Threadripper Custom Build - feedback wanted

[Leo]

It sounds like a lot of fun. What are you going to do with it? With an Alpha Beta engine there are questions about its ability to use 32 cores. Do NNs use 32 cores? What about getting a 16 core using Hyper threading and save some money.

Threadrippers come with 64x PCIe lanes, so you can run 4x GPUs on them (usually 8x lanes per GPU when its this dense. Typically 16x per GPU when you only have 1x GPU). Then you spend the rest of your PCIe lanes on NVMe SSDs (4x lanes per SSD), so that your tablebase searching can be better.

Of course, 4x 2070 Tis will be quite expensive, and also suck down a LOT of power. Leela Zero doesn't scale too well to multiple GPUs IIRC, but you can run an engine-per-card (4x Leela Zeros for the 4x 2070 Tis)... maybe for opening book generation or something like that.

Also, Leela Zero cannot use Tablebases. But you got around 64-threads for standard chess engines to run in parallel to the 4x LeelaZero instances.

Your typical CPU, like an i9-9900k or Ryzen 9 3950x, only has 24x PCIe lanes or so, so maybe 2x GPUs at the most. A typical desktop CPU is probably the best for running single-instances of chess engines. Where Threadripper would shine is when you want to run 2x, or 4x, or 16x the engines in parallel.

Thanks. Very interesting. I have not made the switch to GPUs.