Hardware selection for steady/unsteady incompressible, turbulent and cht simulations

maddalena · July 13, 2011, 04:52

Hello,

I know that this question is posted every now and then on the forum, but... my hardware knowlege is so poor that I need a specialized answer...

I am planning to buy a new workstation for my CFD simulations. I need some hints, some suggestions and some good advices on how to select it.

Usually, I run steady, incompressible and turbulent simulations (simpleFoam), on really complex geometries (1 million cells at least). I would like to get into:

unsteady, incompressible and turbulent simulations, with dynamicMesh -> pimpleDyMFoam
steady, incompressible and turbulent simulations including heat transfer -> a new solver should be made on the basis of chtIcoMultiRegionFoam or conjugateHeatFoam
unsteady, incompressible and turbulent simulations including heat transfer -> a new solver should be made on the basis of conjugateHeatFoam

Of course, these are for geometries as above, or even more complex.

Here come my questions:

what is important when selecting a workstation for CFD purposes? Processors, memory, hard disks?
what are the standards (the minimum requirement) for the tasks described above?
what is the suggested configuration instead?

Any comment is really appreciated.

maddalena

l_r_mcglashan · July 13, 2011, 06:12

Really it will come down to "How much money do you have?".

When I built my workstation a few years ago I spent all the money (not much) on an Intel i7 with a good motherboard. Then put 6GB RAM in. That has worked well for me so far, although I tend to use "academic" meshes, so quite small!

Better processors (look here http://www.intel.com/products/processor/index.htm) make your simulations faster and more RAM means you can run bigger simulations. To figure out how much RAM you might need, probably best to take some of your simulations, run them on different sized meshes and see how the usage changes, rather than listening to what others might tell you.

olivierG · July 13, 2011, 09:55

hello,

I would give the same answer as here :http://www.cfd-online.com/Forums/ope...tml#post315328

In short: go with 1 to 4 PC with core i5/i7, and do not go with workstation like dual xeon and Co.

olivier

July 13, 2011, 04:52	Hardware selection for steady/unsteady incompressible, turbulent and cht simulations	#1
maddalena Senior Member maddalena Join Date: Mar 2009 Posts: 436 Rep Power: 23	Hello, I know that this question is posted every now and then on the forum, but... my hardware knowlege is so poor that I need a specialized answer... I am planning to buy a new workstation for my CFD simulations. I need some hints, some suggestions and some good advices on how to select it. Usually, I run steady, incompressible and turbulent simulations (simpleFoam), on really complex geometries (1 million cells at least). I would like to get into: unsteady, incompressible and turbulent simulations, with dynamicMesh -> pimpleDyMFoam steady, incompressible and turbulent simulations including heat transfer -> a new solver should be made on the basis of chtIcoMultiRegionFoam or conjugateHeatFoam unsteady, incompressible and turbulent simulations including heat transfer -> a new solver should be made on the basis of conjugateHeatFoam Of course, these are for geometries as above, or even more complex. Here come my questions: what is important when selecting a workstation for CFD purposes? Processors, memory, hard disks? what are the standards (the minimum requirement) for the tasks described above? what is the suggested configuration instead? Any comment is really appreciated. maddalena

July 13, 2011, 06:12		#2
l_r_mcglashan Senior Member Laurence R. McGlashan Join Date: Mar 2009 Posts: 370 Rep Power: 23	Really it will come down to "How much money do you have?". When I built my workstation a few years ago I spent all the money (not much) on an Intel i7 with a good motherboard. Then put 6GB RAM in. That has worked well for me so far, although I tend to use "academic" meshes, so quite small! Better processors (look here http://www.intel.com/products/processor/index.htm) make your simulations faster and more RAM means you can run bigger simulations. To figure out how much RAM you might need, probably best to take some of your simulations, run them on different sized meshes and see how the usage changes, rather than listening to what others might tell you. __________________ Laurence R. McGlashan :: Website

July 13, 2011, 09:55		#3
olivierG Senior Member Olivier Join Date: Jun 2009 Location: France, grenoble Posts: 272 Rep Power: 18	hello, I would give the same answer as here :http://www.cfd-online.com/Forums/ope...tml#post315328 In short: go with 1 to 4 PC with core i5/i7, and do not go with workstation like dual xeon and Co. olivier