C’est bien de vouloir donner des conseils. Encore faut il en donner des bons.
(bref tout est sur la FAQ de PIO)
There is no “optimal” build as it depends on your expectations, budget and logistics. Here are some points to have in mind:
Operating system: you need 64bit Windows. On Macs you need some way to run Windows, popular ones are Parallels and Bootcamp.
CPU and RAM: solver's speed is proportional to number of physical cores x frequency they run on assuming those are reasonably modern CPUs. The more RAM you have the bigger trees you can build. This means there is no "optimal" setup. You can always get a faster computer and more RAM if you spend more money.
Minimum requirements: you need a quad core CPU and 8GB of RAM to run the solver comfortably. It will work on modern dual core CPUs as well but it's going to be slower (more than 2x because usually those CPUs are also clocked at lower frequency than quads to save battery life). It's the best to download the free version and run some tests (it solves Qs Jh 2h flop) to make sure your hardware produces satisfactory performance.
Laptops: it's the best to go with a quad core CPU. In case of Intel those are "HQ" or "MQ" CPUs. This sadly rules out all ultrabooks and nice slick and thin laptops. Notice that U and M line Intel CPUs are dual core. When we say quad core CPU we mean 4 physical cores. Even the fastest laptops are slower than average modern desktop computer. The reason for this is that laptops are optimized to be portable and to have long battery lives not for performance.
Desktops: the performance is proportional to number of CPU cores multiplied by frequency they are clocked at. As of today (2017-09-12) the best deals on the market are AMD CPUs: Ryzens and in case of work station builds Thread Rippers. You can get more performance by going with dualbox Xeon build but it's going to be very expensive and will offer way worse performance/price ratio. **UNFORTUNATELY it seems many Ryzen/ThreadRipper builds are unstable. Please make sure you know what you are doing when assembling those setups. A lot of our users experienced hard to overcome memory stability issues with those.**
RAM: RAM speed doesn't matter much as long as it's relatively modern. The more RAM you have the bigger trees you can build. 8GB is enough to use postflop solver comfortably with occasional 2-3 bet sizes at some points. 16GB is enough to solve even very big trees with multiple bet sizes at many points. Some users want even bigger trees though. To use the preflop solver comfortably you need at least 64GB of RAM. We got reports that RAM speed is important for Ryzen/ThreadRipper CPUs though. It's the best idea to consult hardware experts/hardware forums when assembling your system.
Renting: it may be the best idea to rent a dedicated server instead of building your own hardware. It offers a lot of flexibility and options. The solver doesn't hog your local resources either so you can the computer for other heavy tasks when Pio is solving on the server. There are many providers of dedicated servers out there, popular ones among our customers are ovh, online.net and https://contabo.com/. They all have their own order process, offerings and support. We don't recommend any particular provider, it's the best to consult Google and our Skype group where many people went through the process.
GPUs: they don't matter for the solver's performance
SSDs: they don't matter for the solver's performance although they do matter for overall computer experience so it's recommended to get one unless the computer is purely for Pio purposes.
Overclocking: overclocking will increase performance of the solver proportionally to how much you overclock. Overclocking also increases heat so you need very good cooling to make it work (generally you need to know what you are doing)
**Intel vs AMD: AMD CPUs before Ryzen/Thread Ripper were very slow for the purposes of the solver. Ryzen/ThreadRipper offer great performance though and fantastic performance/price ratio as well.**
