Author: Mark Young
Date: 20:24:31 09/30/98
Go up one level in this thread
On September 30, 1998 at 15:27:36, Amir Ban wrote: >On September 30, 1998 at 05:36:03, Alessio Iacovoni wrote: > >>I have Fritz 16 bit and Hiarcs 16 bit. There is a great fuss around the 32 bit >>version and the wonders it will offer. Now.. since it will not be compatible to >>Hiarcs 16 engine I will not *ever* buy it... But the question I wanted to ask >>the list is of a more general sort: these engines (Crafty, Fritz, the so called >>"fast" ones but also the more positiona ones) rely heavily on the hardware >>supported.. so in terms of playing strength, is it worthwile to buy a new engine >>that is say 50 points stronger than the preceeding one? couldn't the same >>strength improvement be achieved with a hardare upgrade that would have the >>added bonus of raising the performace of windows and other programs as well. >> >>So the question is: why bother and buy the latest engine when the one you >>already have could be just as strong with some minor harware improvements (say >>+16 or +32meg of memory to increase hash tables). >> >>Also I have a doubt? Is the overall elo increase of SSDF lists due to better >>hardare adopted in testing or to just software improvements? What's your >>opinion? > >First, it's not true that you can get big engine strength improvements (of about >50 points as you say) from minor hardware enhancement. Contrary to what you may >have heard, doubling of hash memory will give you 2-3 points improvement, and >that may be optimistic already. > Now if only this fact can sink in to the hash hungry crowd. >To get a 50 point improvement, you need doubling of CPU, roughly. The technology >advance for this happens, on average, once in 18 months, and costs $500-$1000 >for the upgrade. Software costs much less, and if it's available right now, >what's the point of waiting for hardware to improve ? > >My estimate is that roughly half of the strength improvement of the top programs >is due to software, and half to hardware. > >Amir
This page took 0 seconds to execute
Last modified: Thu, 15 Apr 21 08:11:13 -0700
Current Computer Chess Club Forums at Talkchess. This site by Sean Mintz.