Hardware for Chess analysis

[dangi12012]

I want some opinions here -
Which hardware is best for chess:

Ryzen 9 5950X
Intel 12900k
Threadripper 2950x

Or should one wait for Zen4 and faster DDR5?

[Magnum]

I want some opinions here -
Which hardware is best for chess:

Ryzen 9 5950X
Intel 12900k
Threadripper 2950x

Or should one wait for Zen4 and faster DDR5?

What do you mean? best?
Costs?
Performance?
Watt usage?
Efficiency?
…

Buy the M1 Max.
Or the 5990WX or 5990X which you can buy at the beginning of the next year.
If you have no money, buy the 5950X.

[Modern Times]

I want some opinions here -
Which hardware is best for chess:

Ryzen 9 5950X
Intel 12900k
Threadripper 2950x

Or should one wait for Zen4 and faster DDR5?

Depends how much longer you want to wait, but today if it was me I'd buy the Ryzen 9 5950X
(and Windows so you have maximum flexibility and choice of software for your analysis)

[dangi12012]

I want some opinions here -
Which hardware is best for chess:

Ryzen 9 5950X
Intel 12900k
Threadripper 2950x

Or should one wait for Zen4 and faster DDR5?

What do you mean? best?
Costs?
Performance?
Watt usage?
Efficiency?
…

Buy the M1 Max.
Or the 5990WX or 5990X which you can buy at the beginning of the next year.
If you have no money, buy the 5950X.

Maximum NPS limited to a single system but maybe multiple sockets but under 5000 dollar.

[dangi12012]

Let me rephase:
Optimise for maximum NPS with these constraints:
Single System
5000 dollars max
Multiple sockets allowed

[Sopel]

http://ipmanchess.yolasite.com/amd--int ... ckfish.php

[Jouni]

Nice they use now SF14.1 for benchmark. 48.974.571.361 nps is stunning speed .

[mvanthoor]

I want some opinions here -
Which hardware is best for chess:

Ryzen 9 5950X
Intel 12900k
Threadripper 2950x

Or should one wait for Zen4 and faster DDR5?

Personally I think that, after we hit 4 core CPU's and open source engines being able to use them as the default, the hardware doesn't matter much anymore. Any 3000+ Elo engine is able to analyze games and give variations that even IM's and GM's can't understand. Go and watch some recaps of GothamChess, Eric Rosen, or ChessNetwork on YouTube. Sometimes they explain a position and a detailed plan, and explain why grandmaster X played move Y... Then Stockfish goes: "No, NO, NOOO! You should play...." but as the reviewer analyzes the line, it's so obscure that the comment often is: "I don't understand half of it. Nobody will ever find this over the board." And we're talking about 2350 - 2500 Elo players.

The challenge will be have an engine make _understandable_ moves, or, somehow, indicate plans. (Fritz 11 tried it already in 2007, but only with arrows on the board. The commented analysis of the engine was too generic.)

As soon as I have a few days to build and install it, I'm going to build a system based on the Ryzen 5700G (Zen 3, 8 cores, graphics, 16 GB RAM, SSD, Debian Stable with newer kernel), which I'm going to use for testing Rustic. Then I can offload the tests from my main system (i7-6700K, 32 GB RAM, 2x 256 GB SSD 2x 2 TB HDD, GTX 1070, Debian Stable). I'll look into a new computer when Zen 4 is out, and Debian 12 has been released for a few months, so that will be around this time in 2023 at the earliest. That computer will probably be a Zen 4 CPU with 16 or more cores, 32 GB RAM, 1TB SSD, 4 TB HDD, and Debian 12, possibly with a newer kernel. If I don't start playing any games that require a newer graphics card, I'll even keep the GTX 1070. (I might start playing Baldur's Gate 3 at some point, but there are many other, older games I still want to replay one more time.)

So as you can see, I'm not too concerned with having the most powerful hardware ever for analyzing my own ~2000 Elo level games.

The one thing I'm NOT going to buy is something like AlderLake CPU's. Intel can now also claim "16-24 cores", but some of those CPU's have 8 large cores and 8-16 small ones. That will bork testing. To test reliably all cores need to be the same, so if I'm going to disable the 8-16 smaller cores anyway, I can just as well not have them. The only reason for me to buy such a CPU is if both AMD and Intel have them and you can't buy a CPU without 16+ large cores without also getting a bunch of the smaller cores.