Hardware Recommendations - Chess Analysis

[CornfedForever]

The only Intel CPU I was really looking at was one of the flavors of the i7-12700 - very close to the 12900 in performance/specs and at a cheaper price.

You'd still have to think about how to deal with the efficiency cores, which the 12700K has four of, and it still would then be like an octacore. It's not the best you can buy in a $2000 system.

Again, thanks for the tips!

Well, I would be using Windows 11 and (at least with the 12th Gen Intel CPU's) it seems to work very nice together with knowing what needs/makes use of the P cores and what can get by with the E cores ( internet usage and low level things like that) and putting the grunt work to the P cores. Perhaps the AMD CPU is different though (?) as when I look at reviews of it, the usage is on Windows 10 systems. Perhaps because it is an older CPU - pre-Windows 11 and Intel 12th Gen.

Yes, I was considering the RTX 3060 Ti as it is a lower end ray tracking card so it could be useful in some games...and Chessbase has ray tracing for some boards. Sort of 'future proofing' ever so slightly should I get a bit more into standard gaming.

I forgot I had also looked at the i5 - 12400 6 P core (Under $200) up to 4.4 GHz and the i5-12600 10 core ( 6P and 4 E) up to 4.9GHz for not much more-- after some reviews on Toms Hardware touting their gaming performance. No that Chess engine usage is really 'gaming' in the sense reviewers think of general 'gaming'.

It's all so confusing...

[Ras]

Well, I would be using Windows 11 and (at least with the 12th Gen Intel CPU's)

Yes, these need Win 11 because Win 10 is not aware of different core types within the CPU. AMD works both with Win 11 and Win 10, but since Win 10 support ends in 2025, at least for end customers, that's a point for setting up a new machine on Win 11 if you want to stay on Windows.

Yes, I was considering the RTX 3060 Ti as it is a lower end ray tracking card so it could be useful in some games...

It seems that gamers are somewhat split: some like RT, others don't care. However, the Sapphire 6650 XT clocks in at $450 while the cheapest 3060 Ti starts from $500, though the 3060 Ti should be around 14% faster even without RT. Though for 1080p, even a 3060 non-TI would be fine although that's 14% slower than a 6650 XT, without RT.

and Chessbase has ray tracing for some boards.

I'd guess that this would work even on AMD cards because there's not much going on anyway. It's when you have actual games with lots of moving stuff that AMD's RT performance tanks.

Sort of 'future proofing' ever so slightly should I get a bit more into standard gaming.

The main question is, what monitor resolution do you want? I assumed 1920x1080, i.e. 1080p at 60Hz. The higher the resolution, the beefier the GPU must be, think of 4k resolution and then maybe even at 144Hz. Originally, you had a 6700 XT in mind, but for 1080p, that's more than necessary.

after some reviews on Toms Hardware touting their gaming performance.

That's quite different from chess. For chess, you'll want a powerful CPU (except Lc0 of course). For normal gaming, the limiting factor is usually the GPU, so the CPU has only to be fast enough as not to bottleneck the GPU. Also, most games don't support high core counts. So for normal gaming, you'd choose something well below a 5950X (or 12900K for that matter) and instead invest the saved money in a beefier GPU or just not spend it at all.

[CornfedForever]

More good thoughts - thanks!

With Zen 4 – 7000K series being as little as 3 months away (and I’m in no great rush), some nice performance increases: >25% performance per watt gain, up to 10% instructions per clock gain, >15% single thread performance gain, onboard graphics (SO helpful if you have an issue with your GPU….) continued support for AVX 512 (Stockfish I believes uses this and Intel does not even offer with 12th Gen) – just several with the only downside seeming to be that only DDR5 memory can be used.

Intel will counter with their new 13th Gen about the same time so prices will adjust… If the 7K's price is just too much, the 5950x should at least drop even more than it has.

Of course, at some point you have to just ‘jump in’.

[dangi12012]

continued support for AVX 512 (Stockfish I believes uses this and Intel does not even offer with 12th Gen) –
Of course, at some point you have to just ‘jump in’.

Zen 4 will have avx512 bfloat16 support. That's huge meaning that evaluator networks which dominate the runtime (nnue etc) can use a bigger and faster formats
(More bits AND more speed compared to all current AVX2 implementations)
If HBM rumors turn out to be true that will also be very interesting for chessprogramming

[Vinvin]

continued support for AVX 512 (Stockfish I believes uses this and Intel does not even offer with 12th Gen) –
Of course, at some point you have to just ‘jump in’.

Zen 4 will have avx512 bfloat16 support. That's huge meaning that evaluator networks which dominate the runtime (nnue etc) can use a bigger and faster formats
(More bits AND more speed compared to all current AVX2 implementations)
If HBM rumors turn out to be true that will also be very interesting for chessprogramming

+40% speed with 16 cores : https://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-r ... en4-avx512
And even more with avx512 for Stockfish ?
That sounds so great !

[CornfedForever]

Now, I do see where with all that gain...comes a lot of wattage as well. Peak Power for the AM5 socket goes up to 230 W from the current 142 W. That's...AMD building their new house right beside Intel's in the middle of the Arizona desert.

[Ras]

Peak Power for the AM5 socket goes up to 230 W from the current 142 W.

Yesn't. That's intended for core counts that current Ryzens don't even offer, i.e. more than 16 cores. Basically heading into former Threadripper territory. If you get a 32 core Ryzen Zen4 at 230W, that's not bad compared to a 16 core Ryzen Zen3 at 142W. However, I wouldn't buy Zen4 right when it's released: early adopter price hike on the one hand, and teething problems until AMD, mobo manufacturers, and also Microsoft get their act together on the other hand.

[Vinvin]

Now, I do see where with all that gain...comes a lot of wattage as well. Peak Power for the AM5 socket goes up to 230 W from the current 142 W. That's...AMD building their new house right beside Intel's in the middle of the Arizona desert.

I see 170 Watts for the 16 cores processors. Power consumption stills way under Intel for the same CPU performance.

[CornfedForever]

Now, I do see where with all that gain...comes a lot of wattage as well. Peak Power for the AM5 socket goes up to 230 W from the current 142 W. That's...AMD building their new house right beside Intel's in the middle of the Arizona desert.

I see 170 Watts for the 16 cores processors. Power consumption stills way under Intel for the same CPU performance.

Here is were I likely saw that: "up to 170W TDP,230W peak power": https://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-z ... know-specs

I am hoping the price out of the gate (well within a month or so of it) is tempered by Intel's Gen 13 releasing about the same time. Competition is always good for the consumer.

[Ras]

I see 170 Watts for the 16 cores processors.

There was some confusion initially because AMD, as they confirmed later, micsommunicated the 170W as peak power instead of TDP. Their peak power is usually 35% above their TDP marketing number, which then gives the 230W.

Btw., the higher than 16 core counts that I mentioned seem to be outdated leaks, and more recent sources stick indeed to 16 cores. 16 cores, but ramping up the power to 230W would be a rather disappointing move from AMD. Intels 12900K power draw isn't a good, but a bad example that it seems AMD chose to copy. Reducing that power limit in the BIOS should be possible, but that would only leave the IPC (instructions per clock) uplift, and then the price-to-performance ratio of the Zen4 platform would become questionable, in particular with the expensive high-end CPU model.

Something similar is also happening on the GPU front where the upcoming Nvidia top model is said to be at 450W+, and AMD may follow suit. Even worse, the peak power draw of GPUs is between two and three times the nominal power, which would require a 1200W+ PSU, or make the lower rated PSUs more expensive so that they can deal with such enormous power demand spikes.

I'm not happy with the direction the industry is moving. The midrange models should be more reasonable, but the high-end is becoming insane: driven by marketing to look good in benchmarks at all costs. This collective strive for the el-cheapo solution of cranking up power consumption to fake progress also suggests that the actual progress, i.e. at the same or lower power consumption, isn't all that impressive anymore. In turn, it may be attractive to use the Zen 4 release only to get Zen 3 at a discount.