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Subject: Re: Dual Core G5

Author: Hristo

Date: 18:42:18 11/02/05

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On November 02, 2005 at 16:19:03, John Dillard wrote:

>On November 02, 2005 at 15:34:30, Joshua Shriver wrote:
>
>>http://www.apple.com/powermac/
>>
>>nice :) would make a good quad system.
>>
>>-Josh
>
>
>They're making a quad system.  There's not other system on the market today,
>super computer or otherwise, that can process as many gigaflops of info as the
>dual core G5.  I just wonder if any of the chess programs will benefit from this
>power?

John,
I love Apple computers. In fact I'm writing this on my favorite PB 17" (OS-X
10.4.3). The other fact is that at work I use Opterons (three different
systemsin my office, all of them dual CPU) and those systems are able to match
or destroy (in some cases) the newer Macs (which we also have at work).
The only time a Mac wins (against Intel ot AMD) is when you can fit your problem
solution into Altivec and then spend some time optimizing it, which we have done
in a few cases in the domain of signal analysis. Outside of the Altivec-unit the
Macs are not going to win against AMD.
Memory access latency is the killer for many apps, not the memory access
throughput. In this sense most chess programs are limited by random access
latencies and not be sheer throughput (as it is needed in video or signal
processing). The dual-core G5s are not going to win the contest so easily
against AMD in particular. (In fact I would pay extra to get OS-X run on an AMD
processor)

Anyway,
enjoy your Mac for what it is, the best computer experience you can have today,
and not for what it isn't the best chess playing computer in the world. If
someone spent the time to translate (port) their chess algorithms to Altivec (if
this is even possible) then your assumption _might_ have some merit. Until then,
enjoy your computer and what you can do with it. :-)

Regards,
Hristo



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