RAM is cheaper than cores so my advice is to install the maximum amount of RAM that the motherboard supports. If the solver only needs 16 GB of RAM, it won't run any faster on a computer with 64 GB of RAM. Doubling RAM is much better for the solution time than adding cores, but this only applies if the solver needs a large amount of RAM. ANSYS uses the term "in-core" to mean running in memory (RAM), but "in-core" has nothing to do with the number of cores.įor this model you will be better off with 4 cores and 64 GB of RAM rather than 8 cores and 32 GB of RAM. If that model ran on a computer with only 32 GB of RAM, it might take 11 hours. The model that ran for 5 hours on 8 cores may have needed 64 GB of RAM to run entirely in memory. When making a purchase decision, you want the model to run entirely in RAM if possible. On Fluent, you check Parallel and type a number when you start building the model.ĪNSYS PERFORMANCE IS BEST WHEN SOLVING IN MEMORY I hope you have done this on your 4-core computer. Here is a link for how to setup Mechanical to use more cores. FLUENT models respond closer to the ideal of halving the solve time when the number of cores is doubled. The solver even estimates how well the model is balanced and warns you if it is not well balanced. Those numbers are one illustration and different models will have tremendous variation away from the ideal of halving the time when doubling the cores. Do you see the diminishing returns of adding more cores? Doubling the number of cores doesn't halve the time. If you solve a structural model on 2 cores and it takes 19 hours, it might take only 9 hours on 4 cores, 5 hours on 8 cores and 3 hours on 16 cores. A pdf file from BOXX of a computer with an ANSYS-tested graphics card that costs < $7000 is attached for your reference. The BOXX Apex will feel 33% faster for any program that you are currently using on your computer. A BOXX Apex S-class is plotted on the graph and you see how much higher the clock is set compared with the standard products. Some manufacturers, like BOXX, will use high-performance cooling on the processor and overclock the processor beyond what Intel specifies for ordinary cooling. Do you go for more cores or a faster clock? Read the next post to learn that structural models don't scale perfectly with cores, and most of the programs running on your computer don't know how to use multiple cores, so I always go for clock speed over core count. Now you could choose a third computer that has 12 cores running at 1.8 GHz that costs the same as the 6-core, 3.6 GHz computer. You know the 3.6 GHz computer is more expensive than the 1.8 GHz computer. If you have a 1.8 GHz computer and a model runs in 2 hours, if you move it to a 3.6 GHz computer, it would run in 1 hour (they both have 6 cores). The clock speed determines how fast a given program will run. One has 6 cores running at 3.7 GHz while the other has 12 cores running at 1.9 GHz. Pretend those two processors cost the same and you have to choose which one to purchase. There are 29 products that are e5-2600-v4, out of the 44 products in the e5-v4 family. Below I plotted all 44 processor with the Clock frequency (GHz) versus the number of Cores. "The site suggests e5 2600 v4 cpu" Look at this reference. If you purchase a computer with a 1.8 GHz clock, your new computer will take twice as long to do most things than your current computer, which would be disappointing even if it had 14 cores and solved CFD models faster. Your current computer has a Core i7-4790 processor, which has 4 cores at 3.6 GHz. But my testing showed GPUs were not accelerating my Static Structural models. Get a supported GPU if you can afford it. Use a HDD for archive storage that is really large. I have an SSD for the C: drive so programs load fast, a much larger SSD where the projects I am working on are solved. They are much faster on large problems when you run out of RAM. Get SSD storage instead of HDD if you can afford it. Some vendors offer well engineered overclocked processors such as BOXX. However, don't trade off clock speed to get more cores. Get the fastest processor with 4 or more cores if you can afford it. This allows for a future RAM upgrade, say when you change from a Student license to a Research license. Find out the maximum RAM capability of the motherboard, even if you don't install the maximum initially. That will ensure a good user experience with the product. The most important thing is to get a graphics card from the list of tested cards. Which license are you on: Student (limited size) or a Research/Corporate (unlimited size) license? You don't need as much RAM if you can't run large models.ĭoes it need to be mobile or can you get a desktop? What is your budget? There are different recommendations if you are a poor student versus having some else pay for an awesome workstation.
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