Processor for draughts

[Krzysztof Grzelak]

So lately I am thinking about buying a new processor for checkers for tournaments. I thought about the intel processor. And exactly such Intel Core i9-10980XE. What do you think, dear programmers, and whether it will be a good buy. For this I would buy a motherboard ASUS PRIME X299-A II.

[Joost Buijs]

Krzysztof,

It depends upon what you want to do with it.

If you want to have the opportunity to use AVX-512 for NNUE type programs it is a good choice, if you don't need this you are probably better off with a 16 core AMD 5950X which is cheaper and faster for all other things.

I have a 109080XE with the same main-board as you propose, it is reliable and fast but already somewhat old. It is very likely that Intel will introduce new HEDT processors in 2022 based on the "Sapphire Rapids" architecture with PCIE 5.0 and with more than 18 cores.

Another alternative is the AMD Zen4 which also seems to arrive in 2022.

I would keep my money in my pocket and wait for another year.

Joost

[pontel]

So lately I am thinking about buying a new processor for checkers for tournaments. I thought about the intel processor. And exactly such Intel Core i9-10980XE. What do you think, dear programmers, and whether it will be a good buy. For this I would buy a motherboard ASUS PRIME X299-A II.

I think it's a great alternative, I think with the I9 you'll be able to include Horizon in the tournament.

[BertTuyt]

As Joost pointed out Intel might introduce new HEDT processors in 2022 based on the "Sapphire Rapids" architecture.
Not only do these processors have more cores, it also contains AMX (Advanced Matrix Extensions) which will give a huge performance improvement for NNUE based programs.

Bert

[Joost Buijs]

This week (27 Sept.) the AMD 7950X processor will see the daylight, with16 cores, AVX-512, using DDR5 memory and a base clock of 4.5 GHz. This is probably the best and cheapest option if you want to make use of programs designed for AVX-512.

You may want to look at the preliminary benchmarks here: https://www.sisoftware.co.uk/2022/09/21 ... el-review/

[Krzysztof Grzelak]

I will not buy it anymore. It is an expense of several thousand euros. And as you wrote Joost there is a small difference between the AVX-512 and the AVX2.

[Joost Buijs]

I will not buy it anymore. It is an expense of several thousand euros. And as you wrote Joost there is a small difference between the AVX-512 and the AVX2.

Understandable, to run your tournament with pondering you'll need two systems, this would make it twice as expensive. Of course you could also decide to drop pondering.

I'm also hesitant to buy something new, Intel has AVX-512 disabled in their new consumer CPU's, and I don't like this strange big-little architecture. AMD Zen4 currently maxes out at 16 cores (which is in my case not a progression), so I'll wait a little longer to see what new Intel SR-Xeon and the new AMD Threadripper based on Zen4 are going to do.

[Krzysztof Grzelak]

The only thing I would like to buy are two processors Ryzen Threadripper 2990WX.

[Joost Buijs]

The 2990WX is 4 years old, it is sold out everywhere. Maybe you could get some used ones from Ebay, but I would not advice this.

[Krzysztof Grzelak]

As you write, I want to buy new processors.