Author: Tord Romstad
Date: 02:25:39 07/28/04
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On July 27, 2004 at 15:56:30, Robert Hyatt wrote: >Want to make a wager as to when the PDAs will have dual-core CPUs? > >It won't be _that_ long... Very hard to say. From today's perspective, it is hard to see why PDA and cellphone users would ever want a dual-core CPU, or even a very powerful single-core CPU. For 99% of the typical tasks done by a PDA or cellphone, processor speed simply doesn't matter that much. Battery life, on the other hand, is very important. Even today, many PDA users underclock their units on order to extend battery life. I would much rather buy a PDA with a battery life ten times longer than my current unit than a hypothetical PDA with a shorter battery life and 1000 times the processing power. On the other hand, it could of course happen that PDAs and cellphones in the future will be used for many tasks which we cannot yet imagine, and which will require lots of processing power. Only time will tell. But OK, let's assume that even the smallest handheld units will have dual-core CPUs in a few years. I still don't think everybody would want to parallelize their chess engines. In my opinion, there is a certain point beyond which further playing strength improvements of a chess engine no longer have any interest. I can't feel the difference between a 2500 rated opponent and a 3000 rated opponent. Even on my ancient Macintosh PowerBook, powered by a 550 MHz G4, my program beats me easily. Why would I want to spend a lot of effort to make it utilize modern dual-processor machines? By the time when handheld units include dual-core CPUs, the situation will be the same there. Despite everything I have written above, it is not at all impossible that I will give parallel search a try when I get myself a dual G5 later this year. This is partly because parallel search is often claimed to be very difficult, and I love difficult tasks, and partly because I am working on games more complicated than chess. Tord
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