Several DELL workstations (P4 3.4GHz, 2-4G RAM) are supposed to buy for a small cluster. The remain question is operating system:

WinXP32: Popular, compatible to any existing hardware, but no 64-bit benefit. Need to update OS later for 64-bit CFX.

WinXP64: Still in Windows family, more familiar, but may have compatible problem. No 64-bit CFX now, but will be in CFX-11.

WinClusterServer2003: It is 64-bit OS, no official release yet.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux WS v4 for EM64T 64bit system: Take advantage of 64-bit computing with existing CFX, address more RAM. Faster speed is reported. But less familar than Windows, do not know the compatibility with network and other Windows PCs

Any suggestion and comment here? Thanks

Pre and post processing: Windows 64. Solving cluster: Linux

Wait a month and buy an Intel Woodcrest based server (Xeon 51xx) ... kicks current godawefull netburst based Intel chips out the door.

Or get Opteron based servers, but then again Woodcrest will soon offer a far better price/performance ratio than the Opteron.

I got the same answer from CFX support. Windows for pre and post-processing. Linux for solver.

Currently I am using windows based distributed parallel (PVM), a little reluctant to switch to Linux. Is Linux easy to handle? Is the interface of CFX solver the same in Linux?

Exactly the same.

PS: The only reason why pre and post processing is easier in Windows is that the lazy bums at ANSYS havnt taken the trouble to properly port the required features. It annoys me to have to work on Windows.

Joe, I googled woodcrest. It seems impressive. But I do not know when it will be on the market and most importantly if it is very expensive. The DELL 380 with Intel P4 3.4GHz seems the cheapest now.

PS: Compared to 25k per year CFX (with CAD2MESH) license fee, the hardware cost is much much less. Anyway to cut down the fee?

Thats why you want to buy a dual CPU woodcrest box. No server CPU can touch Woodcrest for performance including the Opterons. Running CFX on current crappy netburst P4's is a collosal waste of money.

Kentsfield (4 cores) will be out Q4 06 - Q1 07. The server version of this CPU will be the succesor to Woodcrest.

http://forums.2cpu.com/showthread.php?t=75280

Better woodcrest link: http://forums.2cpu.com/showthread.php?t=75181

I installed the two OS in my computer and tried a simple example on them. And it takes the same time to solve it. No obvious difference.

Our cluster works fine with RedHat EL4 (& Opteron CPUs). I do the pre- and postprocessing on windows(32bit) on a 64 bit Smithfield CPU. Here some proposals:

- Do not install Win64 - not even MS Office will run on that whitout troubles!!! - Win32 for meshing, pre- and postprocessing is ok (but the loss of useable RAM on a 64-bit system is annoyingly) --> look and feel with Linux the same... - Run the solver on RedHat EL 4: Just take the Installation guide in your CFX handbook. If you follow it point by point you will have no problems to set up your systems with CFX within ours (good luck with win...) - RedHat Network helps you to administrate your cluster

- If you build your cluster on dell workstations be aware of the RAM-bottleneck with 2 CPUs.

Good luck

Thanks, Patrick.

I do not have any experience on Linux OS and network. Like what I have said, I use windows based parallel processing now. The message from you put negative on WinXP64. That's also my concern about XP64.

The bottleneck problem of Intel dual-CPU is well known.

So far, I think this is the best choice: Solver cluster: 64-bit CPU, Linux (64-bit) Meshing, Pre,Post: 64-bit CPU, XP64

For convenience, I am still thinking to go all XP64 for small cluster(as long as all software for CFD can run under XP64, can do word or email on other regular PC).

Which two OS, XP64 and Linux64?

There is no 64-bit CFX for XP64 yet. Are u sure that your Linux is 64-bit and you used 64-bit executables on it?

Just take the Win32 version! XP64 is not supportet by CFX (it runs but on 32bits) until Release 11. Are you're cases that big that you use 64bit pre- and postprocessing? (-->how many elements?).

-> Meshing up to 10mio elements on a 32bit machine is no problem.

-> Take more machines (CPU) with less RAM (-> cheaper). Main problem in solving: Partitioning; but up to 5.6mio elements possible on linux 32-bit. For more you need 64bit and more RAM.

You can set up your parallel-cluster even if you never have used linux or unix (as i did). As I told; step by step and you will have no problems.