Author: Matt Taylor
Date: 14:35:44 12/21/02
Go up one level in this thread
On December 21, 2002 at 14:36:26, Bob Durrett wrote: >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. I don't think it will reduce latency; it will probably compete with the bandwidth of RDRAM. I haven't read up on it, but if you have a lot of time, I believe JEDEC has all the specs are published online. I personally wouldn't wait for DDR-II, particularly if you plan to buy around February to March. However, there is also no guarantee Clawhammer will be available by that time, either. AMD lists them for 1H '03, but they could still make schedule and release at the end of May. AMD could even push their release back. I must diverge for a moment and make a clarification. AMD has two lines of the K8: Clawhammer and Opteron. The Clawhammer is the single-CPU version, and the Opteron is their codename for the server/workstation multi-CPU version. Back in July, everything I read pointed to a Clawhammer release in January followed by Opteron around April, but I'm pretty sure they're now looking to release both around April. Originally Clawhammer would co-release with the last version of the 32-bit Athlon codenamed Barton. I'm speculating that AMD delayed Clawhammer to make releasing Barton worthwhile. After all, who is going to buy Barton chips when you can get a Clawhammer for roughly the same price? The only people who would buy a Barton would be people upgrading existing systems. The bulk of sales are always new PCs. -Matt
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