You will use a 3rd generation Intel processor = Ivy Bridge!
Then i would check/test first what are my nodes/sec. with HT OFF & ON
When you gain more then 20% in nodes..then i would try to play games ,using same engine with 4cores & 8threads..see whats the result.
And decide then using HT ON or Off.
Only for curious i would play with HT ON..and put engines playing with 4 cores and 8threads against each other!
When you want power & heat saving..play with HT Off!
For sure i keep Ponder OFF..no matter what you do 1core,2core against other 1core,2core engines with Ponder on will give dimisting results.
Ponder ON = use two systems i find!
Using 3cores ,2 or 1 to have some free cpu for doing some background task..i would never do! other tasks i do on other system..prevent disturbing on going games,same reason as Ponder On!
These are just my idea's..only you decide how you feel best with your tournaments!
Good luck..and look forward to follow these games again!
Very glad TCEC is back! I'd prefer ponder off, but why not run some matches/tournaments with ponder on as well once in a while? That way, there will be something for everyone.
Laskos wrote:
Why not 4 cores with HT on? You will still have some CPU time available for other small tasks.
That would surely be the best solution if no much use is done of the PC, however in the case he wants to use some other application that requires CPU use not just limited to little spikes but semi-permanent, using 4 cores with HT can produce some unpredictability as Windows will switch physical cores around (and probably set some threads to logical processes instead), especially if the engines are set with lower priority. Using affinities will prevent this, but in that case it will be just like using the full 4 cores without HT, and could produce the same problems that would arise in that case.
So it all depends on what use is made of the PC. If it is only surfing etc. then 4 cores/HT would probably be the best solution, but if instead a more resourceful use of the PC is done (as an example using Photoshop or similar applications that require CPU time always) then it's better to use 3 cores, in that way you are sure that in any case physical cores are used by the engines.
jpqy wrote:
These are just my idea's..only you decide how you feel best with your tournaments!
Good luck..and look forward to follow these games again!
Kind regards,
Jean-Paul.
Thanks Jean-Paul!
HT ON is not really an option as I have to save some power, besides I don't really see the point of that unless using all cores.
The reason for 3 cores is that 1 core is left for the GUI, the FTP upload processes and everything else relevant for Windows.
With TCEC there was some hardware trouble once in a while, and I will not repeat this now. During the current testing I've not had one system failure and the temperatures are very good.
