Old Hardware On New Software

[Nordlandia]

2006 CPU on 2016 Engine

Or

2016 CPU on 2006 engine.

Which of the two alternatives is best for game quality.

^_^

[Jesse Gersenson]

Which is to say:

Rybka 2.2 64-bit on a 18-core xeon

VS.

Komodo 9.3/Stockfish 7 on a 4-core X5355

[Vinvin]

Which is to say:

Rybka 2.2 64-bit on a 18-core xeon

VS.

Komodo 9.3/Stockfish 7 on a 4-core X5355

For software : with 4 cores, about 470 Elo difference (may be more if Rybka 2.2 scales badly with so many cores).
For hardware : very rough estimation : 8 times the speed means ~ 400 Elo difference.

[Jesse Gersenson]

Which is to say:

Rybka 2.2 64-bit on a 18-core xeon

VS.

Komodo 9.3/Stockfish 7 on a 4-core X5355

For software : with 4 cores, about 470 Elo difference (may be more if Rybka 2.2 scales badly with so many cores).
For hardware : very rough estimation : 8 times the speed means ~ 400 Elo difference.

Taking performance number from cpubenchmark.net it looks like the speed difference between the cpus is 2.7 doublings, or maybe 200 elo; not 400 elo.

Also the modern programs will perform better at lower depth than the older program which'll further lower the importance of the 2.7 doublings.

[Nordlandia]

It appears new software somehow compensates for old processors.

However i'm not sure how an engine in 2020 scales on an 2006 CPU.

[Vinvin]

Which is to say:

Rybka 2.2 64-bit on a 18-core xeon

VS.

Komodo 9.3/Stockfish 7 on a 4-core X5355

For software : with 4 cores, about 470 Elo difference (may be more if Rybka 2.2 scales badly with so many cores).
For hardware : very rough estimation : 8 times the speed means ~ 400 Elo difference.

Taking performance number from cpubenchmark.net it looks like the speed difference between the cpus is 2.7 doublings, or maybe 200 elo; not 400 elo.

Also the modern programs will perform better at lower depth than the older program which'll further lower the importance of the 2.7 doublings.

Oops, bad calculation from me
*8 means *2*2*2 means 50+50+50 = +150 Elo

[acase]

Hello Jon,

Nice poll, I think the software advances are more important myself, and certainly enough to overcome the hardware advantage. The programmers have done an excellent job of advancing the engines, and in my opinion the engines have evolved faster and better than the hardware advances.



It should be pointed out also that some of the older programs support only a limited amount of cores (not the case with Rybka) and a limited hash table size.

[IanO]

This poll is already partially answered in the SSDF rating list data.