CCC Hardware Upgrade

Between the two previous posts on the TCEC/CCC tournaments -- TCEC S20 Reaches L1; CCC Regrouping (December 2020), and TCEC S20 Reaches DivP; CCC Testing (January 2021) -- the CCC made a major hardware upgrade. The 'CCC Testing' post reported,

The 'testing and showcase of engines new to CCC' mentioned in the previous report has evolved into 'testing and showcase of new engines at CCC and of the new hardware rig'. The current event is called 'CCC Testing system changes V'.

The following image compares the hardware before and after the upgrade.

CCC 'Info' tabs

Too small to read? A post on the Talkchess forum, CCC has serious hardware update! (talkchess.com) repeats the 'New' specifications:-

CPUs: 2 x AMD EPYC 7H12
GPU: 2x A100 (40 GB GPU memory)
Cores: 256 cores (128 physical)
RAM: 512GB DIMM DDR4 2933 MHz (0.3 ns)
SSD: 2x Micron 5210 MTFD (2TB) in RAID1
OS: CentOS 8

The upgrade occurred between two CCC events:-

• New: CCC testing system changes II (1|1)
• Old: CCC testing system changes (5|2)

What does the change mean in terms of relative engine performance? To find out, we'll have to wait for the resumption of CCC tournaments.