To the chess community:
What percent improvement is it for hardware and software? Together they make 100 percent.
Assume hardware goes from 1 Megahertz (late 1970's) to 2 Gigahertz (today).
If you wish, opening and endgame databases are optional. What percent is databases approximately as a 3rd variable; I prefer nothing because of Chess960 (except endgame database maybe).
Thanks for any input,
Jonathan Lee
Good question: What % improvement is hardware vs. software?
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Re: Good question: What % improvement is hardware vs. softwa
I don't think it's really possible to disentangle the effects of improved hardware and improved software, because they have evolved together. For example, modern bitboard move generation is a giant leap forward from 70's techniques, but it couldn't have practically been used on the hardware of the 70's because it relies on large cache-resident tables and efficient manipulation of 64 bit quantities. If you want to ask the question over a smaller time frame (say, since 2000), then I think the question starts to become more answerable.
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Re: Good question: What % improvement is hardware vs. softwa
Well, 2GHz today also typically means 4 CPUs in stead of 1, and 3 instructions per clock cycle in stead of 1 instruction per 3. So throw in another factor 36, for 72 GHz effective. So the speed went up by a factor 72,000 over 1MHz, or about 2^16. With the rule of thumb that each doubling gives you 70 Elo, the speed alone would bring 1120 Elo.
Aaron is right in pointing out that some software improvements are in fact only improvements because of more powerfull CPU instructions and larger memory sizes. So they are partly due to hardware improvements not factored in yet in the above calculation, which only took raw speed into account.
Aaron is right in pointing out that some software improvements are in fact only improvements because of more powerfull CPU instructions and larger memory sizes. So they are partly due to hardware improvements not factored in yet in the above calculation, which only took raw speed into account.
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Re: Good question: What % improvement is hardware vs. softwa
Well from what I remember these 1MHz computers were quite weak. Perhaps 1200-1500 Elo? Today's top engines are 3200-3300 Elo on CCRL. Even if you have to subtract a few hundred Elo to convert to human scale, it seems to me that a fair amount of Elo is due to software improvement as well.the speed alone would bring 1120 Elo.
How could it be otherwise? In the last year Stockfish has improved a couple of 100 Elo by playing almost 60 million testing games. Such resources were not available back in the 1MHz days.
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Re: Good question: What % improvement is hardware vs. softwa
Most of that gain you would never see because the programs of the 80's would not scale very well with the extra speed. The programs were full width, with very primitive evaluation functions. If somehow you could scale up a Z80 or 6502. And most of the programs could only use very small amounts of Ram memory.Michel wrote:Well from what I remember these 1MHz computers were quite weak. Perhaps 1200-1500 Elo? Today's top engines are 3200-3300 Elo on CCRL. Even if you have to subtract a few hundred Elo to convert to human scale, it seems to me that a fair amount of Elo is due to software improvement as well.the speed alone would bring 1120 Elo.
How could it be otherwise? In the last year Stockfish has improved a couple of 100 Elo by playing almost 60 million testing games. Such resources were not available back in the 1MHz days.
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Re: Good question: What % improvement is hardware vs. softwa
Maybe about 60% hardware, and since year 2000, about 60% software.jplchess wrote:To the chess community:
What percent improvement is it for hardware and software? Together they make 100 percent.
Assume hardware goes from 1 Megahertz (late 1970's) to 2 Gigahertz (today).
If you wish, opening and endgame databases are optional. What percent is databases approximately as a 3rd variable; I prefer nothing because of Chess960 (except endgame database maybe).
Thanks for any input,
Jonathan Lee
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Re: Good question: What % improvement is hardware vs. softwa
It would be very interesting to have an accurate analyze about this question.jplchess wrote:To the chess community:
What percent improvement is it for hardware and software? Together they make 100 percent.
Assume hardware goes from 1 Megahertz (late 1970's) to 2 Gigahertz (today).
This 3 lists are very useful to make some ratings cross-comparison :
SSDF leader year by year but different hardware : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_Ch ... nd_leaders
SSDF complete list : http://ssdf.bosjo.net/long.txt
CCRT complete list : http://www.computerchess.org.uk/ccrl/40 ... t_all.html
I'm already astonished by the low improvement (SSDF) from 1985 to 2008 : +1411 in 24 years = +58.8 Elo pts / year (hardware + software)
Code: Select all
1985 Mephisto Amsterdam 68000 12 MHz 1827
...
2008 Deep Rybka 3 2GB Q6600 2.4 GHz 3238
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Re: Good question: What % improvement is hardware vs. softwa
Actually a few years ago i have run a similar hardawre test, for more details:
http://sedatchess.110mb.com/index.php?p=1_12
Of course, for more better conclusion we need more games, but however even this small test helps us to see the Elo diffrence,
e.g in case of doubling the processor speeds
As we see the Elo difference is approx. 300 Elo
And when we look at the speed difference between both hardwares ,AMD 3400 2.40GHz is approx 3 times faster than Celeron 1.70
So depending on engine versions,
Some engines gaining more Elo points, where some less from the processor speeds
And it's interesting to note under these conditions that 1 (one) core engines performed approx. 80-100 Elo, e.g in case of doubling the processor speed
Strange indeed that Fritz bench gives 2.70 difference, where Crafty 22.8 bench says 3.38
One thing more,I have another Auto232 tournament:
https://sites.google.com/site/computers ... ct-auto232
Maybe these values will be useful, for those who are planing to update their hardwares ))
Processor Speed Difference between i7 970 @4.0GHz and i7 920 @3.33GHz: 1.66
Best,
Sedat
http://sedatchess.110mb.com/index.php?p=1_12
Of course, for more better conclusion we need more games, but however even this small test helps us to see the Elo diffrence,
e.g in case of doubling the processor speeds
As we see the Elo difference is approx. 300 Elo
And when we look at the speed difference between both hardwares ,AMD 3400 2.40GHz is approx 3 times faster than Celeron 1.70
So depending on engine versions,
Some engines gaining more Elo points, where some less from the processor speeds
And it's interesting to note under these conditions that 1 (one) core engines performed approx. 80-100 Elo, e.g in case of doubling the processor speed
Code: Select all
Rank Hardware Program Elo Games Kn/s Hardware User
10 AMD 3400 2.40GHz Rybka 3 w32 t1 3027 850 35 Sedat Canbaz
20 Celeron 1.70GHz Rybka 3 w32 t1 2722 450 7 Sedat Canbaz
*Elo Difference: 305
18 AMD 3400 2.40GHz Toga II 1.4.2JD t1 2841 300 902 Sedat Canbaz
26 Celeron 1.70GHz Toga II 1.4.2JD t1 2532 200 251 Sedat Canbaz
*Elo Difference: 309
23 AMD 3400 2.40GHz Crafty 22.8 w32 t1 2657 400 1431 Sedat Canbaz
27 Celeron 1.70GHz Crafty 22.8 w32 t1 2410 350 423 Sedat Canbaz
*Elo Difference: 247
Fritz Chess Benchmarks:
Hardware-Processor Speed Cores kN/s
AMD Athlon 64 3400+ 2.40 GHz 1 1367
Intel Celeron 1.70 GHz 1 506
*Processor Speed Difference: 2.70
Crafty 22.8 Benchmarks:
kN/s Processor Speed EXE Threads Hardware User
1431694 AMD Athlon 64 3400+ 2.40GHz w32 1 CPU Sedat Canbaz
423000 Intel Celeron 1.70GHz w32 1 CPU Sedat Canbaz
*Processor Speed Difference: 3.38
One thing more,I have another Auto232 tournament:
https://sites.google.com/site/computers ... ct-auto232
Maybe these values will be useful, for those who are planing to update their hardwares ))
Processor Speed Difference between i7 970 @4.0GHz and i7 920 @3.33GHz: 1.66
Code: Select all
Hardware-Processor Speed Cores kN/s
Intel Core i7 970 @ 4.00 GHz 6 17281
Intel Core i7 920 @ 3.30 GHz 4 10350
Rank Name Elo + - games score oppo. draws
3 Houdini 2.0b Pro x64 6c 3418 17 17 1049 68% 3305 46%
7 Houdini 2.0b Pro x64 4c 3347 17 17 1030 51% 3344 47%
*Elo Difference: 71
6 Deep Rybka 4.1 x64 6c 3358 15 15 1363 59% 3305 54%
15 Deep Rybka 4.1 x64 4c 3293 13 14 1602 47% 3314 56%
*Elo Difference: 65
12 Fire 2.2 xTreme x64 6c 3311 23 22 530 52% 3297 63%
13 Fire 2.2b xTreme GH x64 6c 3310 21 21 608 53% 3293 63%
18 Fire 2.2 xTreme x64 4c 3275 16 16 1165 41% 3328 59%
*Elo Difference: 36
Sedat
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Re: Good question: What % improvement is hardware vs. softwa
Here is what that looks like in a chess game.Vinvin wrote:It would be very interesting to have an accurate analyze about this question.jplchess wrote:To the chess community:
What percent improvement is it for hardware and software? Together they make 100 percent.
Assume hardware goes from 1 Megahertz (late 1970's) to 2 Gigahertz (today).
This 3 lists are very useful to make some ratings cross-comparison :
SSDF leader year by year but different hardware : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_Ch ... nd_leaders
SSDF complete list : http://ssdf.bosjo.net/long.txt
CCRT complete list : http://www.computerchess.org.uk/ccrl/40 ... t_all.html
I'm already astonished by the low improvement (SSDF) from 1985 to 2008 : +1411 in 24 years = +58.8 Elo pts / year (hardware + software)Code: Select all
1985 Mephisto Amsterdam 68000 12 MHz 1827 ... 2008 Deep Rybka 3 2GB Q6600 2.4 GHz 3238
[pgn]
[Event "Blitz, 1m/40"]
[Site "I7CPU"]
[Date "2014.01.17"]
[Round "1"]
[White "Mephisto Amsterdam"]
[Black "Rybka 3"]
[Result "0-1"]
[ECO "D41"]
[PlyCount "104"]
[TimeControl "40/60:0/0:0/0"]
1. e4 {B 0} c6 {B 0} 2. c4 {B 0} d5 {B 0} 3. exd5 {B 0} cxd5 {B 0} 4. cxd5 {B 0
} Nf6 {B 0} 5. Nc3 {B 0} Nxd5 {B 0} 6. Nf3 {B 0} e6 {B 0} 7. Bc4 {B 0} Be7 {B 0
} 8. d4 {B 0} Nc6 {B 0} 9. O-O {B 0} O-O {B 0} 10. Re1 {B 0} Nxc3 {B 0} 11.
bxc3 {B 0} b6 {B 0} 12. Bd3 {B 0 Both last book move} Bb7 {0.25/11 4} 13. Qc2 {
0.50/1 5 (Bf4)} g6 {0.26/11 3 (h6)} 14. Bh6 {0.45/1 1 (Bf4)} Re8 {0.26/9 0} 15.
Qd2 {0.28/1 2 (Rab1)} Rc8 {0.19/11 3 (Qd6)} 16. Rab1 {0.08/1 1 (Bf4)} Bd6 {0.
11/12 3 (Na5)} 17. Bf4 {0.04/1 1 (h3)} Bxf4 {-0.08/12 6 (Na5)} 18. Qxf4 {0.24/
1 1} e5 {-0.05/13 2 (Ne7)} 19. Qh6 {0.12/1 1} Qf6 {-0.05/11 0} 20. Ng5 {0.24/1
1 (Be4)} Qg7 {-0.23/10 1 (exd4)} 21. Qxg7+ {-0.08/1 1 (Qh4)} Kxg7 {-0.05/9 0}
22. Be4 {-0.36/1 1 (d5)} exd4 {-0.64/12 2 (f6)} 23. cxd4 {-0.32/1 1} Ba6 {-0.
73/12 1 (f5)} 24. Bxc6 {-0.16/1 1} Rxe1+ {-0.73/10 0} 25. Rxe1 {0.01/1 0} Rxc6
{-0.73/10 0} 26. Nf3 {-0.50/1 1 (h3)} Bb7 {-1.35/14 3 (Kf6)} 27. Re7 {-0.80/1
1 (Ne5)} Kf6 {-1.57/14 2 (Rc1+)} 28. Re3 {-0.84/1 1} Rc1+ {-1.60/14 1} 29. Re1
{-1.16/1 1} Rc2 {-1.60/15 5 (Rc4)} 30. a3 {-1.68/1 1 (Ne5)} Bxf3 {-1.90/14 1
(Ra2)} 31. gxf3 {-1.36/1 1} Rd2 {-1.90/15 1 (Ra2)} 32. Re4 {-1.55/1 2 (Rc1)}
Rd3 {-1.91/16 2} 33. Rf4+ {-1.60/1 1 (Re3)} Ke6 {-1.98/14 1} 34. d5+ {-1.80/1
1 (Re4+)} Rxd5 {-1.97/15 2} 35. Re4+ {-1.72/1 1 (Kg2)} Re5 {-1.97/15 2 (Kf6)}
36. Ra4 {-1.76/1 1 (Rc4)} a5 {-2.14/13 2} 37. Kg2 {-1.80/1 1 (Rc4)} Kd5 {-2.50/
16 2 (f5)} 38. f4 {-1.88/1 1 (Rh4)} Re4 {-5.54/13 4} 39. Rxe4 {-2.16/1 1} Kxe4
{-6.59/12 1} 40. f5 {-2.64/1 1 (Kf1)} b5 {-11.18/9 1 (Kxf5)} 41. fxg6 {-3.32/1
6 (Kf1)} hxg6 {-19.84/9 2} 42. Kf1 {-4.20/1 6} Kd3 {-31.51/11 3} 43. Ke1 {-4.
80/1 6 (h4)} Kc2 {-5.11/9 0} 44. f4 {-6.32/1 6 (h4)} b4 {-30.59/12 9} 45. axb4
{-9.40/1 6} axb4 {-30.31/12 1} 46. Ke2 {-9.99/1 6} b3 {-32.33/10 2} 47. Kf3 {
-9.99/1 6 (h4)} Kd3 {-31.46/9 1 (b2)} 48. f5 {-9.76/1 6} g5 {-30.04/12 14
(gxf5)} 49. Kg4 {-9.08/1 6 (f6)} f6 {-34.77/10 1} 50. Kh5 {-9.99/1 6 (Kg3)} Ke4
{-35.29/10 1} 51. Kg6 {-9.99/1 6 (Kg4)} Ke5 {-37.37/12 4} 52. Kh6 {-9.99/1 5
(h3)} Kxf5 {-37.15/10 2 (b2) Time} 0-1
[/pgn]
"The worst thing that can happen to a forum is a running wild attacking moderator(HGM) who is not corrected by the community." - Ed Schröder
But my words like silent raindrops fell. And echoed in the wells of silence.
But my words like silent raindrops fell. And echoed in the wells of silence.
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Re: Good question: What % improvement is hardware vs. softwa
For the record, bit board programs date back to the 60's. Samuel's checker program. For chess, chess 4.0 and beyond were bit boards, as was belle in 1978. there were 60 bit machines (CDC) and 64 bit machines (Cray) in the 70's, remember...Aaron Becker wrote:I don't think it's really possible to disentangle the effects of improved hardware and improved software, because they have evolved together. For example, modern bitboard move generation is a giant leap forward from 70's techniques, but it couldn't have practically been used on the hardware of the 70's because it relies on large cache-resident tables and efficient manipulation of 64 bit quantities. If you want to ask the question over a smaller time frame (say, since 2000), then I think the question starts to become more answerable.