Ram and engine chess

[ChessAddict]

Does having faster ram have performance affect on engine chess?

[Tony Thomas]

From what I have read, to gain anything from faster Ram you need a CPU that performs better with it..I think that with faster Ram AMD cpu's gain up to 10% were as you only get a 2% performance increase with Intel's (I read this info somewhere, I just cant find it now)..So, the performance effect is minimal unless you have some suboptimal Ram for your CPU..or so I think.

[swami]

If you have higher RAM, Engines can have more hash.

For blitz, reasonable hash is enough. Ie 64.

For long time controls, ofcourse higher hash size should be used. So it boosts the strength that way, can't say how much, but definitely not that much though. 50 Elo at Max.

Processor speed is definitely important and is the integral part, to reach higher depths quickly.

[Tony Thomas]

Swami, I think he is talking about faster Ram and not about more RAM.

[swami]

Swami, I think he is talking about faster Ram and not about more RAM.

Yes, you are right. I doubt if indeed it would give a better performance. It usually takes a lot of time to get into higher depths either way.
It all depends on the FSB (front side bus) of your processor. softwares to boost the performance are all hype, they make it sound like you could increase your available RAM up to 300%

[Tony Thomas]

I just remembered that I saw the stuff about RAM at buydirectpc website..

The more memory you have, the more programs you can have running simultaneously. All our systems use the latest DDR2 memory in Dual-Channel configuration for ultimate in memory throughput.
Note: it is a common opinion that faster memory automatically yields an overall performance increase. The truth is that on the current Intel system architecture memory throughput is effectively bottlenecked by processor's inability to receive more information through its 1333MHz Front Side Bus than a dual-channel PC5300 667MHz DDR2 can provide! Meaning that getting PC6400 800MHz memory will yield around 1-2% performance increase in rare circumstances, while investing the price difference of PC5300 vs PC6400 in a faster CPU, more memory, better graphics or a larger HDD will give you a tangible performance increase you will actually see. If you need more than 4GB of memory, however, PC6400 is the only way to go as PC5300 is not available in higher densities.

Using faster memory in AMD system architecture does yield up to 10% overall performance increase, so PC6400 is considered an integral part of any high-performance AMD system.

Please note that Windows XP 32-bit and Windows Vista 32-bit are only able to use up to ~3.25GB of RAM. A 64-bit OS is required for effective use of 4GB or more, but keep in mind that both 64-bit Vista and XP still have legacy driver support issues, e.g. your old printer may not work.