Best chess cpu for the buck

[Milos]

Currently by far the best CPU for the buck for chess (and probably gaming and many other things too) is Intel I7-12700KF. It's around 35Mnps on ipman bench with 20 threads which beats 5900X with similar nps but with 24 threads, plus costing only 420$ it's noticeably cheaper than 5900X (420$ vs 520$).

If you want a bit more performance than 5950X still offers a bit more bang for the buck compared to 12900K(F), i.e. around 49Mnps vs 43Mnps for 720$ vs 650$.

[Look]

What about single core performance ?

[Raphexon]

No reason to go Alder Lake over Zen3 for chess.

Also look at the motherboard prices / cost of RAM + cost of electricity.

[dangi12012]

Currently by far the best CPU for the buck for chess (and probably gaming and many other things too) is Intel I7-12700KF. It's around 35Mnps on ipman bench with 20 threads which beats 5900X with similar nps but with 24 threads, plus costing only 420$ it's noticeably cheaper than 5900X (420$ vs 520$).

If you want a bit more performance than 5950X still offers a bit more bang for the buck compared to 12900K(F), i.e. around 49Mnps vs 43Mnps for 720$ vs 650$.

Milos. You also need very very expensive DDR5? Or a brand new motherboard?
With a 5900x you can use a good used x470 board for 40 bucks and literally any good used ddr4 ram for another 80.

The 12700Kf only looks cheap on the surface level. System cost is much higher! (also needs more Watt per nps so running cost is higher too)
Ryzen is a powerhouse.

[Modern Times]

Expensive Alder Lake motherboard prices need to be taken into account as well, as noted above.

[Milos]

What about single core performance ?

It's much better when considering performance cores on 12700K(F) compared to cores on 5900X (E cores are ofc worse).

[Milos]

No reason to go Alder Lake over Zen3 for chess.

Also look at the motherboard prices / cost of RAM + cost of electricity.

Realistic difference in mobo price is under 100$ (there are no super cheap socket 1700 MBs yet, but you don't buy 500$ CPU and 50$ MB). There are plenty MBs with either DDR4 or DDR4/DDR5 available, so RAM doesn't cost anything extra.
Peak power difference is around 30W. IMO that's peanuts even if you run your system 24/7 since it's around 40$ a year difference with average electricity prices.
Mobo prices will almost certainly go down for socket 1700 in the near future.
Atm 12700K(F) and 5900X have almost same nps with bmi2, but one will eventually come up with a better AVX512 NNUE implementation (current one in SF is crap) and Intel will have advantage also there.

[Milos]

Currently by far the best CPU for the buck for chess (and probably gaming and many other things too) is Intel I7-12700KF. It's around 35Mnps on ipman bench with 20 threads which beats 5900X with similar nps but with 24 threads, plus costing only 420$ it's noticeably cheaper than 5900X (420$ vs 520$).

If you want a bit more performance than 5950X still offers a bit more bang for the buck compared to 12900K(F), i.e. around 49Mnps vs 43Mnps for 720$ vs 650$.

Milos. You also need very very expensive DDR5? Or a brand new motherboard?
With a 5900x you can use a good used x470 board for 40 bucks and literally any good used ddr4 ram for another 80.

The 12700Kf only looks cheap on the surface level. System cost is much higher! (also needs more Watt per nps so running cost is higher too)
Ryzen is a powerhouse.

There are plenty of Z690 boards with DDR4. Z690 boards are currently a bit under 100$ more expensive than Zen3 boards, but prices will for sure go down.
And you don't seriously expect that someone would put 40$ used mobo with 500+$ CPU, gee???

[dangi12012]

Currently by far the best CPU for the buck for chess (and probably gaming and many other things too) is Intel I7-12700KF. It's around 35Mnps on ipman bench with 20 threads which beats 5900X with similar nps but with 24 threads, plus costing only 420$ it's noticeably cheaper than 5900X (420$ vs 520$).

If you want a bit more performance than 5950X still offers a bit more bang for the buck compared to 12900K(F), i.e. around 49Mnps vs 43Mnps for 720$ vs 650$.

Milos. You also need very very expensive DDR5? Or a brand new motherboard?
With a 5900x you can use a good used x470 board for 40 bucks and literally any good used ddr4 ram for another 80.

The 12700Kf only looks cheap on the surface level. System cost is much higher! (also needs more Watt per nps so running cost is higher too)
Ryzen is a powerhouse.

There are plenty of Z690 boards with DDR4. Z690 boards are currently a bit under 100$ more expensive than Zen3 boards, but prices will for sure go down.
And you don't seriously expect that someone would put 40$ used mobo with 500+$ CPU, gee???

You have the option. There is nothing wrong with a good used X470 board like tomahawk etc.
With Intel you have no options and you have twice the electricity bill to pay.

[Milos]

You have the option. There is nothing wrong with a good used X470 board like tomahawk etc.
With Intel you have no options and you have twice the electricity bill to pay.

Ofc there is, you obviously never got fried CPU because of bad board. Ofc one can go cheap on everything but then 5900X is a wrong CPU. You should take like 5600X at most.

Btw. Tomahawk is B450 and even that one you can't find for under 70$ used in bad shape. If you find it for 40$ that's probably coz it's stolen so you are BS-ing there.

What double electricity bill are you talking about? It's 30W difference at worst between 12700K and 5900X at peak power (that is 200W for CPU only). So it's at worst 15% difference. Maybe you should check some specs before throwing random numbers.