How fast are new computer systems with chess!

[Albert Silver]

As an aside, it is worth mentioning the OS is highly relevant.

It is indeed. That's why you shouldn't use Windows at all!

The Linux flavors hold no interest to me, however, I do have MacOS Leopard on one of my partitions. Problem is testing engines that run native on both systems. Ryan mentioned Glaurung, so I'll run a few tests on it to compare.

[sje]

A friend of mine wants a new computer for chess. He would prefer 8 64-bit cores, but to also keep the cost under control. What would people recommend for a cost effective motherboard/CPU combo preferably well under $2K for the MB+CPUs?

An eight core Mac Pro starts at US$2,800 and includes a great deal of goodness as standard equipment. And it can be configured to do multiple boots.

http://www.apple.com/macpro/

http://www.apple.com/macpro/specs.html

Processing

* 8-core: Two 2.8GHz, 3.0GHz, or 3.2GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon 5400 series processors
* Quad-core: One 2.8GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon 5400 series processor
* Enhanced Intel Core microarchitecture
o 12MB of L2 cache per processor (each pair of cores shares 6MB)
o 128-bit SSE4 SIMD engine
o 64-bit data paths and registers
o Energy efficiency optimization
* 1600MHz, 64-bit dual independent frontside buses

Memory

* 800MHz DDR2 ECC fully buffered DIMM (FB-DIMM) memory
* Eight FB-DIMM slots on two memory riser cards (four slots per card) supporting up to 32GB of main memory
* 256-bit-wide memory architecture

[Albert Silver]

A friend of mine wants a new computer for chess. He would prefer 8 64-bit cores, but to also keep the cost under control. What would people recommend for a cost effective motherboard/CPU combo preferably well under $2K for the MB+CPUs?

An eight core Mac Pro starts at US$2,800 and includes a great deal of goodness as standard equipment. And it can be configured to do multiple boots.

http://www.apple.com/macpro/

http://www.apple.com/macpro/specs.html

Processing

* 8-core: Two 2.8GHz, 3.0GHz, or 3.2GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon 5400 series processors
* Quad-core: One 2.8GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon 5400 series processor
* Enhanced Intel Core microarchitecture
o 12MB of L2 cache per processor (each pair of cores shares 6MB)
o 128-bit SSE4 SIMD engine
o 64-bit data paths and registers
o Energy efficiency optimization
* 1600MHz, 64-bit dual independent frontside buses

Memory

* 800MHz DDR2 ECC fully buffered DIMM (FB-DIMM) memory
* Eight FB-DIMM slots on two memory riser cards (four slots per card) supporting up to 32GB of main memory
* 256-bit-wide memory architecture

Looked like an utter ripoff in the Apple store. $2800 gets you the machine with motherboard and 2 Xeons with 2GB DDR2 800MHz ram, one 320GB HD (value $40), and a video card worth less than $50.

http://store.apple.com/us/configure/MA9 ... o=NzQ3Njkz

Just the base is so overpriced it is hard to understand, but any upgrade is worse:

Want 4GB instead of 2GB? Just add $500....

Want a 500GB HD (worth $50) instead of 320GB (price diff is less than $15) just ADD $200!!!!!

It is really hard to believe anyone would choose this path.

Frankly, if MacOS is your thing, a custom Xeon job with an added EFi-x card would make far more sense if you ask me. That said, if running chess software is the purpose, then MacOS is entirely superfluous.

[sje]

Looked like an utter ripoff in the Apple store. $2800 gets you the machine with motherboard and 2 Xeons with 2GB DDR2 800MHz ram, one 320GB HD (value $40), and a video card worth less than $50.

http://store.apple.com/us/configure/MA9 ... o=NzQ3Njkz

Just the base is so overpriced it is hard to understand, but any upgrade is worse:

Want 4GB instead of 2GB? Just add $500....

Want a 500GB HD (worth $50) instead of 320GB (price diff is less than $15) just ADD $200!!!!!

It is really hard to believe anyone would choose this path.

Frankly, if MacOS is your thing, a custom Xeon job with an added EFi-x card would make far more sense if you ask me. That said, if running chess software is the purpose, then MacOS is entirely superfluous.

First, few Mac purchasers buy extra memory or disk capacity from Apple directly. These upgrades are available on the competitive third party supplier market and cost no more than the PC versions as they are the same as the PC versions.

Second, Mac OS/X comes with an extensive and free SDK including C/C++/Java/Objective C++/Cocoa/etc. So just about any reasonably written open source chess software can be built and hosted. Even xboard as X Windows is also included. And since OS/X is based on OpenBSD, porting software from the BSD and Linux worlds is easy.

Third, you can bet that the Epix dongle and similar license evasion tools will be broken by Apple in upcoming OS revisions.

Finally, the total cost of ownership has to be considered. I'm still using a PowerMac daily that I bought eight years ago and it runs the latest software, at least the PPC versions. How many people in PC Land are still getting productive use out of eight year old hardware?

[Albert Silver]

Intel Skulltrail D5400XS ($600)
2X Intel Xeon E5430 ($400 x 2 = $800)
4 x 1GB FBDIMMS PC6400 = $150
PS 1000 watt+ = $200
2 x Zalman 9700's = $120

There are better cooling options than the Zalman 9700 nodwadays, though I don't know if they work with the Xeons it is true. Zalman is notoriously noisy at high fan, and not even the best cooling.

For good cooler/heatsink review material, I suggest Frostytech or SilentPCReview

[Albert Silver]

First, few Mac purchasers buy extra memory or disk capacity from Apple directly. These upgrades are available on the competitive third party supplier market and cost no more than the PC versions as they are the same as the PC versions.

Finally, the total cost of ownership has to be considered. I'm still using a PowerMac daily that I bought eight years ago and it runs the latest software, at least the PPC versions. How many people in PC Land are still getting productive use out of eight year old hardware?

Indeed. So why pay over $1000 more for identical hardware? Just to run MacOS? That's an awful lot of money for an OS. If it is for Linux compatibility, I read somewhere that you can run Linux without MacOS, and Linux is free. Also, since Robin's contact is interested in running chess engines, MacOS has no special interest, much less a $1000 interest.

As to hardware longevity, it certainly has everything to do with what you do with your computer. You can be certain that if you worked heavily with graphics development, you wouldn't be as content with an 8-year-old system.

Third, you can bet that the Epix dongle and similar license evasion tools will be broken by Apple in upcoming OS revisions.

I doubt it. They may sue Efi-x, and try to stop production, but Efi-x has issued updates as well, which are then added to the dongle. Here is an article/interview at Toms Hardware.

We Interview EFiX creators: OS X on PC

In any case, I have no dongle, and have no major problems running Leopard 10.5.5 on my PC with full audio, LAN, and video support (for my nVidia 9800GTX). Running MacOS Tiger/Leopard on a wide variety of systems (including AMD machines) is not new, and Apple hasn't been able to (or tried) do anything about it since they moved to the x86 CPUs.

[Albert Silver]

As an aside, it is worth mentioning the OS is highly relevant. I did 3 trial runs in XP 32-bit SP3, and three in Vista 64 SP1, and XP was consistently faster in all trial runs.

Faster at doing what and by how much? I'm sure 64 bit engines weren't faster on XP 32-bit.

Faster at running his test.

[M ANSARI]

Intel Skulltrail D5400XS ($600)
2X Intel Xeon E5430 ($400 x 2 = $800)
4 x 1GB FBDIMMS PC6400 = $150
PS 1000 watt+ = $200
2 x Zalman 9700's = $120

There are better cooling options than the Zalman 9700 nodwadays, though I don't know if they work with the Xeons it is true. Zalman is notoriously noisy at high fan, and not even the best cooling.

For good cooler/heatsink review material, I suggest Frostytech or SilentPCReview

Actually on the system that I have been running at 3.2 Ghz with 2 x E5430's I am using simple Blue Orbs which have a much lower performance than the Zalman. You could probably reduce the fan on the Zalman's to almost silent and still have enough performance to run them at 3.2 Ghz. But ofcourse by now there must be much better cooling HSF systems. I hear the Tuniq Tower is also very good. For E5430's at 3.2 Ghz heat is not really a problem, although with QX9775's heat could be once you push to 4 Ghz or higher. At the moment I am moving both my Octa's to water cooling. Water for me is the best ... totally silent ... without the perfromance hit.

[jpqy]

Test results update:

----Engine -------------Depth-Time--Total nodes---Nodes/s.--Score ----- Hardware------------------------
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1) TogaII142JD-8cpu 21/46 03:46 208.317.723 7.345.841 +0,26 Skulltrail 2xQX9775 @4.2Ghz DDR2: 4-5-5-17
2) TogaII141SE-16cpu 21/45 03:30 94.511.341 6.843.413 +0.22 Gainestown 2xNehalem @3.07Ghz DDR3: 9-9-9-24
3) TogaII142JD-16cpu 21/46 03:59 96.988.402 6.521.362 +0.26 Gainestown 2xNehalem @2.93Ghz DDR3: 8-8-8-19
4) TogaII142JD-4cpu 21/46 02:12 106.263.958 6.413.397 +0.23 Q9650 @4.4Ghz DDR3: 8-7-7-21
5) TogaII142JD-8cpu 21/52 03:31 174.872.390 6.286.188 +0.25 Skulltrail 2xQX9775 @ 4.0Ghz
6) TogaII142JD-8cpu 21/46 03:54 172.582.215 5.891.624 +0.30 Nehalem @ 2.93Ghz
7) TogaII142JD-4cpu 21/48 05:17 116.220.879 5.493.977 +0,32 QX9650 @4.0Ghz DDR3: 7-7-7-18
8) TogaII142JD-4cpu 21/43 02:48 56.606.900 5.299.045 +0,17 QX9650 @3.8Ghz DDR3: 7-7-7-18
9) TogaII142JD-8cpu 21/50 03:37 154.531.874 5.278.434 +0.26 Skulltrail Harpertown 2xE5430 @ 3.0Ghz
10) TogaII142JD-4cpu 21/45 03:33 71.369.566 5.121.513 +0,25 QX9650 @3.6Ghz DDR3: 7-7-7-18
11) TogaII142JD-4cpu 21/46 04:07 313.116.757 5.067.206 +0,28 Q6600 g0 @3.4Ghz (My PC) DDR2: 5-5-5-15
12) TogaII142JD-4cpu 21/47 03:37 68.076.971 5.058.254 +0,21 QX9650 @3.4Ghz DDR3: 7-7-7-18
13) TogaII141SE-4cpu 21/52 05:12 364.182.100 4.576.252 +0,20 Q6600 g0 @ 3.2Ghz (My PC) DDR2: 5-5-5-15
14) TogaII142JD-4cpu 21/50 04:47 164.070.553 4.562.555 +0.24 Nehalem @2.93Ghz HT off (cpu 50%)
15) TogaII142JD-4cpu 21/52 03:48 260.594.079 4.556.842 +0,23 Q6600 g0 @ 3.2Ghz (My PC) DDR2: 5-5-5-15
16) TogaII142JD-4cpu 21/47 06:10 105.297.137 4.405.202 +0,24 QX9650 @3.2Ghz DDR3: 7-7-7-18
17) TogaII142JD-4cpu 21/46 03:31 60.366.392 4.173.420 +0,21 QX9650 @3.0Ghz DDR3: 7-7-7-18
18) TogaII142JD-4cpu 21/47 04:24 133.183.733 4.032.042 +0,22 AMD Phenom X4 9850 B.E. @3.2Ghz DDR2: 4-4-4-10
19) TogaII142JD-2cpu 20/43 02:26 36.452.932 3.971.241 +0.29 E8600 @4.9Ghz DDR3: 8-8-8-21
20) TogaII142JD-16cpu 21/45 05:53 83.916.200 3.671.590 +0.24 4xOpteron 8360 SE @2.5Ghz Server 2008-32bit
21) TogaII142JD-2cpu 21/52 04:27 119.416.733 3.575.892 +0,18 E8600 @4.5Ghz DDR2: 4-4-4-12
22) TogaII142JD-8cpu 21/48 04:19 106.946.778 3.351.022 +0,20 2xOpteron 2347 @1.9Ghz
23) TogaII142JD-2cpu 21/47 04:47 114.481.780 3.179.392 +0.23 E8600 @4.25Ghz DDR3: 7-7-7-18
24) TogaII142JD-2cpu 21/49 06:16 536.903.119 2.854.673 +0.31 E8400 @3.6Ghz DDR2: 5-5-5-15
25) TogaII142JD-16cpu 20/44 05:00 40.931.500 1.730.964 +0,25 4xOpteron 8360 SE @2.5Ghz Server 2003-32bit

JP.

[bob]

As an aside, it is worth mentioning the OS is highly relevant. I did 3 trial runs in XP 32-bit SP3, and three in Vista 64 SP1, and XP was consistently faster in all trial runs.

This just means something is wrong with what was tested. vista-64 will always be faster than XP32, because vista-64 will have 8 more registers. _if_ the application is compiled for 64 bit architectures. Otherwise you are just incurring extra memory address translation overhead (more memory accesses to convert virtual to real on a 64 bit box than on a 32 bit box).

This is not a "mix and match" task that can be done ad hoc. There are real considerations that have to be addressed in any testing or you just get results that don't mean much. An operating system is going to have almost zero impact on the speed of a chess program. Because chess programs are not doing lots of system calls...