Latest Updates:
Page Index Toggle Pages: [1] 2 
Topic Tools
Hot Topic (More than 10 Replies) Desktop setup for chess analysis (Read 7096 times)
fling
God Member
*****
Offline


I Love ChessPublishing!

Posts: 1591
Joined: 01/21/11
Gender: Male
Re: Desktop setup for chess analysis
Reply #16 - 08/22/19 at 21:57:44
Post Tools
JFugre wrote on 08/22/19 at 20:48:33:
You don't need SLI for Leela AFAIK, nor is Leela going to be bottlenecked by the PCIe bus.

SLI is a graphics tech, there are no scanlines to draw in a chess engine.


When did I say SLI is needed for Leela? I don't think I mentioned it. If I did, it was a mistake, sorry for that. But I think I wrote the opposite, that I can do fine without (with two RTX 2060, which do NOT support SLI).

If pointed out as a side note that if I were GAMING, SLI (or NVlink for the the high-end RTX 20xx-series) might be an important option, although sometimes it scales well, sometimes not.

Leela is not bottlenecked by the bus, but a fast GPU might very well be, and therefore Leela might be bottlenecked by the GPU. Here is the first article I found by googling:
https://www.techpowerup.com/review/nvidia-geforce-rtx-2080-ti-pci-express-scalin...

Here is another article:
https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/NVIDIA-GeForce-RTX-2080-Ti-PCI-Expres...

I am not sure if this matters in practice, though, because I don't know how exactly data is shuffled over the PCIe bus.

Anyhow, I'd say a mobo with support for 8x/8x instead of 16x/4x seemed worth the money for me. But perhaps this won't matter at all with RTX 2060. In that case I am at least a bit more future proof, hopefully (who knows what happens in computer business).
  
Back to top
 
IP Logged
 
JFugre
Junior Member
**
Offline


I Love ChessPublishing!

Posts: 89
Joined: 01/22/19
Re: Desktop setup for chess analysis
Reply #15 - 08/22/19 at 20:48:33
Post Tools
You don't need SLI for Leela AFAIK, nor is Leela going to be bottlenecked by the PCIe bus.

SLI is a graphics tech, there are no scanlines to draw in a chess engine.
  
Back to top
 
IP Logged
 
fling
God Member
*****
Offline


I Love ChessPublishing!

Posts: 1591
Joined: 01/21/11
Gender: Male
Re: Desktop setup for chess analysis
Reply #14 - 08/22/19 at 15:30:07
Post Tools
msiipola wrote on 08/22/19 at 06:21:40:
"Skimping on the PSU seems unwise, but 1000W seems to be PSU-underload."

The only hardware problem I have during many years and many computers, is a broken PSU. The PSU was at that moment a couple of years old. I assume the heat it produced, was in the long run the cause. Electronic components ages faster if the temperature goes up.

I think its better to have a slightly oversized PSU, which gets little bit cooler, than a PSU used to it's max limitation.


Yes, indeed, I agree. The main problem with slightly oversized PSU seems to be sub-optimal efficiency. With undersized, there can also be more noise, which is more annoying for most people, me included.

I was debating with myself whether to go for 750W, 850W or 1000W. In the end, I think I might have been ok with 750W, but 850W should be totally fine. I found an online calculator, that gave 750W I think, even when choosing a bit higher-speced hardware. 1000W might have been an option if I had decided on 2xRTX 2080, but that has never really been more than a distant dream for me!
  
Back to top
 
IP Logged
 
msiipola
Junior Member
**
Offline



Posts: 95
Joined: 10/04/09
Gender: Male
Re: Desktop setup for chess analysis
Reply #13 - 08/22/19 at 06:21:40
Post Tools
"Skimping on the PSU seems unwise, but 1000W seems to be PSU-underload."

The only hardware problem I have during many years and many computers, is a broken PSU. The PSU was at that moment a couple of years old. I assume the heat it produced, was in the long run the cause. Electronic components ages faster if the temperature goes up.

I think its better to have a slightly oversized PSU, which gets little bit cooler, than a PSU used to it's max limitation.
  
Back to top
 
IP Logged
 
fling
God Member
*****
Offline


I Love ChessPublishing!

Posts: 1591
Joined: 01/21/11
Gender: Male
Re: Desktop setup for chess analysis
Reply #12 - 08/22/19 at 05:29:32
Post Tools
Just to let you know again, in the hope that I can advice someone to not make the mistakes I have made:

Another thing I noticed is that the mobo I intended to buy (aorus elite) has a suboptimal setup for my intended purpose. In order to support two video cards, I thought it should be fine because it has two 16x PCIe 4.0 slots. The problem is that these will operate at x16 and x16/x4, not at 8x/8x. There are tests for RTX 2080 (might have been Ti) that have shown a performance decrease when the card has been operated at PCIe 3.0 8x, equivalent in bandwidth to PCIe 4.0 4x. I.e. the mobo might actually be bottle necking for two CPU.

In order to be prepared for my future plan, this means I have to choose a card that operates at 8x/8x, which basically will be those that support SLI. They are at least $80 more expensive  Sad

As a last note, SLI for the RTX 20xx series is not supported for 2060, 2070 or 2060 super. I don't plan on gaming much, Lc0 is the main purpose. Therefore I can manage with two 2060. If that would not be the case, I would in other words have to go with two 2070 super two get SLI (which is not always scaling well) a substantial price hike.
  
Back to top
 
IP Logged
 
fling
God Member
*****
Offline


I Love ChessPublishing!

Posts: 1591
Joined: 01/21/11
Gender: Male
Re: Desktop setup for chess analysis
Reply #11 - 08/14/19 at 18:04:05
Post Tools
JFugre wrote on 08/13/19 at 11:46:45:
Quote:
I also don't think it is worth paying $150 extra for a 3700X to get some more nps for Stockfish


But if you don't care much about the speedup from the extra cores, then what's the point in spending the money to upgrade at all?


I wrote the previous reply on my phone. I will elaborate a bit more:

Sorry if I wasn't clear, but at least going from 4c/4t to 6c/12t will from what I understand make a difference for Stockfish, and also for the editing and so on. On the other hand, spending over 60 % extra to get some additional nps in SF (likely not more than 30 %) didn't seem like well spent money. I am also not sure how well SF strength scales with more nps.

For other applications, there seems to be an increase in performance for 3700X compared to 3600 between 10-30 % (except for a few cases, like Winrar, I think it was). Therefore, 3600 seems like better performance per dollar (I think that is the conclusion from reviews I read as well). On the other hand, I decided I can afford the premium, and also hope I can keep a 3700X without upgrading a bit longer than I would have donewith a 3600, levelling out the cost per time unit a bit.
  
Back to top
 
IP Logged
 
fling
God Member
*****
Offline


I Love ChessPublishing!

Posts: 1591
Joined: 01/21/11
Gender: Male
Re: Desktop setup for chess analysis
Reply #10 - 08/14/19 at 14:05:48
Post Tools
JFugre wrote on 08/13/19 at 11:46:45:
Your proposed build is OK, but there is something I don't understand.

The Zen 2 is about the same speed as the cores in the Skylake (i7-6600). Thus, any substantial speed advantage your new build will have will solely be from the 3600X having 6 cores (or 12 threads) compared to 4 in the i7-6600.

Now you say

Quote:
I also don't think it is worth paying $150 extra for a 3700X to get some more nps for Stockfish


But if you don't care much about the speedup from the extra cores, then what's the point in spending the money to upgrade at all?

If it's to get NVMe SSD, and you're considering an X570 with PCIe 4.0, then you need to consider whether you'd rather get an SSD with PCIe 4.0 support. There are only a few in the market now, but surely many will follow.


Thx for feedback! I considered a 3600, not X, because it seem to give the best bang for the buck and still an upgrade because of more cores and threads, yes (and some clock speed). As mentioned, I also run my current build on 2133 Mhz RAM. I.e an upgrade will be small increments.

It didn't feel like the extra money for 3700X was worth it, but i decided on it anyway, to be a bit more future proof, despite the price being higher in percent than any performance increase.

I'd like to have a PCIe 4.0 SSD, but the ones available for me to order were mainly the Corsair ones, which didn't seem worth the money. The tests I've seen don't show much practical improvement if any on the Samsung. Also, I'm not certain where my bottlenecks are. M.2 disks might not be too much upgrade either. I have one now, but haven't compared it to my SATA SSDs. Anyhow, I'll likely get a PCIe 4.0 later I think.

Hopefully, this desktop will speed up both chess analysis as well as photo and video editing substantially for me, which is why I want to upgrade. Another reason is just GAS Smiley

I think there are many things I can improve on my current rig to get better performance. But the CPU is the main bottleneck in Lightroom, which is why I started thinking about upgrade.

The 3700X will be an upgrade. You are right, the number of cores should be part of the reason. Still, the 3600 is for sure more bang for the buck. If money didn't matter I would also have for a 3950X, and double RTX 2080 Ti. Just doesn't seem worth spending huge amounts on money for little extra practical analysis strength considering I am just an amateur, not even playing serious core chess!


  
Back to top
 
IP Logged
 
JFugre
Junior Member
**
Offline


I Love ChessPublishing!

Posts: 89
Joined: 01/22/19
Re: Desktop setup for chess analysis
Reply #9 - 08/13/19 at 11:46:45
Post Tools
Your proposed build is OK, but there is something I don't understand.

The Zen 2 is about the same speed as the cores in the Skylake (i7-6600). Thus, any substantial speed advantage your new build will have will solely be from the 3600X having 6 cores (or 12 threads) compared to 4 in the i7-6600.

Now you say

Quote:
I also don't think it is worth paying $150 extra for a 3700X to get some more nps for Stockfish


But if you don't care much about the speedup from the extra cores, then what's the point in spending the money to upgrade at all?

If it's to get NVMe SSD, and you're considering an X570 with PCIe 4.0, then you need to consider whether you'd rather get an SSD with PCIe 4.0 support. There are only a few in the market now, but surely many will follow.
  
Back to top
 
IP Logged
 
fling
God Member
*****
Offline


I Love ChessPublishing!

Posts: 1591
Joined: 01/21/11
Gender: Male
Re: Desktop setup for chess analysis
Reply #8 - 08/11/19 at 19:52:08
Post Tools
Thanks for your replies, Pawnpusher! Will see how it goes. I might pay for having the computer built, seems like it can be worth it considering all trouble people have with the new Ryzen.

I also realized the Fractal Design R5, and most other cases, does not have a USB-C port. Not a huge problem, but made me change to a Define Meshify S2 instead. I have also decided against another GPU for now.
  
Back to top
 
IP Logged
 
Pawnpusher
Senior Member
****
Offline


I Love ChessPublishing!

Posts: 273
Joined: 01/04/18
Gender: Male
Re: Desktop setup for chess analysis
Reply #7 - 08/10/19 at 21:35:54
Post Tools
It lurched off topic. I am not brave enough to contemplate building my own comp, based on what I read your build seems pretty sound. Of course next year someone writes a nn engine that blows the LcO/Allie guys away, but that is the world of computer chess.
  
Back to top
 
IP Logged
 
fling
God Member
*****
Offline


I Love ChessPublishing!

Posts: 1591
Joined: 01/21/11
Gender: Male
Re: Desktop setup for chess analysis
Reply #6 - 08/10/19 at 19:09:02
Post Tools
Pawnpusher wrote on 08/10/19 at 10:45:18:
No there is a forum called Computer chess, or talkchess. there is a thread titled "buying a new computer" Good luck!!


Thanks, yes, I have seen and read all pages of that thread too. Didn't it go off topic with discussions on various other things than computer build?

Anyway, here is my opinion and plan, in case someone with the same questions is interested:
As mentioned, the Ryzen 3000-series seems interesting and gives good performance for the price. Most reviewers online consider the R5 3600 a sweet spot. I also don't think it is worth paying $150 extra for a 3700X to get some more nps for Stockfish, although it might be a bit more future-proof with 8c/16t instead of 6c/12t and can give a bit more performance for SF10.

As mentioned before, for me it is better to spend the money on a Gigabyte Aorus Elite X570-board instead. That spares me the trouble of flashing BIOS, gives PCI4.0e support and also USB3.1 gen 2. Btw, this mobo lacks debug LEDs, but I hope I can live w/o them, will let you know if that was an incorrect assumption! Further, chances are a bit higher that this mobo (instead of the B450/x470-series) lets me upgrade the CPU in a few years and it has decent capability for me to try OC if that is not possible (I won't start with OC-ing, just basically run stock).

I'll pair the CPU and mobo with Corsair Vengance 3200 MHz 2x16 GB RAM, CMK32GX4M2B3200C16. It doesn't seem worth spending more money on higher frequency. I'll try OC and change timings and voltage instead if needed.

For Lc0, I hope to buy another RTX 2060, but from what I have read (that is where above mentioned thread gives some hints), it might not be the best price/performance upgrade, though. Scaling is less for the newer nets, and not like for a/b search engines. To have room for another GPU, I need a PSU of at least 850 W it seems like. That is more expensive than my first plan of a decent 750W PSU I found on sale, but so be it. Skimping on the PSU seems unwise, but 1000W seems to be PSU-underload.

The case will be a Fractal Design R5 to accommodate all the parts and have good airflow.

Those are the things I have decide to include in my build. I will add a Samsung 970 EVO plus and than another M.2 NVMe SSD.
  
Back to top
 
IP Logged
 
Pawnpusher
Senior Member
****
Offline


I Love ChessPublishing!

Posts: 273
Joined: 01/04/18
Gender: Male
Re: Desktop setup for chess analysis
Reply #5 - 08/10/19 at 16:13:46
Post Tools
Yes, I sort of thought that would be worth a look for anyone who is trying to stay abreast of the recent Lco and neural net engine advances.
  
Back to top
 
IP Logged
 
Jupp53
God Member
*****
Offline


be

Posts: 988
Location: Frankfurt/Main
Joined: 01/04/09
Gender: Male
Re: Desktop setup for chess analysis
Reply #4 - 08/10/19 at 15:17:34
Post Tools
It's interesting. I want to buy a new desktop and the new development on the cpu- and gpu-market are worth a look.

http://talkchess.com/forum3/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=71208
  

Medical textbooks say I should be dead since April 2002.
Dum spiro spero. Smiley
Narcissm is the humans primary disease.
Back to top
 
IP Logged
 
Pawnpusher
Senior Member
****
Offline


I Love ChessPublishing!

Posts: 273
Joined: 01/04/18
Gender: Male
Re: Desktop setup for chess analysis
Reply #3 - 08/10/19 at 10:45:18
Post Tools
No there is a forum called Computer chess, or talkchess. there is a thread titled "buying a new computer" Good luck!!
  
Back to top
 
IP Logged
 
fling
God Member
*****
Offline


I Love ChessPublishing!

Posts: 1591
Joined: 01/21/11
Gender: Male
Re: Desktop setup for chess analysis
Reply #2 - 08/09/19 at 14:51:55
Post Tools
Pawnpusher wrote on 08/09/19 at 10:57:04:
There is a considerable thread on the computer chess forum that addresses some of your questions? I think it is worth a look.


Sure, which thread is that? I think I have read all here, but maybe missed something.
  
Back to top
 
IP Logged
 
Page Index Toggle Pages: [1] 2 
Topic Tools
Bookmarks: del.icio.us Digg Facebook Google Google+ Linked in reddit StumbleUpon Twitter Yahoo