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Subject: 64-bit machines

Author: Russell Reagan

Date: 21:29:46 02/05/03


A few questions about 64-bit machines...

1. For chess programming (mainly for bitboards), do either AMD or Intel's 64-bit
chips have any features that would make it more desirable over the other? Number
of registers, cache size, special instructions (bsf, popcnt, etc.), or whatever
else.

2. How much will one be able to take advantage of the hardware using a C/C++
compiler and no assembly programming? The reason I ask this question is because
Gerd has mentioned that there will be so many general purpose registers, so many
MMX registers, and so many XMM registers. On 32-bit hardware you have to use
assembly to make use of some of these extras. What about on the 64-bit hardware?
That is a lot of registers (compared to 32-bit x86), and that would seem like an
awful waste if the compilers couldn't make use of all of those extra registers.

3. What is the difference between general purpose registers, MMX registers, and
XMM registers?



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