Author: Matt Taylor
Date: 21:33:06 01/24/03
Go up one level in this thread
On January 24, 2003 at 23:43:19, Mark Young wrote: >On January 24, 2003 at 23:07:16, Robert Hyatt wrote: > >>On January 24, 2003 at 20:14:45, Jason Kasick wrote: >> >>>Found this in a finger note of the best computer on FICS. >>> >>>Anyone that uses a P4 for chess is crazy. A celeron 1GHz beats a P4-1.5GHz >>>\ at chess, AthlonXP 2000+ is equal with a P4-2.8GHz and an AthlonXP 2200+ >>>\ is faster than even a P4-3GHz. It would take a P4-3.9GHz to equal an >>>\ AthlonXP 2400+ running at 2.5GHz. >>> >>> >>>Any validity to this? >> >> >>I tend to say "no". PIV + rdram is not great for chess, for sure. But the >>PIV machines with ddr ram seem to be doing just fine. I have a PIV xeon box >>and I don't see it doing poorly in terms of raw speed. > >I agree. I have owned the latest Intel and AMD chips. I will stay with Intel. >Yes for raw speed in chess AMD is faster, but what does that equate in terms of >elo rating for the AMD chip. The answer is very little. > >I have had much better luck in terms of problems with Intel chips. With AMD >based computers I have always had problems of one kind or another. > >I know if I analyze a position over night or over a month if I choose. The Intel >chip will not crash. I can not say that with confidence with the AMD chips in my >experience. > >I don't know if the AMD chip have stability problems or this is a heating issue >with the AMD chip. After awhile you get sick of it and will pay a bit more for a >computer that will not crash with heavy game use. I heard similar accusations from a coworker of mine, someone who should have known better. I have 3 AMD machines and 2 Intel machines in my apartment. My AMD K6-2 crashes regularly, but I'm pretty sure it's a software problem and not a hardware problem. The others run as long as the power doesn't go out. I also use a dual-AthlonMP system at work. It has never crashed in the several months I've had it. The only times it goes down is when I have to update (yay for Windows). One of the things I have noticed is that DDR SDRAM is frequently DoA. Pooling my experiences with those of others I know, out of some 20+ DIMMs from different stores and of different brands, about half were bad the moment they were installed. This doesn't necessarily mean the BIOS won't catch it either. I ran for 3+ months on a bad DIMM without knowing it. It would crash randomly. (And yes, before you ask, I have always grounded myself before removing the memory module from its anti-static bag.) I have worked with a couple of broken AMD systems. The only reasonable explanation I have after working extensively on one is that the motherboard was substandard. The AMD processors themselves conform better to IA-32 than Intel processors do. (That is, they have fewer errata.) -Matt
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