Computer Chess Club Archives


Search

Terms

Messages

Subject: Re: AMD Processors for Chess ? --- For your own code, get an Alpha

Author: KarinsDad

Date: 22:50:04 07/09/99

Go up one level in this thread


On July 10, 1999 at 01:20:05, Gregor Overney wrote:

[snip]
>
>Since your are still undecided but intend to write your own Chess code, consider
>this:
>
>Get a 21264 Alpha based system with 4 or 8 MBytes of L2. Then you get 64K/64K
>for L1 and plenty for L2. It's a good improvement compared to the 21164 with
>8K/8K for L1, and 96K for L2, and 2 to 8 MBytes for L3. Digital has recognized
>that three level staged caching creates too much overhead. I am afraid that the
>AMD will suffer exactly under the same problem. An even better example of
>efficiency is the PA-8500. It only has L1 cache 1M/0.5M (no L2, no L3).
>
>But even the old 21164 at 600 MHz is a solid chip for 64-bit computing. Systems
>are available for 2 to 3 k$.
>
>Gregor

Thanks, but no thanks. I work with Alphas (and Intels) every day and I have
found the Alphas to be dogs. Now this is probably not true for a processor heavy
program like a chess program and the higher end systems with 21264s, but I
consider the Alpha motherboards (at least for the EV4s and earlier) to be vastly
inferior (so talking to every other system component is dog slow).

And, I am not buying a full blown system, but just the ATX case, motherboard,
memory, and chip. Ever since Karin came along, an extra $2 to $3 K just doesn't
seem to be in the picture anymore. :)

Thanks for the suggestion though.

KarinDad :)





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.