Questions about graphics cards for Leela

[Metaphysician]

Hello. I could use some advice.
I have a fast machine -- two Xeon processors and 24 logical cores. My graphics card is three years old though and nothing special.
I would like to upgrade my machine by replacing the graphics card (and if possible adding a second card) so that I can use Lc0 with maximum effect. I have a generous budget; I could drop a few thousand dollars on graphics cards if doing so would optimize Leela. What graphics cards do folks recommend? Are two cards better than one? And if I get two, should the cards be identical?

Thank you for your help and expertise.

[Werewolf]

Hello. I could use some advice.
I have a fast machine -- two Xeon processors and 24 logical cores. My graphics card is three years old though and nothing special.
I would like to upgrade my machine by replacing the graphics card (and if possible adding a second card) so that I can use Lc0 with maximum effect. I have a generous budget; I could drop a few thousand dollars on graphics cards if doing so would optimize Leela. What graphics cards do folks recommend? Are two cards better than one? And if I get two, should the cards be identical?

Thank you for your help and expertise.

If your M/B supports two cards, get two. Most important thing is to get the new cards which support FP16.

If you literally mean "a few thousand dollars" - you could get dual 2080 or 2080 Ti. I don't think they need to be identical.

[mwyoung]

Hello. I could use some advice.
I have a fast machine -- two Xeon processors and 24 logical cores. My graphics card is three years old though and nothing special.
I would like to upgrade my machine by replacing the graphics card (and if possible adding a second card) so that I can use Lc0 with maximum effect. I have a generous budget; I could drop a few thousand dollars on graphics cards if doing so would optimize Leela. What graphics cards do folks recommend? Are two cards better than one? And if I get two, should the cards be identical?

Thank you for your help and expertise.

Any of the new RTX cards is what you want, and two are even better. And they do not have to be the same RTX cards. TITAN RTX I think is still the fastest of the RTX lineup. Then the RTX 2080ti, RTX 2080, RTX 2070, and then the new RTX 2060.

[MikeB]

Hello. I could use some advice.
I have a fast machine -- two Xeon processors and 24 logical cores. My graphics card is three years old though and nothing special.
I would like to upgrade my machine by replacing the graphics card (and if possible adding a second card) so that I can use Lc0 with maximum effect. I have a generous budget; I could drop a few thousand dollars on graphics cards if doing so would optimize Leela. What graphics cards do folks recommend? Are two cards better than one? And if I get two, should the cards be identical?

Thank you for your help and expertise.

I can see getting two graphic cards for analyzing two separate positions at the same time - but to get two graphics cards for analyzing one position is not cost effective. The second graphic card that is costing perhaps $1000 and is giving you a return of about 50 Elo. Of course, it's your money and if that is what you want to do, I wish you the very best.

Note: Although now retired, I was a CPA for over 30 years.

[Metaphysician]

Thank you all for your excellent, helpful advice! I am very grateful.

[Geonerd]

Here are some benchmarks. As suggested, be sure to get a card capable of the running the fp-16 back end, as seen in the config notes. "--backend=cudnn-fp16"

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... 1508569046

[Mike S.]

As a sidenote, people with a smaller budget should take a look at the GTX 1660, which supports the FP16 option, but not raytracing reflections:

https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/ne ... processor/

Interestingly, it has extra hardware components for FP16. Could serve Leela well I think.

[brianr]

As a sidenote, people with a smaller budget should take a look at the GTX 1660, which supports the FP16 option, but not raytracing reflections:

https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/ne ... processor/

Interestingly, it has extra hardware components for FP16. Could serve Leela well I think.

People should wait until there is proper FP16 support on the 1660-ti for Leela.
It currently does not have it according to an Nvidia dev.

[Greyguy]

On Phoronix they have some Leela tests:
https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page= ... Benchmarks

[Greyguy]

On Phoronix they have some Leela tests:
https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page= ... Benchmarks

And Radeon cards:
https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page= ... inux&num=9