What is faster, calculate or search?

[Luis Babboni]

Hi guys.

May be there is no obvious answer, buy just in case there is.
(As always, sorry for my poor english that made me use much more words than needed and even then explain myself less clearly than must be)

I´m making a chess engine, my second version of Soberango.
Best version is 618º out of 651 chess engines in CCRL 40/2 ranking: https://www.computerchess.org.uk/ccrl/402.archive/
Here about the 0.00.0 version: viewtopic.php?t=24545

It will use "bitboards". Taking advantage that nowdays computers use 64 bits and a chess board have 64 squares, it is possible to made calculus about moves of the pieces using bits and logical operation between ulongint variables (bitboards) representing different board positions.

I wonder if it is faster to have few bitboards and making more bit and logical operations between them during the main calculus of moves or have many bitboards "premade" before start the main calculus of moves and do less bit and logical operations during the main calculus of moves.

I´m talking about have, say around 500 bitboards instead of 20. How much the search of those premade bitboards slow down the calculus?

I´m not sure if I exaplined myself.
And as I said, I´m not sure if the question have an answer with as few information.

Comments?

Thanks!

[Luis Babboni]

With "search" I refering to the hardware search of a variable, not a software search.
I just have the premade bitboards declared and loaded, just need to "name" them.