New workstation Specifications

kylos · October 28, 2014, 06:22

Hi guys,

I'm a new PhD student looking into optimising blade cooling. I don't have much previous experience with CFD. My supervisor has tasked me with ordering a new PC/workstation to carry out my work. My budget is around £1200 - £1500 ($2000-$2500).

I have been looking around the Dell website and currently have this selected.

Dell Precision T5810 Workstation
Intel® Xeon® Processor E5-1620 v3 (4C, 3.5GHz, Turbo, HT, 10M, 140W)
512MB NVIDIA® Quadro® NVS 310 (2DP) (2DP-DVI adapter)
32G 2133MHz DDR4 (4x8GB) RDIMM ECC
1TB 3.5inch Serial ATA (7,200 Rpm) Hard Drive

The main programs I'll be using are ICEM-CFD and Fluent. I'm not sure what size the meshes I'll be dealing with will end up but I'm sure they will be in the order of a few million cells.

Any advice or critique would be appreciated.

danbence · November 4, 2014, 13:22

The graphics card is fine. Don't go less than 32GB RAM. Swap the hard drive for a SSD. 512GB SSD is so cheap now and you will soon be grateful for not having to wait minutes for ansys to load.

For the best bang for the buck, do a self build. It is so easy with modern PCs.

Bjarke · November 21, 2014, 07:17

Hi kylos

I see your budget is tight, but I will emphasize these reccomendations:

32GB ram minimum, but ECC ram is not required. To save money, you can start with less RAM and later buy extra RAM modules if you need more. Buying from another vendor than dell is cheaper.
prioritize to get a fast CPU, see if you can spend a few more bucks on e.g. a E5-1650 v3 or E5-1660 v3. The comparison on this page http://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html provides good guidance - the number are also representative for CFD.
SSD drive is nice-to-have, but you mainly see the difference when working on the machine. It will not affect simulation time much.

I have some T3600 and T7610 which I am satisfied with. The smaller cases are a bit more noisy.

If you are up to the job, you can build a PC yourself. This will save you a lot of money and you can use top-of-the-line i7 processors, which is more bang for the buck.

acasas · November 24, 2014, 18:47

yes 32 is ok

acasas · November 24, 2014, 18:49

Ups, sorry, if you go up to some millions of cells, maybe try to get up to 64GB

October 28, 2014, 06:22	New workstation Specifications	#1
kylos New Member Kyle Stewart Join Date: Oct 2014 Posts: 1 Rep Power: 0	Hi guys, I'm a new PhD student looking into optimising blade cooling. I don't have much previous experience with CFD. My supervisor has tasked me with ordering a new PC/workstation to carry out my work. My budget is around £1200 - £1500 ($2000-$2500). I have been looking around the Dell website and currently have this selected. Dell Precision T5810 Workstation Intel® Xeon® Processor E5-1620 v3 (4C, 3.5GHz, Turbo, HT, 10M, 140W) 512MB NVIDIA® Quadro® NVS 310 (2DP) (2DP-DVI adapter) 32G 2133MHz DDR4 (4x8GB) RDIMM ECC 1TB 3.5inch Serial ATA (7,200 Rpm) Hard Drive The main programs I'll be using are ICEM-CFD and Fluent. I'm not sure what size the meshes I'll be dealing with will end up but I'm sure they will be in the order of a few million cells. Any advice or critique would be appreciated.

November 21, 2014, 07:17		#3
Bjarke New Member Join Date: Nov 2014 Location: Denmark Posts: 1 Rep Power: 0	Hi kylos I see your budget is tight, but I will emphasize these reccomendations: 32GB ram minimum, but ECC ram is not required. To save money, you can start with less RAM and later buy extra RAM modules if you need more. Buying from another vendor than dell is cheaper. prioritize to get a fast CPU, see if you can spend a few more bucks on e.g. a E5-1650 v3 or E5-1660 v3. The comparison on this page http://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html provides good guidance - the number are also representative for CFD. SSD drive is nice-to-have, but you mainly see the difference when working on the machine. It will not affect simulation time much. I have some T3600 and T7610 which I am satisfied with. The smaller cases are a bit more noisy. If you are up to the job, you can build a PC yourself. This will save you a lot of money and you can use top-of-the-line i7 processors, which is more bang for the buck. sharonyue likes this.

November 24, 2014, 18:47		#4
acasas Member Antonio Casas Join Date: May 2013 Location: world Posts: 85 Rep Power: 13	yes 32 is ok Last edited by acasas; November 24, 2014 at 19:51. Reason: trying to delete message but I can´t

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November 4, 2014, 13:22		#2
danbence Member dab bence Join Date: Mar 2013 Posts: 48 Rep Power: 13	The graphics card is fine. Don't go less than 32GB RAM. Swap the hard drive for a SSD. 512GB SSD is so cheap now and you will soon be grateful for not having to wait minutes for ansys to load. For the best bang for the buck, do a self build. It is so easy with modern PCs.

November 24, 2014, 18:49		#5
acasas Member Antonio Casas Join Date: May 2013 Location: world Posts: 85 Rep Power: 13	Ups, sorry, if you go up to some millions of cells, maybe try to get up to 64GB