The next chess computer champion

  

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Don Groves    (2009-02-04)
The next chess computer champion?

http://www.informationweek.com/news/hardware/supercomputers/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=213000842&subSection=News


Thibault de Vassal    (2009-02-04 13:47:29)
Roadrunner vs. Jaguar

I found these informations on Roadrunner but I must admit I'm unable to compare it with a typical 2GHz processor, any idea on this ?

System Name Roadrunner
Site DOE/NNSA/LANL
System Family IBM Cluster
System Model BladeCenter QS22 Cluster
Computer BladeCenter QS22/LS21 Cluster, PowerXCell 8i 3.2 Ghz / Opteron DC 1.8 GHz , Voltaire Infiniband
Installation Year 2008
Operating System Linux Interconnect Infiniband
Processor PowerXCell 8i 3200 MHz (12.8 GFlops)


http://top500.org/


Hannes Rada    (2009-02-04 22:11:14)
engines not supported

Hi Thibault,
Those beasts are not designed for running chess engines ....... :-)


Thibault de Vassal    (2009-02-04 22:26:21)
pfff...

You kill the dream, Hannes :)


Don Groves    (2009-02-04 23:59:42)
Not easy to compare

Chess engines probably use almost exclusively integer operations rather than floating point, so direct comparison is difficult. But the parallel use of 1.6 million processors would make an amazing difference for properly coded engines!

Currently, Rybka only uses up to 4K processors but that's an easy change to make. Imagine being able to simultaneously compute the best few lines to a depth of 25 ply in a minute or so...


Normajean Yates    (2009-02-05 04:28:40)
anyone here uses a 4K processor machine?

for playing here I mean - they might well drudge away on a 4K-processor machine in the office [or if I google something, how many processors - not necessarily all cpu - am I accessing?] - but do they pull enough weight to run rybka on it all the time?

Or worse still ( ;), actually *own* one ? No, access is better: 'if it's broke it ain't mine' - no maintenance hassles :)

Power without responsiblity..

from the 1980s BBC-TV 'yes. minister' series:
"Responsiblity without power; historically the prerogative of the eunuch" ;)