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Subject: Re: multi-processor hardware question

Author: Robert Hyatt

Date: 08:44:02 06/03/03

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On June 02, 2003 at 09:39:27, Aaron Gordon wrote:

>On June 02, 2003 at 00:34:31, Pavel Blokhine wrote:
>
>>On June 01, 2003 at 20:39:29, Aaron Gordon wrote:
>>
>>>On June 01, 2003 at 17:35:51, margolies,marc wrote:
>>>
>>>>hi all.
>>>>as there are so many good deep engines out now...
>>>>i am serioulsy considering assembling a dual processor setup for chess
>>>>background analysis (on a home lan) and playing (competitively?)
>>>>
>>>>What I need from you guys are mobo recommendations uopn which to build a system.
>>>>i have heard some of you write about an "iwill" brand board.
>>>>of course I know the specs of the tyan and aopen boards already.
>>>>Does someone here know if there are any opteron boards floating in the market
>>>>place yet? ( or is this maximum overkill?)
>>>>
>>>>So, I'd appreciate any knowledge mainboard archeitecture recommendations.
>>>>thanks- marc
>>>
>>>I'm not sure about motherboards now days for Athlon systems.. the iWill MPX2 was
>>>the best one IMO. Now they don't make it any more, which is a shame because it
>>>was awesome. About processors... I can take special Athlon XP 1700+ chips
>>>(latest core) and modify them physically to run 2266MHz (2800+ is 2250MHz) on a
>>>regular 133fsb motherboard and they'll run in SMP.
>>>
>>>There are no catches, you just pop in the processor and the motherboard will
>>>detect it as an Athlon MP 2800+. You don't have to do anything special. The good
>>>thing is they're extremely cheap AND faster than a dual Xeon 3.06. An added
>>>bonus is you can pick up a dual Athlon board and two of these modified 2800+ MP
>>>chips for less than the price of a single 3.06GHz Xeon.
>>>
>>>All chips will be fully tested to be completely stable. It's not really
>>>necessary on the latst cores because all AMD is doing is dropping ~2.4GHz cores
>>>onto an OPGA package and changing the 'settings' on the chip, marking it to
>>>whatever the market demands, and selling it. All I'm doing is setting it back to
>>>what it really is. :)
>>>
>>>Also, if requested, I could provide Athlon MP 3200+ to 3400+ chips (2.4-2.53GHz)
>>>chips, these would technically be considered 'overclocked' and would run at a
>>>slightly higher voltage than normal.. thus producing a bit of heat (still less
>>>than a Xeon 3.06, however). I will still test for complete stability of course.
>>
>>
>>Hello Aaron!
>>
>>Can you provide evidence to support your claim that AMD 2800 is faster than any
>>Dual Xeon 3.06? I ask because one guy own a dual AMD 2800 at playchess.com and
>>his Kn/s with Deep Fritz 7 and Shredder 7.04 and lower than mine in a dual Xeon
>>3.06
>
>
>I ran tests with Charles Worthington and without HT the Dual Xeon 3.06 he had
>was slightly slower (slightly is probably an understatement) than a dual 2600+.
>With HT it was a little slower (few percent) than a 2800+, we tested single cpu
>HT & no HT, dual CPU HT & no HT. The engines we tried were Shredder 7, Deep
>Fritz 7, Fritz 8 and Deep Junior 7. We didn't use any "fritzmark" methods as
>I've seen those produce "odd" results. We tested nodes/second from a particular
>position.
>
>Also, in crafty the 2800+ running an optimized binary is faster as well. Single
>Xeon 3.06 got ~1.1 million kn/s, 2800+ got ~1.38 million. Take 1.1 * 1.8 and the
>xeon should pull 1.98 million kn/s. 1.38 * 1.7 and the dual 2800+ should pull
>2.346 million.


Your math on the end is not quite right.

The 1.7/1.8 numbers are _not_ NPS multipliers.  They are time-to-solution
measures.  IE a program will find the move in 1/1.7th the time, even though
its raw NPS will likely be almost 2.0 faster.

At least for Crafty, (and excepting my dual 2.8 xeon which is the exception
at the moment) my NPS will almost exactly double with two cpus, and almost
exactly quadruple with four cpus.  But the time to find a particular move will
not be 1/2 or 1/4, but more like 1/1.7 or 1/3.1 roughly).

Don't depend on NPS to say much about parallel searching.  It is a _good_
measure to compare hardware, of course.



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