Author: Dann Corbit
Date: 11:20:50 12/27/05
Go up one level in this thread
On December 27, 2005 at 12:21:42, Gian-Carlo Pascutto wrote: >On December 27, 2005 at 11:29:22, Vincent Diepeveen wrote: > >>You know, without 64 processors, having 2 hardware cards which are development >>cards at just 60Mhz or so, that has simply zero chance against software. >> >>those fpga boards have been made to *develop* chips, not to use them as release >>processors. released fpga hardware runs at near 1Ghz, not 60Mhz!! >> >>So hydra at 1Ghz would surely be a good match for the software, but at 60Mhz, >>no chance, really. fpga development boards weren't designed to be used as >>production hardware :) > >Well, regardless of the speed issues, which could be "solved" by using faster >boards (but which might require redesigning the Hydra hardware entirely due to >routing/timing issues), I think the largest problem of Hydra is the long >development and testing time of an FPGA based solution compared to a general >purpose CPU. > >Given that the problem of computer chess is not finding nice algorithms, but >testing what works, I don't think Hydra has the faintest chance in the long run, >and it's probably already eclipsed by Zappa, Fruit and Rybka now (silly claims >of the Hydra authors notwithstanding). I think the biggest problem with the hardware approach is one of cost. For a few million dollars, they could remake all the boards faster. Or you can take a PC program wait for 10 years, and get the same thing for $50. Now, the multi-million dollar solution will always be a bit faster, but every new generation will have stupendous retooling costs for any upgrade. Now, suppose that the present Hydra were +200 Elo better than any existing program (I am pretty sure that it's not, but as an absolute and utter edge, I think it is very safe that it is not more than that). I can take a $50 copy of Rybka on fast hardware and let it think for 32 hours on a problem instead of one hour and get 5 doublings of compute power. This would give better analysis (at a cost of some time) than the multi-million dollar solution if it really were that much better. Now, if I wait 5 years, I can put Rybka on a 32x faster machine which will cost the same as today's machine, and it will be actually faster than Hydra. Now, they could upgrade Hydra again -- but at stupendous cost. I will never have to make the same kind of absurd expense. I just have to be patient. I will always have equivalent analysis even with the latest iteration of the hardware giant if I just let the program analyze a lot longer. And in a few years, the software solution will outstrip the hardware solution. The Chess-MIPS per dollar will always be far superior with the software solution than with the hardware. But I guess that custom hardware will always be a bit faster than the fastest software system (albeit at enormous expense) if they choose to retool and rebuild to get the utmost in speed. Furthermore, I guess that Hydra is perhaps a little better than Rybka on very fast 64 bit hardware, but maybe not. So we may already get Hydra performance for $50 instead of 5 million. I know which alternative I would choose.
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