Best CPU for chess engine game analysis

Does anyone know how LCZero with RTX 2070 compares to Stockfish with i7-9700K

Probably the same. You need to test GPU and CPU speed in ur machines.( If Leela ratio is 1 or 1/875 speed of CPU, the results are equal).

But again, without opening book, SF will lose, but with too deep opening book, leela will lose.

Apols for resurrecting an old Thread, but I'm trying to get into correspondence/centaur chess more seriously'

In 2020 what do you need as a chess UI?

Is Arena sufficient and how does it compare to Fritz or Aquarium?

Any insights would be appreciated.

GUI is not very relevant.

I know many ICCF players use Aquarium because of IDeA, while I do not bother at all- I mostly use SCID vs PC, CorrChess (Stockfish tuned for LTC) and my brains.

You should be very careful during the opening, where the engine is useless- you will need a very good and fully updated chess database, including games from most correspondence servers.

Thanks for the reply, I have an old version of Fritz which I use for databases but when analysing with modern engines like Stockfish my rather ancient computer slows to a crawl and can't be used for anything else.

I haven't tried Scid v PC, but was thinking of initially trying Arena to see if it was less resource hungry than Fritz.

How important is hardware, do I need a new machine?

A machine with an effective multicore CPU would certainly help- e.g. Ryzen 5 3600 is a steal for a 12-core, and also very reliable.

How about AMD Threadripper 3970X? I am using it 32 cores and 64 threads. Which engine is best for it?

If you already have it, then Stockfish should be fine- or, for in-depth analysis, CorrChess,

You could also consider Crystal, which is a "slow" version of Stockfish, but it has special anti-fortress code included.

In any case, I wouldn't dare to use the Threadripper with the stock cooler- either watercooling, or a Noctua classical cooler should be used instead, else chances to fry your expensive CPU are there.

Another option, costing much less money, is a mainsteram PC (almost any CPU should do the trick), plus a last generation GeForce RTX series videocard (you can also combine two of them if you can afford the $$$), and Leela/ Fat Fritz (the latter engine is commercial).

Spitting your money on both CPU and GPU is the best idea!!

The strongest engine is the combination of Leela on 2080 Ti plus Stockfish on 16 cores cpu ( as Stockfish SMP is poor beyond 16 cores, you dont get double benefits from 16 to 32 corrs  32 to 64 cores, instead +30 %, +20% etc). And Leela has been praised by 2015 iccf champ as if perfect Tablebase in opening.

Here is also one test who split the phase of two engines.

Ljubicic suggestions are always welcome, although personally I wouldn't care that much: A great engine does not make a great correspondence player.

A well-worked out database is an absolute must, and the second must is time and devotion to your ongoing games. I am about to win the 2016 IECG/LSS correspondence World Championship cycle (I need 1,5/2 for clear first, and I have two ongoing games- one with a decisive advantage, and another with a large, probably not convertable one). I am using my sophisticated database, an oldschool GUI (Scid vs PC), CorrChess, an old rig with 16G RAM and a non-overclocked i7-4790K, which is a slow CPU by modern standards (just six threads out of possible eight since it is my everyday PC and I do some other work on it), and my personal chess experience. So far, so good!

Stockfish codes had been modified  40,000 + times and tested  2 billions + games, one of the most fine tuned program in the world.

It is not due to the weakness of program, it is due to nature of search.  In initial position, there are 20 possible moves, but SF search mostly 2-3 promising moves ( branches) and keep searching deeper and deeper. 

If you have 20 cpu, 3 cpu will be searching for the most promising moves like 1. e4 or 1. d4 or 1. Nf3 ( the other 17 possible moves like 1. g4 1. f3 etc will be almost excluded in search from AB pruning except a small short nodes search).

Because of Alpha Beta pruning system, parallel search in massive CPU is not that useful. 

And also due to the nature of chess, the search trees will  be overlapping somewhere. For example,

CPU A is searching 1. e4 c5 2.Nf3

CPU B is searching 1. Nf3 c5 3. e4

And now you see the two search trees become overlap, wasting the power of 1 CPU.

 Xeon 2697 v2(12 core CPU) is still strong for chess?

Just average. Slightly weaker than a $200 R5-3600, while consuming about double energy. Still, not bad at all for a CPU aged 7-8 years.

Which is better for Stockfish? Ryzen 9 5950 or Intel 12900K?

I had an 8-core AMD Bulldozer back when I was working at the Tactics School, and I LOVED it.

For the price, it's almost impossible to beat.

It eventually blew a power supply and I bought a new i5 rig, but I still remember that 8-core AMD with fondness.

Someone answer please.

better and fast intel 12900k

This is the primary function of the engine framework for the neural networking of Lc0. The search protocols utilize the GPU for calculations.