 and then become a "happy camper" when it arrives.
>>
>>Presumably, there is only one kind of RAM available for the Athlon64?  If not,
>>which best for chess?  Any other suggestions?
>>
>>Thanks a bunch.
>>
>>Bob D.
>
>All the discussion I've heard seems to indicate that DDR SDRAM is best for
>Chess. Conveniently, that's all the K8 will likely accept.
>
>One interesting point here is that, in previous generations of chips, the type
>of ram a board could accept was based almost exclusively on your chipset. In the
>transition period between SDRAM and DDR SDRAM, several co.'s released chipsets
>that could accept both. The K8 moves the northbridge on-die. That means the ram
>it will accept is based exclusively on the chip itself.
>
>AMD is committed to DDR SDRAM, so we probably won't see any RDRAM K8 chips. The
>initial launch will support pc2700 DDR. Sometime next summer, DDR-II will start
>appearing, and AMD has plans for a K8 that accepts DDR-II at that time. (DDR-II
>is faster and completely backward compatible AFAIK.)
>
>-Matt

I should wait till next Summer?  I could, I guess.  : (

How much difference do you think DDR-II will make over DDR SDRAM for chess
engines?  Any idea on that?  Latency predictions = ?  [Bandwidth mean anything
here?]

Bob D.



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