Latest and greatest in online rental HW is what ?

[CRoberson]

Some of the people I've talked to say they don't want to enter online compchess tournaments due to weak HW.

I've suggested online rental HW or operators.

What are CCC members latest and best experiences with online computer HW rental companies. Is it cheap enough for a weekend tournament? Cheap enough for somebody that wants to use a dual, a quad, an oct or a cluster? Can you get reasonably high speed HW?

[Albert Silver]

Some of the people I've talked to say they don't want to enter online compchess tournaments due to weak HW.

Do you mean events such as CCT with single copies of software, or amateur events where one could see multiple Rybkas, Stockfishes, etc?

[CRoberson]

I was referring to events like ACCA and CCT where one would compete in a tournament that is running on a chess server like FICS or ICC. Basically a weekend event. I've heard of people doing that for Freestyle events.

[CRoberson]

Here are two sites that some have recommended:

http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/instance-types/

http://www.gogrid.com/index.v2.php?utm_ ... mpaign=MSN

I haven't looked into them. I am on vacation.

[jdart]

Amazon EC2 is cheap. If you can run on a cluster then it is a possible option but otherwise if you are stuck on one instance it will not be very fast.

Your best option for fast/high CPU is to provision a dedicated server at a hosting center. Cost is somewhere around $200-$1000/mo, depending the hardware. It is not cheap but I am considering it, since I have crappy unreliable internet service from home, despite living in Silicon Valley (my sister, in San Bernardino, not a high-tech hot spot, has a fiber link. Go figure).