Computer Chess Club Archives


Search

Terms

Messages

Subject: Re: Sorry about ignorance. Are 64-bit comps X2 speed for chess?

Author: Slater Wold

Date: 10:30:11 12/09/03

Go up one level in this thread


On December 09, 2003 at 13:17:55, Robert Hyatt wrote:

>On December 09, 2003 at 13:04:01, Slater Wold wrote:
>
>>On December 09, 2003 at 12:49:17, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>>
>>>On December 09, 2003 at 12:33:20, Slater Wold wrote:
>>>
>>>>On December 09, 2003 at 11:49:19, Mathieu Pagé wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>On December 09, 2003 at 11:16:02, stuart taylor wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>>Is 2.2 Ghz. of a 64-bit computer a similar speed for chess as is 4.4 is it were
>>>>>>a 32-bit one?
>>>>>>If not, what?
>>>>>>S.Taylor
>>>>>
>>>>>Hi!
>>>>>
>>>>>No, it is not.
>>>>>
>>>>>64-bit computer are not twice as fast as 32-bit ones. The number of bit
>>>>>represent the natural lenght of an number on a cpu. Since chess engines use lot
>>>>>of 64 bits numbers they will run faster on 64 bits machines because on 32-bit
>>>>>machines they have to do some trick to do 64 bits maths that are natural on a 64
>>>>>bit cpu.
>>>>>
>>>>>I dont think the improvement will be in the range of 2x speed up. Anyway it will
>>>>>vary from diffrents engines.
>>>>>
>>>>>Mathieu
>>>>
>>>>GCP reported 70% with Sjeng.
>>>>
>>>>Bob has reported about 50% with Crafty.
>>>
>>>Not exactly.  I reported 1.0M with a 2.8ghz xeon, vs 1.6M with a 1.8ghz
>>>opteron.  If you factor in a clock speed equalization, the xeon slows to
>>>1.8ghz and would produce about 650K nodes per second and the opteron would
>>>be more than 2x faster.
>>>
>>>I have not done a direct comparison of 32 bit code vs 64 bit code on the
>>>opteron as I have no 32 bit compiler available there.  If I get to do that
>>>at some point it time, it would be interesting.  It would be more interesting
>>>to be able to say "use only 32 bit ops, but use all 16 registers" to get a
>>>_real_ feel for what 64 bits offers over 32 bits, but that looks even
>>>harder to test.
>>
>>Well, we can always deduct.  :)
>>
>>An opteron 144 (1.8Ghz) running SuSe and gcc33, using -m32 to produce 32 bit
>>code, got these results on 186.crafty:
>
>We can't compare with that at all. That is a _way_ old version, obviously.
>
>I can't do -m32 on this machine, as the libraries are all -m64 and they
>become incompatible (I have already tried this a few days back in fact.)
>
>
>>
>>90.1 1109
>>
>>The fastest 2.8Ghz Xeon on SPEC's website does:
>>
>>92.0 1087 (2k AS IC++ 7.0 compiler)
>>
>>
>>For all practical purposes, we can say that a O144  a P4 2.8Ghz Xeon are
>>'comparible'.
>
>OK. Can't argue there with no data of my own to rely on..
>
>
>
>>
>>1.0M to 1.6M = 60% speedup
>
>Not directly attributable to 64 bit however.  -m32 restricts you to 8
>registers, while -m64 adds the other 8.  That also factors in and makes
>this less clear.

Like I said, it was just a 'deduction'.  I know you're pretty scientific, but
this was just a rough comparison.

I'd be confident in this statement however:  "64-bits, depending on application,
can speedup a typical chess program from 40% to 70%."

Which is nice, considering it is practically 'free'.



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.