[residual]

I am thinking of buying a Workstation with the following specs for entry-level CFD Simulations. With the budget, this is what I can go for. I will need to do transient simulations to find drag and lift variation of a cylinder at high Mach numbers (M=1). Want to know whether this type of machine can handle such a simulation (Can wait for a day or two to get results)

Core i7 (8 cores, 16 threads)
RAM = 32 GB (16*2 - 3200 Hz, 4 slots available in motherboard))

[aerosayan]

Originally Posted by residual

I will need to do transient simulations to find drag and lift variation of a cylinder at high Mach numbers (M=1). Want to know whether this type of machine can handle such a simulation (Can wait for a day or two to get results)

Core i7 (8 cores, 16 threads)
RAM = 32 GB (16*2 - 3200 Hz, 4 slots available in motherboard))

RAM looks okay.



Not sure about Intel CPU. AMD Ryzen CPUs are significantly cheaper and perform just as well. However you won't observe high performance in AMD CPUs if your software uses Intel MKL library. Intel MKL intentionally hobbles itself when running on AMD CPUs.


You're most probably gonna need a GPU for high speed computation (if your CFD software is capable of using GPUs) and for proper visualization.

[JBeilke]

This will be a nice PC for entry level CFD work. Try to fill all RAM slots and not only two.

GPU computing is very much overrated in the field of CFD, so don't care about it.

[aerosayan]

Originally Posted by JBeilke

GPU computing is very much overrated in the field of CFD, so don't care about it.

This is an interesting observation.

I'm not able to understand why GPU computing would be overrated for CFD.


My favorite CFD presentation was that of SpaceX's combustion simulation on GPU - https://youtu.be/vYA0f6R5KAI


Even NASA's FUN3D was upgraded to use GPUs - https://youtu.be/TyXhmqjGSj0


I guess many commercial CFD solvers only have OpenMP and MPI support and the supercomputers in different national computation centers aren't going to buy new GPUs.


But for a single desktop user, GPUs do provide significant advantages.

[flotus1]

Name one, with an example that applies to OPs specific use-case. And the software he intends to use.

[aerosayan]

Originally Posted by flotus1

Name one, with an example that applies to OPs specific use-case. And the software he intends to use.

OP previously mentioned that he's trying to learn CFD. Currently, the system requirements for the problem he's trying to solve is rather small. However in very near future he's definitely going to want to solve more complicated problems, or solve the current problem with more refinement.


Some GPU enabled open source solvers :


- RapidCFD : https://github.com/Atizar/RapidCFD-dev : "OpenFOAM fork running fully on CUDA platform."


- Basic Euler Solver : https://github.com/joel-ho/BES : https://joelcfd.com/projects/bes/


- OpenHyperFlow2D : https://github.com/sergeas67/openhyperflow2d : "Parallel (C++/MPI/OpenMP/CUDA) research-educational CFD code for simulation 2D (flat/axisymmetrical) transient viscous compressible multicomponent sub/trans/supersonic reacting gas flow with RANS/URANS turbulence models."


The second and third examples are for compressible flows, but since OP will do his simulation in the transonic region, they might be helpful. The first example is a fork of OpenFOAM, and they have a choice between a free and paid license.

[LuckyTran]

Setup looks fine. Any hex/oct-core cpu that can reach 3 GHz speeds coupled to DDR4 memory will do fine. 2 memory sticks is also fine if you're dual channel (4 sticks just increases capacity and not throughput unless you have a quad channel setup).


GPU computing is overrated, it's not even a good place to start at for an entry-level nor a budget level task.

[sbaffini]

I second the suggestion to fill all the available slots for RAM in order to have better performances in a multicore environment.

GPU is probably nice to have in any case if you want to have a multi-purpose machine and you later want to dig into using it somehow but, as everyone told you, that's not where you start from in CFD.