Lc0 has forced a computer system upgrade.

[mwyoung]

With the arrival of Lc0 and the programs obvious strength. Lc0 has made my current chess computer testing configuration obsolete. We are no longer able to test with 8 CPU cores and a low cost graphics card with Lc0 as a dominate player in computer chess.

CPU and GPU hardware are now both as important when configuring a chess computer testing system.

The parts for the new chess computer testing system have started to arrive today. With luck it should by operational by this weekend.

Good luck to both Stockfish and Lc0 in the super final.

New testing computer system:
AMD - Threadripper 2950x
Asus - ROG Zenith Extreme Alpha
64 GB of Corsair Vengeance RGB PRO 3200 Mhz
Enermax- Liqtech TR4 II 280
Samsung 970 Evo M.2 2 TB
MSI - Geforce RTX 2080 TI Gaming X Trio
Lian-LI PC-011 Dynamic White
Corsair RMx 1000w Power Supply.

[Dann Corbit]

Sounds like a wonderful system. From your descriptions, I take it you are building it yourself.
What is your total cost after shipping, tax, etc.?

[MikeB]

+1 ...very nice, good luck with your new rig !- we never had to think about GPU's before ( at least I didn't) ..and now we do ...I think I have 3 more years left in an old trusty Mac Pro 2010 ....

[mwyoung]

Sounds like a wonderful system. From your descriptions, I take it you are building it yourself.
What is your total cost after shipping, tax, etc.?

Yes I build my own PCs.

The total cost was $5415

The big ticket items were the MSI 2080 TI, AMD- 2950x, the Corsair 64 Gb of ram, the new Asus Rog Zenith Extreme Alpha x399 mother board, the 4K monitor, and the 970 Evo M.2 2Tb NVMe drive.

Plus the 6 LL 120 Corsair and 2 LL 140 fans, Corsair Commander Pro, Corsair power supply, and the Corsair K95 Keyboard and mouse, and the 280 Liqtech TR4 II CPU cooler.

If you did not want to theme it out. You could go a bit cheaper. But I am a Corsair fanboy.

[mwyoung]

+1 ...very nice, good luck with your new rig !- we never had to think about GPU's before ( at least I didn't) ..and now we do ...I think I have 3 more years left in an old trusty Mac Pro 2010 ....

Yes, I never had to think about the GPU in my chess computer testing system before. I was only concerned with the CPU and Ram configuration. Now with the revolution of chess engines like Lc0 taking advantage of the GPU. This has added extra thought and expense in configuring a chess computer testing system.

In the past I could build a chess computer testing system for the price of one RTX 2080 Ti graphics cards.

But this should allow us to run chess matches with CPU engines with ponder on, and Cuda core engines with ponder on. Since you will have 2 distinct processors running. This should allow us to test the engines in this scenario with out much negative effect on a single chess computer testing system.

But this needs to be tested.

[jdart]

I just picked up a dual Xeon 2690v3 with 64GB RAM on eBay. Systems like that are coming off lease now and are very low priced compared to their original cost. No big graphics card in it though: it has a NVIDIA K620.

--Jon

[cma6]

A very impressive rig. If one was just doing deep analysis for correspondence chess, is there any component where you could cut back on to save money, e.g., the 64 GB of Corsair Vengeance RGB PRO 3200 Mhz ($500)?
Alsom, why didn't you wait till 8/2019 when AMD will come out with the 3000 series CPUs?

[mwyoung]

A very impressive rig. If one was just doing deep analysis for correspondence chess, is there any component where you could cut back on to save money, e.g., the 64 GB of Corsair Vengeance RGB PRO 3200 Mhz ($500)?
Alsom, why didn't you wait till 8/2019 when AMD will come out with the 3000 series CPUs?

Because you will always be waiting for the next best thing.

[mwyoung]

New testing computer system:
AMD - Threadripper 2950x
Asus - ROG Zenith Extreme Alpha
64 GB of Corsair Vengeance RGB PRO 3200 Mhz
Enermax- Liqtech TR4 II 280
Samsung 970 Evo M.2 2 TB
MSI - Geforce RTX 2080 TI Gaming X Trio
Lian-LI PC-011 Dynamic White
Corsair RMx 1000w Power Supply.

The new chess testing computer is up and running. This is the first quick test game to check for stability. And Lc0 averaged in this game 124kn/s. That is just a wee bit more then I was getting on my GTX card.

And the 2950x hit a nice 39.3 mn/s average.

I still need to load and test the table bases. But they should be very fast on the 970 Evo.

[pgn][Event "Corsair, Blitz 5m+3s"] [Site "DESKTOP-Corsair"] [Date "2019.02.09"] [Round "1"] [White "Lc0 v0.20.2"] [Black "Stockfish 080219 64 POPCNT"] [Result "1/2-1/2"] [ECO "D32"] [Annotator "0.34;0.00"] [PlyCount "218"] [TimeControl "300+3"] {AMD Ryzen Threadripper 2950X 16-Core Processor 3493 MHz W=11.2 plies; 124kN/s; Fritz 16.ctg B=42.8 plies; 39,306kN/s; Fritz 16.ctg} 1. d4 {B 0} Nf6 {B 0} 2. Nf3 {B 0} e6 {B 0} 3. e3 {B 0} c5 {B 0} 4. c4 {B 0} d5 {B 0} 5. Nc3 {B 0} Nc6 { B 0} 6. cxd5 {B 0} exd5 {B 0 Both last book move} 7. Bb5 {0.34/13 6} cxd4 { 0.00/29 28} 8. Nxd4 {0.25/18 0} Qc7 {0.00/30 12 (Bd7)} 9. Bd2 {0.50/15 10} a6 { 0.00/30 0} 10. Ba4 {0.45/16 6} Bd6 {0.00/31 4} 11. Rc1 {0.47/16 7 (Nce2)} O-O { 0.00/31 6} 12. Nce2 {0.47/17 2} Bd7 {0.00/33 5} 13. h3 {0.49/16 11} Rac8 { 0.12/32 20 (Qb6)} 14. O-O {0.52/13 16} Qb8 {0.00/31 0 (Rfd8)} 15. Bb3 {0.51/14 30} Bh2+ {0.19/35 28 (Nxd4)} 16. Kh1 {0.51/14 0} Be5 {0.21/31 11 (Nxd4)} 17. Bc3 {0.52/13 6} Rfd8 {0.34/30 10} 18. Nf3 {0.54/13 5} Bxc3 {0.22/29 0} 19. Nxc3 {0.54/12 22 (Rxc3)} Bf5 {0.00/26 4} 20. Nd4 {0.57/12 11} Bg6 {0.17/32 10} 21. Nce2 {0.57/13 0} h6 {0.02/30 10 (Qe5)} 22. Kg1 {0.59/12 23} Qd6 {0.23/33 0 (Bh7)} 23. Nf4 {0.61/13 6 (a3)} Bh7 {0.11/28 6} 24. Re1 {0.60/14 7} Rc7 { 0.13/29 8 (Qb4)} 25. Qd2 {0.80/13 9 (a3)} g5 {0.36/30 23 (Ne4)} 26. Nxc6 { 0.80/15 5 (Nfe2)} bxc6 {0.21/27 8} 27. Ne2 {0.80/14 1} c5 {0.27/29 11} 28. Red1 {0.83/14 7} Bg6 {0.25/29 4 (Qb6)} 29. Bc2 {0.82/13 16} Bh5 {0.25/33 0} 30. Bd3 {0.81/12 11 (g4)} Rc6 {0.23/30 20} 31. b3 {0.81/13 15 (f3)} Qe5 {0.25/34 21 (Bxe2)} 32. Rc2 {0.88/12 14 (g4)} Rdc8 {0.20/28 12} 33. Rdc1 {0.89/13 5 (g4)} Bxe2 {0.34/38 61} 34. Bxe2 {0.90/16 0} Kg7 {0.15/30 9} 35. Qa5 {0.91/13 6} Qe7 {0.34/31 1 (Qf5)} 36. g3 {1.03/11 20 (Qc3)} h5 {0.20/27 4 (Qe4)} 37. Bf1 { 1.25/11 13 (Bd3)} Ne4 {0.45/29 5 (Qd6)} 38. Bg2 {1.02/22 12} g4 {0.56/31 0 (Qe5)} 39. h4 {1.45/13 11} Qe6 {0.50/36 5} 40. Rd1 {1.42/14 6} Qf5 {0.50/40 0} 41. Qa3 {1.37/13 17 (Bxe4)} f6 {0.31/33 4 (R8c7)} 42. Qa5 {1.29/10 14 (Qb2)} Kg6 {0.14/31 6} 43. Re2 {1.27/11 6 (Bf1)} Rd6 {0.00/39 6 (Re8)} 44. Rc2 { 1.20/12 8} Rdc6 {0.00/42 0} 45. a3 {1.20/11 2 (Bxe4)} R8c7 {0.00/35 12 (Kg7)} 46. Ra2 {1.16/12 15 (Bxe4)} Rc8 {0.00/36 19 (Rf7)} 47. Re2 {1.20/13 11 (Rc2)} Rb8 {0.31/39 27 (Re6)} 48. Rc2 {1.31/13 4} Rbc8 {0.31/39 0} 49. Re2 {1.10/14 12 (Bxe4)} Qe6 {0.13/35 3 (Re6)} 50. Rc2 {1.11/16 7} Qf5 {0.13/43 0} 51. Bxe4 { 1.05/13 3} Qxe4 {0.13/45 0} 52. Rcd2 {1.04/12 1} Rd6 {0.13/44 3 (d4)} 53. Rc1 { 1.08/15 8 (b4)} Rdc6 {0.13/40 9 (Qf3)} 54. Rcd1 {0.82/13 7} Rd6 {0.13/48 0} 55. Qc3 {0.76/13 9 (b4)} Qf5 {0.00/36 3} 56. Rc1 {0.66/13 4 (Rd3)} Re6 {0.00/37 3 (Rdc6)} 57. b4 {0.68/12 8 (Rcd1)} c4 {0.00/38 4 (Re4)} 58. Rcd1 {0.94/9 5 (Qd4) } Re5 {0.00/31 3} 59. Rd4 {0.89/10 3 (a4)} Rc7 {0.00/34 4 (Kg7)} 60. a4 { 0.78/10 7} Rb7 {0.00/38 0} 61. Qd2 {0.70/9 3 (Qb2)} Qe6 {0.00/36 7 (Kg7)} 62. Qc3 {0.60/9 5 (Qb2)} Kg7 {0.00/37 4} 63. Qd2 {0.49/10 3} Rc7 {0.00/40 0 (Qc6)} 64. Qc2 {0.56/9 4 (Qb2)} Qc6 {0.00/36 4} 65. Kh2 {0.52/9 2 (Qc3)} Rce7 { 0.00/35 8} 66. Kg1 {0.49/10 5 (Kg2)} Rd7 {0.00/37 2 (Rc7)} 67. Kh2 {0.50/9 3 (Rc1)} Rc7 {0.00/37 4 (Rde7)} 68. Kg1 {0.48/9 5} Rd7 {0.00/38 0} 69. Rb1 { 0.44/9 4} Rb7 {0.00/37 0} 70. Kh2 {0.43/8 2} Qd7 {0.00/35 1 (Rb6)} 71. Kg2 { 0.41/9 4 (Kg1)} Qe7 {0.00/35 2 (Qc6)} 72. Qd2 {0.52/10 2 (b5)} Qf8 {0.00/35 3 (Qd7)} 73. Kg1 {0.54/9 4} Qf7 {0.00/40 0 (Qc8)} 74. b5 {0.71/9 2} axb5 { 0.00/41 0} 75. axb5 {0.69/11 2 (Rxb5)} Qe6 {0.00/37 3} 76. Kg2 {0.66/10 4 (Qb2) } Qf5 {0.00/34 3} 77. Rb2 {0.63/13 0} Qe6 {0.00/37 4} 78. Qa5 {0.62/10 4 (Kh2)} Re4 {0.00/35 5 (Qb6)} 79. Qa8 {0.65/15 7} Rd7 {0.00/41 0} 80. b6 {0.50/18 2 (Rxe4)} Rxd4 {0.00/42 3} 81. exd4 {0.29/16 0} Qe4+ {0.00/46 5} 82. Kh2 { 0.21/15 0} Qxd4 {0.00/51 4} 83. b7 {0.18/13 0} Qxb2 {0.00/60 5} 84. b8=Q { 0.16/11 0} Qxf2+ {0.00/63 8} 85. Kh1 {0.10/9 0} Qf1+ {0.00/64 5} 86. Kh2 { 0.07/7 0} Qf2+ {0.00/62 2} 87. Kh1 {0.04/5 0} Qf1+ {0.00/61 4} 88. Kh2 { 0.02/3 0} Qe2+ {0.00/66 6 (Qf2+)} 89. Kg1 {0.14/8 14 (Kh1)} Qe1+ {0.00/69 13} 90. Kg2 {0.10/6 0 (Kh2)} Qe2+ {0.00/62 2} 91. Kg1 {0.07/5 5 (Kh1)} Qe1+ { 0.00/68 8} 92. Kg2 {0.04/4 7 (Kh2)} Qd2+ {0.00/69 4 (Qe2+)} 93. Kf1 {0.20/8 8 (Kg1)} Qd1+ {0.00/69 1} 94. Kf2 {0.15/7 3 (Kg2)} Qd2+ {0.00/68 5} 95. Kf1 { 0.10/6 2 (Kg1)} Qd1+ {0.00/66 3} 96. Kf2 {0.05/4 8} Qf3+ {0.00/54 0 (Qd2+)} 97. Kg1 {0.15/6 2} Qd1+ {0.00/59 1} 98. Kh2 {0.07/4 6 (Kf2)} Qd2+ {0.00/71 3 (Qe2+) } 99. Kh1 {0.11/4 2 (Kg1)} Qd1+ {0.00/60 1 (Qe1+)} 100. Kh2 {0.09/4 4} Qd2+ { 0.00/70 2 (Qe2+)} 101. Kh1 {0.09/4 3 (Kg1)} Qd1+ {0.00/80 9 (Qe1+)} 102. Kg2 { 0.10/4 2 (Kh2)} Qf3+ {0.00/45 1 (Qe2+)} 103. Kg1 {0.11/5 3 (Kh2)} Qe3+ { 0.00/67 6 (Qd1+)} 104. Kf1 {0.18/6 3 (Kh2)} Qd3+ {0.00/67 3} 105. Kg1 {0.11/5 3 } Qd4+ {0.00/69 0 (Qd1+)} 106. Kg2 {0.10/3 3 (Kh2)} Qe4+ {0.00/58 1 (Qd2+)} 107. Kh2 {0.10/4 3} Qe2+ {0.00/62 4} 108. Kh1 {0.03/2 2 (Kg1)} Qf3+ {0.00/74 6 (Qf1+)} 109. Kh2 {0.04/2 3 (Kg1)} Qf2+ {0.00/80 4 Draw accepted} 1/2-1/2 [/pgn]

[Leo]

Very nice setup. I like to see AMD being chosen more and more for HEDTs.