buying a new computer

[Laskos]

I think to buy a new computer and I wonder what is the elo of stockfish and lc0 for different prices of hardware.

Is there a table for comparison that give price and elo estimate for both?

This:

CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 3900X 12 Core --- nominal $500
Should give with Stockfish some 35 million NPS in the openings

GPU: NVidia RTX 2070 Super --- nominal $500
Should give with Leela T40 (depending on the net) 25-35k NPS in the openings (after say one minute search with a large cache)

32 GB DDR4 RAM, Leela with its MCTS is especially RAM hungry.

All in all --- probably below $2000 for the whole system.

Elo wise, Lc0 with late T40 nets should be somewhat stronger than Stockfish on full CPU at longer time controls. At fast time controls, a bit weaker.

EDIT: This system is more than half of what we have today as TCEC hardware (2 TCEC machines combined). The results at LTC will look similar to TCEC results at LTC.

EDIT2: Don't forget the cooling: large case, many fans, a good CPU cooler. I am overclocking both my CPU and GPU even with this heatwave which hit here 37C, by almost 10% above nominal speeds, having these little things.

[Uri Blass]

Thanks for the all the replies.

Note that I do not understand much about hardware.
I read basically the following information when I do not know exactly what is the meaning of everything.

1)CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 3900X 12 Core or AMD 16 Core Ryzen 9(not sure if 16 cores are faster and how much faster)
2)GPU: NVidia RTX 2070 Super
3)32 GB DDR4 RAM
4)a good CPU cooler
5)large case
6)many fans,
7)PCIe 4.0 M.2 drive.
8)new AMD motherboards. 5.0 GB/s

[mwyoung]

Thanks for the all the replies.

Note that I do not understand much about hardware.
I read basically the following information when I do not know exactly what is the meaning of everything.

1)CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 3900X 12 Core or AMD 16 Core Ryzen 9(not sure if 16 cores are faster and how much faster)
2)GPU: NVidia RTX 2070 Super
3)32 GB DDR4 RAM
4)a good CPU cooler
5)large case
6)many fans,
7)PCIe 4.0 M.2 drive.
8)new AMD motherboards. 5.0 GB/s

If you give me a budget in USD. I can show you a sample configuation to get you started. And do you want to Overclock? And the general purpose of the system. Games, chess, productivity or a good all round system. And is running NN engines like Lc0 important for the configuration.

[Laskos]

Thanks for the all the replies.

Note that I do not understand much about hardware.
I read basically the following information when I do not know exactly what is the meaning of everything.

1)CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 3900X 12 Core or AMD 16 Core Ryzen 9(not sure if 16 cores are faster and how much faster)
...

16 core 3950X will come only in September, and is not a very good deal. It will cost $750 or 50% more than the 12 core 3900X ($500). Has a lower base clock and at best a similar stable clock (getting rid of Boost for consistency) to 3900X. More important, the L2 + L3 cache sizes are almost the same in 12 core 3900X and in 16 core 3950X, which looks not very good for Stockfish on 16 core 3950X. All in all, I expect about no more than 25-30% higher Stockfish NPS for 16 core vs 12 core (additionally keep in mind not perfect scaling too), at 50% higher price.

If you want really cheap and still strong (about 70% in speed compared to my earlier proposal), under $1400 for all the system you can get the 8-core Ryzen 7 3700X for $330 and NVidia RTX 2060 (not Super, Super is more expensive) for $350.

[Dann Corbit]

Thanks for the all the replies.

Note that I do not understand much about hardware.
I read basically the following information when I do not know exactly what is the meaning of everything.

1)CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 3900X 12 Core or AMD 16 Core Ryzen 9(not sure if 16 cores are faster and how much faster)
2)GPU: NVidia RTX 2070 Super
3)32 GB DDR4 RAM
4)a good CPU cooler
5)large case
6)many fans,
7)PCIe 4.0 M.2 drive.
8)new AMD motherboards. 5.0 GB/s

Don't forget a BIG power supply. Those GPU cards drink electricity with a slurp and a burp. I would say a KW is minimum,
The motherboards that support PCie 4.0 cost a lot. Figure 700 dollars.
Since you play correspondence chess you might consider 64 or even 128 GB of RAM. I read that the 3600 speed ram performs about as well and is cheaper

[mwyoung]

Thanks for the all the replies.

Note that I do not understand much about hardware.
I read basically the following information when I do not know exactly what is the meaning of everything.

1)CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 3900X 12 Core or AMD 16 Core Ryzen 9(not sure if 16 cores are faster and how much faster)
2)GPU: NVidia RTX 2070 Super
3)32 GB DDR4 RAM
4)a good CPU cooler
5)large case
6)many fans,
7)PCIe 4.0 M.2 drive.
8)new AMD motherboards. 5.0 GB/s

Don't forget a BIG power supply. Those GPU cards drink electricity with a slurp and a burp. I would say a KW is minimum,
The motherboards that support PCie 4.0 cost a lot. Figure 700 dollars.
Since you play correspondence chess you might consider 64 or even 128 GB of RAM. I read that the 3600 speed ram performs about as well and is cheaper

You don't need a big power supply. I have already configured several systems. And even with a 3900x, 64gb of memory, and a OC rtx 2080 ti. Max power draw was only 508 watts. I would recommend the corsair 650 power supply.

If you cheap out on parts and specs you will need about $2000. $3000 will get you a great system.

[Zenmastur]

I think to buy a new computer and I wonder what is the elo of stockfish and lc0 for different prices of hardware.

Is there a table for comparison that give price and elo estimate for both?

Hi Uri!

Based on the multicore intetger score of 77115. You can use NPS as a proxy for Elo - for the same engine , they are correlated to each other - just keep mind at these levels , it's not clear if doubling of nps will be worth 70 Elo like like in the past , but it should be close.

Stockfish should bench at 60,000 nps at a minimum with this processor using all 16 cores It could be higher, we shall wait and see. If you hyper thread , it could be even more. Just to clarify, "should" also has a meaning that maybe it will not. I'm not totally familiar with AMD processors, but if this was an Intel processor with Integer score of 77K, it would provide 60,000 nps at a minimum.

From looking at the performance delta of the second gen Threadripper 2920 compared to the Ryzen 9 3900X and the performance of the Threadripper 1950X and 2950X on chess bench marks It's likely that the Ryzen 9 3950X will perform even better than your estimate.

Intel is dead this year. AMD is the way to go this year if you want to upgrade. All the Ryzen 3000 can not be touched. Should be a great year for AMD.

Important to note. You need to buy 3700 speed memory. For best performace with the Ryzen 3000. 3700 ram speed will sync 1 to 1 with the new ryzen 3000 infinity fabric.

From a practical point of view this statement is wrong. There is very little performance delta between DDR4 3200 CL 14 and DDR4 3733 CL17. AB chess programs are not known for their memory bandwidth requirements. If that were the case then the Threadripper 2990wx would totally suck at SF benchmarks since it has slightly less than half the per core memory bandwidth of the 2950X. And yet it's still reaches 77.5M nps vice 41M nps for the 2950X. Therefore for SF and other AB chess engines latency matters more as long as the memory is not clocked “TOO” slow. The latency difference between DDR4 3200 CL14 and DDR4 3733 CL17 is a mere 3% due to the infinity fabric. The price for 32GB of each is $239.99 for the DDR4 3200 and $429.99 for the DDR4 3733. So, you can get by with DDR4 3200 with little impact if you are on a budget. Even if you are building a system from scratch the price and performance differences doesn't justify the extra cost of the faster memory unless you have an unlimited budget or you have other requirements to meet.

This:

CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 3900X 12 Core --- nominal $500
Should give with Stockfish some 35 million NPS in the openings

GPU: NVidia RTX 2070 Super --- nominal $500
Should give with Leela T40 (depending on the net) 25-35k NPS in the openings (after say one minute search with a large cache)

32 GB DDR4 RAM, Leela with its MCTS is especially RAM hungry.

All in all --- probably below $2000 for the whole system.

Elo wise, Lc0 with late T40 nets should be somewhat stronger than Stockfish on full CPU at longer time controls. At fast time controls, a bit weaker.

EDIT: This system is more than half of what we have today as TCEC hardware (2 TCEC machines combined). The results at LTC will look similar to TCEC results at LTC.

EDIT2: Don't forget the cooling: large case, many fans, a good CPU cooler. I am overclocking both my CPU and GPU even with this heatwave which hit here 37C, by almost 10% above nominal speeds, having these little things.

16 core 3950X will come only in September, and is not a very good deal. It will cost $750 or 50% more than the 12 core 3900X ($500). Has a lower base clock and at best a similar stable clock (getting rid of Boost for consistency) to 3900X. More important, the L2 + L3 cache sizes are almost the same in 12 core 3900X and in 16 core 3950X, which looks not very good for Stockfish on 16 core 3950X. All in all, I expect about no more than 25-30% higher Stockfish NPS for 16 core vs 12 core (additionally keep in mind not perfect scaling too), at 50% higher price.

If you want really cheap and still strong (about 70% in speed compared to my earlier proposal), under $1400 for all the system you can get the 8-core Ryzen 7 3700X for $330 and NVidia RTX 2060 (not Super, Super is more expensive) for $350.

Not sure what you thinking when you posted this but, if you are building a system from scratch, like the system you proposed then using a Ryzen 9 3950X instead of a Ryzen 9 3900X raises the cost of the system from $2000 to $2250 or 12.5%. In the mean time performance has increased by substantially more than 12.5% therefore this is a MUCH BETTER option than the Ryzen 9 3900X. Furthermore, having a faster system will allow you to use it longer before upgrading. e.g. a four year upgrade instead of 3 years (for example). Therefore the cost per month of use (excluding utilities) would be $55.56 per month for the Ryzen 9 3900X vice $46.88 per month for the much faster Ryzen 9 3950X.

Thanks for the all the replies.

Note that I do not understand much about hardware.
I read basically the following information when I do not know exactly what is the meaning of everything.

1)CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 3900X 12 Core or AMD 16 Core Ryzen 9(not sure if 16 cores are faster and how much faster)
2)GPU: NVidia RTX 2070 Super
3)32 GB DDR4 RAM
4)a good CPU cooler
5)large case
6)many fans,
7)PCIe 4.0 M.2 drive.
8)new AMD motherboards. 5.0 GB/s

Don't forget a BIG power supply. Those GPU cards drink electricity with a slurp and a burp. I would say a KW is minimum,
The motherboards that support PCie 4.0 cost a lot. Figure 700 dollars.
Since you play correspondence chess you might consider 64 or even 128 GB of RAM. I read that the 3600 speed ram performs about as well and is cheaper

One of the best points about Ryzen is power usage and heat generation. Both the Ryzen 9 3900X and the Ryzen 9 3950X are rated at 105 watts at there boost clock speed. As a note Intel rates their CPU's power usage at their base clock speed. This makes a HUGE difference. The AMD CPU's come with an adequate cooler. Unless you live in a hot climate or are overclocking there seems little point in buying a more expensive cooler for the AMD cpu's. Secondly, a 250-300 watt GPU doesn't need a 1000W power supply. A 650-700 watt is plenty unless you are doing something special like dual, triple, quad GPU's or massive over-clocks.

You don't need a large case or lots of fans in most cases. I ran my 5820K all core over-clocked to 4.8Ghz in a small case with just a top and rear fan 24/7 365 since the CPU was introduced and I live in the desert where temperatures regularly exceed 45 degrees C (109 degrees F). I recently slowed it down a bit due to stability issues as a result of not cleaning the case out for several years ( I normally do this every spring). But it's time for an upgrade as 20M-24M nps is now too slow. I'm looking at both the 3900X, 3950X and 7nm Threadripper if it's released soon enough.

For me the much touted X570 motherboard seems like over kill and brings little to the table for AB chess engines. B450, X370 and X470 motherboards yield identical CPU performance as the X570 at half the cost (in some case less than $75 US). So unless you need PCI gen 4 for some reason, spend your money on a faster CPU like the Ryzen 9 3950X.

One Last note: Do check your motherboard compatibility before buying! Not all MB's will handle the new chips, but most will, so check the manufactures web site before buying.

Regards,

Forrest

[mwyoung]

I think to buy a new computer and I wonder what is the elo of stockfish and lc0 for different prices of hardware.

Is there a table for comparison that give price and elo estimate for both?

Hi Uri!

Based on the multicore intetger score of 77115. You can use NPS as a proxy for Elo - for the same engine , they are correlated to each other - just keep mind at these levels , it's not clear if doubling of nps will be worth 70 Elo like like in the past , but it should be close.

Stockfish should bench at 60,000 nps at a minimum with this processor using all 16 cores It could be higher, we shall wait and see. If you hyper thread , it could be even more. Just to clarify, "should" also has a meaning that maybe it will not. I'm not totally familiar with AMD processors, but if this was an Intel processor with Integer score of 77K, it would provide 60,000 nps at a minimum.

From looking at the performance delta of the second gen Threadripper 2920 compared to the Ryzen 9 3900X and the performance of the Threadripper 1950X and 2950X on chess bench marks It's likely that the Ryzen 9 3950X will perform even better than your estimate.

Intel is dead this year. AMD is the way to go this year if you want to upgrade. All the Ryzen 3000 can not be touched. Should be a great year for AMD.

Important to note. You need to buy 3700 speed memory. For best performace with the Ryzen 3000. 3700 ram speed will sync 1 to 1 with the new ryzen 3000 infinity fabric.

From a practical point of view this statement is wrong. There is very little performance delta between DDR4 3200 CL 14 and DDR4 3733 CL17. AB chess programs are not known for their memory bandwidth requirements. If that were the case then the Threadripper 2990wx would totally suck at SF benchmarks since it has slightly less than half the per core memory bandwidth of the 2950X. And yet it's still reaches 77.5M nps vice 41M nps for the 2950X. Therefore for SF and other AB chess engines latency matters more as long as the memory is not clocked “TOO” slow. The latency difference between DDR4 3200 CL14 and DDR4 3733 CL17 is a mere 3% due to the infinity fabric. The price for 32GB of each is $239.99 for the DDR4 3200 and $429.99 for the DDR4 3733. So, you can get by with DDR4 3200 with little impact if you are on a budget. Even if you are building a system from scratch the price and performance differences doesn't justify the extra cost of the faster memory unless you have an unlimited budget or you have other requirements to meet.

This:

CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 3900X 12 Core --- nominal $500
Should give with Stockfish some 35 million NPS in the openings

GPU: NVidia RTX 2070 Super --- nominal $500
Should give with Leela T40 (depending on the net) 25-35k NPS in the openings (after say one minute search with a large cache)

32 GB DDR4 RAM, Leela with its MCTS is especially RAM hungry.

All in all --- probably below $2000 for the whole system.

Elo wise, Lc0 with late T40 nets should be somewhat stronger than Stockfish on full CPU at longer time controls. At fast time controls, a bit weaker.

EDIT: This system is more than half of what we have today as TCEC hardware (2 TCEC machines combined). The results at LTC will look similar to TCEC results at LTC.

EDIT2: Don't forget the cooling: large case, many fans, a good CPU cooler. I am overclocking both my CPU and GPU even with this heatwave which hit here 37C, by almost 10% above nominal speeds, having these little things.

16 core 3950X will come only in September, and is not a very good deal. It will cost $750 or 50% more than the 12 core 3900X ($500). Has a lower base clock and at best a similar stable clock (getting rid of Boost for consistency) to 3900X. More important, the L2 + L3 cache sizes are almost the same in 12 core 3900X and in 16 core 3950X, which looks not very good for Stockfish on 16 core 3950X. All in all, I expect about no more than 25-30% higher Stockfish NPS for 16 core vs 12 core (additionally keep in mind not perfect scaling too), at 50% higher price.

If you want really cheap and still strong (about 70% in speed compared to my earlier proposal), under $1400 for all the system you can get the 8-core Ryzen 7 3700X for $330 and NVidia RTX 2060 (not Super, Super is more expensive) for $350.

Not sure what you thinking when you posted this but, if you are building a system from scratch, like the system you proposed then using a Ryzen 9 3950X instead of a Ryzen 9 3900X raises the cost of the system from $2000 to $2250 or 12.5%. In the mean time performance has increased by substantially more than 12.5% therefore this is a MUCH BETTER option than the Ryzen 9 3900X. Furthermore, having a faster system will allow you to use it longer before upgrading. e.g. a four year upgrade instead of 3 years (for example). Therefore the cost per month of use (excluding utilities) would be $55.56 per month for the Ryzen 9 3900X vice $46.88 per month for the much faster Ryzen 9 3950X.

Thanks for the all the replies.

Note that I do not understand much about hardware.
I read basically the following information when I do not know exactly what is the meaning of everything.

1)CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 3900X 12 Core or AMD 16 Core Ryzen 9(not sure if 16 cores are faster and how much faster)
2)GPU: NVidia RTX 2070 Super
3)32 GB DDR4 RAM
4)a good CPU cooler
5)large case
6)many fans,
7)PCIe 4.0 M.2 drive.
8)new AMD motherboards. 5.0 GB/s

Don't forget a BIG power supply. Those GPU cards drink electricity with a slurp and a burp. I would say a KW is minimum,
The motherboards that support PCie 4.0 cost a lot. Figure 700 dollars.
Since you play correspondence chess you might consider 64 or even 128 GB of RAM. I read that the 3600 speed ram performs about as well and is cheaper

One of the best points about Ryzen is power usage and heat generation. Both the Ryzen 9 3900X and the Ryzen 9 3950X are rated at 105 watts at there boost clock speed. As a note Intel rates their CPU's power usage at their base clock speed. This makes a HUGE difference. The AMD CPU's come with an adequate cooler. Unless you live in a hot climate or are overclocking there seems little point in buying a more expensive cooler for the AMD cpu's. Secondly, a 250-300 watt GPU doesn't need a 1000W power supply. A 650-700 watt is plenty unless you are doing something special like dual, triple, quad GPU's or massive over-clocks.

You don't need a large case or lots of fans in most cases. I ran my 5820K all core over-clocked to 4.8Ghz in a small case with just a top and rear fan 24/7 365 since the CPU was introduced and I live in the desert where temperatures regularly exceed 45 degrees C (109 degrees F). I recently slowed it down a bit due to stability issues as a result of not cleaning the case out for several years ( I normally do this every spring). But it's time for an upgrade as 20M-24M nps is now too slow. I'm looking at both the 3900X, 3950X and 7nm Threadripper if it's released soon enough.

For me the much touted X570 motherboard seems like over kill and brings little to the table for AB chess engines. B450, X370 and X470 motherboards yield identical CPU performance as the X570 at half the cost (in some case less than $75 US). So unless you need PCI gen 4 for some reason, spend your money on a faster CPU like the Ryzen 9 3950X.

One Last note: Do check your motherboard compatibility before buying! Not all MB's will handle the new chips, but most will, so check the manufactures web site before buying.

Regards,

Forrest

Yes, This is what AMD stated. Looking into the latest specs. I agree 3200 speed memory will be fine on the dual channel Ryzen 3000. Bandwidth is just to narrow to take advantage of the faster memory. Regardless of what AMD says is best. I would say the faster memory would only give you 1 to 2 percent speed increase. Not worth the price of the faster memory.

[Laskos]

16 core 3950X will come only in September, and is not a very good deal. It will cost $750 or 50% more than the 12 core 3900X ($500). Has a lower base clock and at best a similar stable clock (getting rid of Boost for consistency) to 3900X. More important, the L2 + L3 cache sizes are almost the same in 12 core 3900X and in 16 core 3950X, which looks not very good for Stockfish on 16 core 3950X. All in all, I expect about no more than 25-30% higher Stockfish NPS for 16 core vs 12 core (additionally keep in mind not perfect scaling too), at 50% higher price.

If you want really cheap and still strong (about 70% in speed compared to my earlier proposal), under $1400 for all the system you can get the 8-core Ryzen 7 3700X for $330 and NVidia RTX 2060 (not Super, Super is more expensive) for $350.

Not sure what you thinking when you posted this but, if you are building a system from scratch, like the system you proposed then using a Ryzen 9 3950X instead of a Ryzen 9 3900X raises the cost of the system from $2000 to $2250 or 12.5%. In the mean time performance has increased by substantially more than 12.5% therefore this is a MUCH BETTER option than the Ryzen 9 3900X. Furthermore, having a faster system will allow you to use it longer before upgrading. e.g. a four year upgrade instead of 3 years (for example). Therefore the cost per month of use (excluding utilities) would be $55.56 per month for the Ryzen 9 3900X vice $46.88 per month for the much faster Ryzen 9 3950X.



Regards,

Forrest

Not sure about what you say. With this reasoning, Uri would better buy 3000 series 32 core Threadripper with 2080ti Super.

Punctually: 12 core 3900X and 16 core 3950X.

Base clock is significantly (300MHz) higher with 12 core 3900X. I am skeptical the clocks can be equalized when the Boost is stabilized. I guess a gap of 200MHz will remain, or 5% in speed.
L2 + L3 cache size per core is significantly higher on 12 core 3900X compared to 16 core 3950X. IPCs are the same.

All in all, single core performance might be about 10% better with 12 core CPU, and that affects Leela speed, for example (and many other applications). And multi-core performance of 16 core CPU with Stockfish (NPS) is probably no more than 25% higher than that of 12 core CPU.
$750 for 3950X is pricey to my taste, actually a bit overpriced. I am replying to Uri from "a poor guy perspective" thinking of some limited budget. And spending $250+ (in fact probably $300, as cooling a 16 core crammed CPU is probably more pretentious) more for a dubious all-in-all advantage of having 20% faster Stockfish, but 5% slower Leela and 10% slower single core applications is an issue for me. Better spend $100 more on a more potent CPU cooler, and overclock further the 12 core CPU by additional say 8%, it will affect everything from Leela to Stockfish and almost all other applications.

[mwyoung]

16 core 3950X will come only in September, and is not a very good deal. It will cost $750 or 50% more than the 12 core 3900X ($500). Has a lower base clock and at best a similar stable clock (getting rid of Boost for consistency) to 3900X. More important, the L2 + L3 cache sizes are almost the same in 12 core 3900X and in 16 core 3950X, which looks not very good for Stockfish on 16 core 3950X. All in all, I expect about no more than 25-30% higher Stockfish NPS for 16 core vs 12 core (additionally keep in mind not perfect scaling too), at 50% higher price.

If you want really cheap and still strong (about 70% in speed compared to my earlier proposal), under $1400 for all the system you can get the 8-core Ryzen 7 3700X for $330 and NVidia RTX 2060 (not Super, Super is more expensive) for $350.

Not sure what you thinking when you posted this but, if you are building a system from scratch, like the system you proposed then using a Ryzen 9 3950X instead of a Ryzen 9 3900X raises the cost of the system from $2000 to $2250 or 12.5%. In the mean time performance has increased by substantially more than 12.5% therefore this is a MUCH BETTER option than the Ryzen 9 3900X. Furthermore, having a faster system will allow you to use it longer before upgrading. e.g. a four year upgrade instead of 3 years (for example). Therefore the cost per month of use (excluding utilities) would be $55.56 per month for the Ryzen 9 3900X vice $46.88 per month for the much faster Ryzen 9 3950X.



Regards,

Forrest

Not sure about what you say. With this reasoning, Uri would better buy 3000 series 32 core Threadripper with 2080ti Super.

Punctually: 12 core 3900X and 16 core 3950X.

Base clock is significantly (300MHz) higher with 12 core 3900X. I am skeptical the clocks can be equalized when the Boost is stabilized. I guess a gap of 200MHz will remain, or 5% in speed.
L2 + L3 cache size per core is significantly higher on 12 core 3900X compared to 16 core 3950X. IPCs are the same.

All in all, single core performance might be about 10% better with 12 core CPU, and that affects Leela speed, for example (and many other applications). And multi-core performance of 16 core CPU with Stockfish (NPS) is probably no more than 25% higher than that of 12 core CPU.
$750 for 3950X is pricey to my taste, actually a bit overpriced. I am replying to Uri from "a poor guy perspective" thinking of some limited budget.

Uri needs to give a budget on the system. You will always pay more for less performance as you reach the BLEEDING EDGE of performance in the market place.

But you can optimize your system. When you know what you are will to spend on a new system. The biggest question in building a Chess computer system today in regards to price. Is how important is it to the build in running NN Engines Fast...