Recommendation for new CPU / computer

[smatovic]

I think AMD's Zen is a good platform since they fixed the AVX and BMI throughput thing, nevertheless Zen 4 in ~2022 is a new generation, TSMC 5nm, new sockets, DDR5, maybe PCIe5, maybe AVX3-512, more edgy, and upgrade-safe.

Not sure if the Efficient-Cores (beside the Performance-Cores) of Alder Lake are of any use for chess enthusiasts who look for performance on a desktop PC.

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Srdja

[Cornfed]

I think AMD's Zen is a good platform since they fixed the AVX and BMI throughput thing, nevertheless Zen 4 in ~2022 is a new generation, TSMC 5nm, new sockets, DDR5, maybe PCIe5, maybe AVX3-512, more edgy, and upgrade-safe.

Not sure if the Efficient-Cores (beside the Performance-Cores) of Alder Lake are of any use for chess enthusiasts who look for performance on a desktop PC.

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Srdja

Not sure if you can clear something up for me - I know little of AMD's Zen's. When it comes to - lets say using multiple engines with that, is it true that you can only use 1 core per engine? I may have ran into some bad info but a long time back think I read where....lets say you have a 12 core Zen and wanted to run a match against 2 engines, the most you could do would be 1 core per engine, not say 4 core for both (?)

[Ras]

When it comes to - lets say using multiple engines with that, is it true that you can only use 1 core per engine?

No, that's not true, and has never been.

I may have ran into some bad info but a long time back

There was some degree of truth to that with the Bulldozers, though in quite a different way. These had "modules" with two "cores" each, but the cores were not complete cores because they shared e.g. the floating point unit with the other core on the same module. That got AMD a lawsuit for misleading advertisement back then. Even worse, AMD had failed to talk with Microsoft so that the Windows scheduler mistakenly assumed these cores to be all equal, and it would schedule two worker threads on the same module while other modules were still completely free.

However, you could of course use multithreaded engines even with Bulldozer back then.

[smatovic]

I think AMD's Zen is a good platform since they fixed the AVX and BMI throughput thing, nevertheless Zen 4 in ~2022 is a new generation, TSMC 5nm, new sockets, DDR5, maybe PCIe5, maybe AVX3-512, more edgy, and upgrade-safe.

Not sure if the Efficient-Cores (beside the Performance-Cores) of Alder Lake are of any use for chess enthusiasts who look for performance on a desktop PC.

--
Srdja

Not sure if you can clear something up for me - I know little of AMD's Zen's. When it comes to - lets say using multiple engines with that, is it true that you can only use 1 core per engine? I may have ran into some bad info but a long time back think I read where....lets say you have a 12 core Zen and wanted to run a match against 2 engines, the most you could do would be 1 core per engine, not say 4 core for both (?)

I do not own a Zen, but take a look at the Ipman Chess bench numbers, multiple cores, multiple threads, one single engine:

http://ipmanchess.yolasite.com/amd---in ... -bench.php

IIRC there was an issue with Zen1 and Zen2 regarding the CCX module (4 cores) and access to L3 caches, should be solved with Zen3 with 8 cores per CCX module:

https://www.overclock3d.net/news/cpu_ma ... oa_plans/1

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Srdja

[yurikvelo]

if I want to upgrade to Windows 11 I am forced to upgrade my hardware

Not forced. Officially Microsoft allow any CPU and TPM 1.2
It works fine, I upgraded many non-eligible PC and everything is smooth and easy

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\Setup\MoSetup]
"AllowUpgradesWithUnsupportedTPMOrCPU"=dword:00000001

Socket AM2 + Phenom works
https://i.redd.it/csmiuix3jj771.png