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So I Am looking to buy a new workstation in the next year or so when prices calm down a little. I want to be able to do some CFD run using openFoam. What do I gain by going to epic vs threadripper? Does having two CPU's double my RAM availability? Does Intel have anything comparable in this space? I know it is recommended to have 5-6GB of RAM per CPU core. Normally I run stuff at work on a HPC using around 600-1000 cores and don't think too much about the hardware. With that it still take around 12-24 hours to run. Now I don't expect to have that level of performance, but I am interested in seeing what I can do in the $10k budget or so.

Budget (including currency): 2000€ Country: Portugal Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: CFD, CAD, FEM and occasional rendering (keyshot) Other details (existing parts lists, whether any peripherals are needed, what you're upgrading from, when you're going to buy, what resolution and refresh rate you want to play at, etc): Hi, we are a student group from Portugal looking to upgrade our current PC which has something like a gen4 i7 and 16GB of RAM. We can only buy products from this one store, so that limits us a bit. Either way, I've put together a list of parts and I wanted your opinion on possible incompatibilities or bottlenecks, as well as some help deciding between components. CPU - Seen some reviews showing better results than the Ryzen 5950X in CFD, CAD, etc despite the eight efficiency cores, so i think it is the right choice. We can't go to any Xeons or Epycs because the store doesn't sell the more reasonably price models. INTEL Core I9-12900K Motherboard - Chose it because of the support for DDR4, am I making the right choice by staying away from DDR5? Asus TUF Gaming Z690-Plus WIFI D4 RAM - Going for DDR4, we have 3 options: 32GB at 3600MHz, or 64GB at 3200MHz (2x 32GB or 4x 16GB). Is the added memory and less latency more beneficial to our workloads? And if we go for the 64GB option, is there any disadvantage in going for the 2 stick 32GB each? That way we could upgrade to 128GB in the future. 1x RAM DDR4 CORSAIR Vengeance (4 x 8 GB - 3600 MHz - CL 18) 2x RAM DDR4 KINGSTON Fury Beast (1 x 32 GB - 3200 MHz - CL 16) 2x RAM DDR4 KINGSTON FURY Beast (2 x 16 GB - 3200 MHz - CL 16) SSD - From my limited research and knowledge, the Samsung has the benefit of having AES 256-bit encryption, is that something needed? Apart from that, the Kingston is at the same level and is cheaper. Was thinking of staying away from de WD because of thermals, is that a real issue? SSD Samsung 980 PRO 1TB SSD KINGSTON KC3000 1TB SSD WESTERN DIGITAL SN850 1TB AIO cooler - I heard it's difficult to keep the i9 under cool temperatures, is it worth going for the bigger, 3 fan radiator and mount it in the front? Or would the smaller one do the job fine? CORSAIR Hydro iCUE H100i RGB PRO XT 120mm CORSAIR Hydro iCUE H150i RGB PRO XT 120mm Power Supply - Is it worth saving a buck in this high end system going for a cheaper power supply like the Enclave? (Low power PS considering a not too powerful GPU) CORSAIR RM650 (ATX - 650 W - 80 Plus Gold) KOLINK Enclave (ATX - 650 W - 80 Plus Gold) GPU - Which one should we go for? STAR CCM+ (CFD software) now features a graphics acceleration feature that uses CUDA cores to do some of the computation, but it's something very recent so we don't really know what to do... Apart from CFD, is it worth having a good GPU for our other workloads? And which one to get, considering even a GTX 1660 costs around 400€ in Portugal?

Hello, I have 301 snapshots of data files (.vti format) each of which represents a scalar flow field at a particular time. Each data file is a 3D array of 384^3 data points. Now I want to make a 30 fps movie with these data files displaying one after the other. I wish to do it using Paraview but don't how to. I looked at the documentations online but none of them are clear. Thanks in advance.

Hi all, I'm in need of a powerful workstation and I'm undecided between building one myself or buy an "old" Dual XEON workstation to improve it. 1) I will use it mainly for number crunching (Computational fluid dynamics and genetic algorithms) and CAD, it will be my main system as well. 2) I don't do a lot of games at the moment and I definitely don't play the latest titles. 3) I will run mainly Ubuntu as my OS but I need Windows for CAD so I was thinking about dual booting. 4) I'm on a low budget < 800 Euros. 5) It needs to be quiet and reliable since it will run even at night some time. I've been scanning the internet for quite a while now, there are a lot of HPZ600 Dual XEON out there but what really got me interested is this: - DUAL CPU XEON X5670 (2,93 GHz - 3.33 MAX) - 24 GB ECC DD3 RAM - 1 HDD 1 TB SATA 3.5" - AMD FirePro V7900 2 GB VRAM - WIN 10 PRO pre installed. All of this for less then 600 Euros, it come with a 1 year warranty for everything but the graphic card which is given a 3 years warranty from AMD (so it seems the GPU is brand new). The Z series has a solid reputation and this workstation seems to have pretty solid spec, the CPU is still relevant today (and there are 2 of them!!), enough RAM and a more then decent new professional graphic card. The alternative is building one myself: - CPU processing power is king, I'd really like a dual CPU (or at least a mobo supporting 2 CPU for later addition). - AMD seem to be quite good value for the money, is it even possible to build a dual AMD CPU system with my budget? - GPU is not that important since I don't run latest games. - Plenty of RAM is a necessity. - I need it to be reliable and quiet. - I need to run Linux in dual boot with Windows. What do you think? Can I beat the preassembled HP workstation with my budget? I'm not gonna lie the Dual XEON processor is really tempting. Please consider I never built a PC myself :-/ . Any suggestion/opinion is appreciated.

Hello guys, Long time sub of LTT, first time forum user, long post up ahead, bewarned, thank you for your patience. This will be my first build, and I intend for it to be a long-term workhorse, to last at least 4 years, hope I don't need to mess around with it too much, mostly set and forget. I value 'easy'/'simple' builds, nothing should be a 'Linus' style, improvised solution, as I said, this needs to be a workhorse. Machine should be ready before June of 2017, but after February 2017 (I am fixing my room first). Assume I do not have any existing hardware/peripherals. Willing to buy some parts 2nd hand. Here we go: 1. Budget & Location Budget: At the moment hard to say, approximately AUD $ 2.6k, all-in (including all extras). I may be able to stretch slightly. Delayed purchase of some non-essential parts is possible (for instance, extra RAM). Location: Sydney, Australia. Variety of options for parts is not too bad, but probably not as great as USA, currency-wise, we're about 72 cents to the dollar vs USD. Climate can get quite hot during the summer heat waves - my location gets 40oC+ for quite a few days every year, and many days above 35oC. I expect to be able to operate this machine during those times, with limited loss in performance. Machine location: In my (small) room. Silence is going to be quite important. I do not need a fan-less build, I do not need dead silence, but as much as possible, the decibels should be reduced. 2. Aim I am an engineering research student, so my use case is probably not the 'normal' gamer/streamer type; I shall split this up in the my 4 primary use cases: Engineering simulation: Primarily I will be running Computational Fluid Dynamics simulations (CFD) on this machine, I will run the 'big' simulations at my university facility, but some of the 'smaller' projects and most of the meshing, I will run at home. Programs I plan to run are ANSYS Fluent and CFX, OpenFOAM and if I can get the license, Star CCM (maybe)... From past experience, I will need at least 16 GB of RAM for this. CPU parallelization is also a great booster of CFD workload, in some programs more than others. Expect this machine to be working for days at a time. Engineering modelling: CAD work, not 3D animation. Primary software packages are CATIA, Autodesk Inventor, Autodesk AutoCAD, Solidworks. From past experience, most decently powered PCs can do the job, so it shouldn't be too much of an issue. Engineering calculation: Programs like Matlab, and Excel. Any decently powerful CPU and more than 8GB of RAM should be enough, so I'm not concerned. Gaming: AAA titles - think Bioshock, Far Cry, Crysis, Civ 6, Metal Gear Solid V, Project Cars etc etc. I also love Skyrim and Fallout graphics mods, and will finally get to run the 'pretty' looking ones, hopefully, maybe... I'm don't *need* frame rates to be high, as long as they are > 30fps I'm happy. But I would love to run very high/ ultra graphics settings if possible, I love to look at pretty stuff. Planned resolution of ~1440p, not 4k. I do not play FPS' that often, so high fps counts not essential. Aside from all of this, I will be doing a lot of research work on this machine, so things like reading, lots of typing, more typing. haha. Occasional image and video editing. Also, Chrome tabs. Chrome tabs. 3. Monitors Space on my desk is limited, as I need to use my 15.6" laptop as well. Desk dimension is ~120cmx60cm. If I can, I would really love to run Ultrawide. Not sure if I should run 3440x1440, 2560x1080, or 2560x1440. Thoughts? As far as panel is concerned, IPS or LED is probably best, never been a fan of TN. Refresh rate doesn't need to be much higher than 75Hz?. Latency <10ms. Love accurate colours. If space does turn out to be an issue, or cost, compromise to 1080p is possible. 4. Peripherals + Others Mouse+keyboard: I would prefer a keyboard that is not mechanical, and relatively quiet. I do not mind mechanical, but the noise has been too annoying for me from past experience. The majority of my history with keyboards has been with laptop keyboards. Nothing particular for the mouse, prefer ambidextrous, simple, no extra buttons, scroll wheel essential, with click and side scroll a nice bonus. If there is a package that will also allow me to dock+charge+switch between my phone/laptop/desktop, that would be super awesome. Toss of a coin between wired or wireless to be honest. Sound: I'll use the stock motherboard sound with my existing speakers for now. Possible sound card in the far future, uncertain. Bay devices: Need card reader eventually, prefer BluRay drive as well for multimedia. Hard drive: I need storage much more than I need speed. Prepared to sacrifice SSD to save cost, CFD files can get very big and messy. Case: I don't care about looks. I care about ease of use, and silence. Best case scenario, mid-tower size. Currently looking at Define R5. Cooling is also important. Historically, dust seems to be a problem with my house and my room - dust filters and other dust minimization or ease of cleaning tricks are welcome. PSU: Don't need a tonne of power, only going for 1 GPU realistically, and non-OC CPU. Efficiency and silence will be key. I'm thinking 500-750W? OS: Will require Windows and Office. Wireless: Should need it, although nothing too fancy. 5. Why are you upgrading? I need more power for the work that I want to do. Also want to finally get a larger than 15.6" screen. Need more storage than my current laptop+ExtHDD setup can provide. 6. Extra Notes? USB Type C port on the front/top of the case is a nice bonus, planning for a new phone soon. No plans for OC of CPU or GPU. Currently unsure if GPU can help speed up the CFD simulations, or rather, what type of GPUs will speed it up - reading up on it. Small possibility of running 2 GPUs to speed up simulations, but prefer single GPU gaming. Not sure if I need ECC memory, I don't think the computers I have used for CFD in the past had it (except the big HPC server at my university), so I do not think ECC is necessary for this build. If someone here knows more, and points out flaws in my approach, I am willing to completely reassess my budget for a justified improvement in reliability/performance/silence etc. I'm not biased towards any brand, but Zen has gotten me excited, due to them likely having more cores given the similar price/power of i5s. As little RGB nonsense as possible, I find that shit annoying. Back-lit keyboard is acceptable but not necessary. Conclusion Once again, massive thanks for those who have stuck with the long post. I post lots of detail here to not waste time later. Thanks in advance for the feedback/opinions. TL;DR Need new PC build for 2.6k AUD, used for engineering simulation work and gaming. Building early 2017. Looking forward to your responses.

Hi, I'm looking to upgrade my now ancient quadro k5000 and want to know whether dual gpu's i.e. 2 x p4000's would be more price / simulation time efficient than 1 x p5000? Can currently pick up 2 p4000's for around £700 so would save a significant chunk if its worth it! and does anybody have information on whether spending slightly more on the new gen RTX Quadro's would be at all worth it? again they can be found for decent money 2nd hand. Currently running 2 x xeon e5-2620's + 120gb RAM in an HP z620 workstation. I use Ansys for simulation with an HPC license. This is purely to shorten solve times, not for graphics in design work or rendering, I'm not so keen to move to Tesla's due to their passive cooling. thanks!

Hi, I'm a long-term follower of LTT and tech in general. I've built many regular PCs for work, friends and family, including high-end gaming PCs before, so I have an idea on how to work with hardware. Currently, I'm working in a research lab and we're in need of a relatively powerful workstation for CFD simulations that we plan to do. I'm not very experienced in enterprise-level hardware, workstation processors and graphic cards or other peripherals. I'm posting here seeking some advice from this community, suggestions on what a proper build for this would be and hoping to come to a decision on how and where to proceed. We're a research group based in Chicago, Illinois, US. Our research work primarily focuses on building energy modeling, air quality analysis, data logging solutions and pretty much anything to do with the built environment. Our latest research work will now have us looking to perform CFD simulations in HVAC ducts, rooms, pipes, etc, in relation to building performance and human health. While the research objectives can change and be added upon in the future, our first step is to source a good workstation hardware (either branded, off-the-shelf or assembled), to help us with the simulations we intend to do. I assume we would at least need a high-end processor such as Xeon series or similar, 64-128GB RAM and possibly an Nvidia P5000 or P6000 GPU. I'm not sure if there's a particular type of configuration that works well together, or what type of motherboards, PSUs, RAMs, SSDs/HDDs, etc. are recommended/proven to work better than others in this specific category. We are not looking at other peripherals such as monitors, keyboard, mice, etc. Ourbudget is between $2,500-$5,000. I'd appreciate advice from anyone, but it would really help if you also had prior experience in using such machines for similar use cases so you can recommend the best course of action here. Obviously we would want the best bang for buck type of solution, so it doesn't have to be the most powerful or the latest and greatest in the market today, but it can be if there is enough room in the budget and enough justification for the use case. To be clear, since we do have a limited budget, we may have to compromise where needed, but can be somewhat flexible in the budget if there is enough justification for a particular suggestion. Instead of manual assembly, going with a fully assembled branded solution is also something we can consider as that would provide support in terms of warranty and others, but only if the cost isn't too far outside the budget. Looking forward to hearing your suggestions and recommendations!

Hey, This is my first post so please forgive any mistakes. I'm part of a student run organisation based at the Uni of Glasgow (Scotland) and basically we're designing and 3D printing a working jet engine model (the website offers a far better explanation - check out https://www.jet-x.org/ ) The work dictates that we have to do A LOT of CAD and CFD, and now that we've been given licenses for ANSYS, it seems our current individual computing abilities are no longer optimum. Therefore, we are toying around with the idea of building a system purely dedicated to high level design and simulation. The design is done is Solidworks (there are some very large assemblies, full engine is 800+ components) and the CFD in ANSYS Fluent. However, with regards to hardware, I have no idea where to start in terms of picking the correct/optimum parts.I'm not sure how much RAM is required, or even what to look for in the GPU. I've heard that Solidworks works on a single core, so favours higher clock speeds (not sure if this is true), but then wouldn't simulations work best on processors with lots of cores (seeing as it's lots of iterative calculations)? If this is the case, then I'm wondering if there is a way to get the best of both via a compromise. Our budget is around £2,000, but with some reasoning and good justification, we might be able to go slightly over if it would benefit the project. Any help regarding CPU choice, GPU, amount of RAM etc would be very much appreciated. Many thanks, H

Hi Folks, I'm looking to build a new computer with an upper limit of $2000 USD. I want the system built around the mini-ITX form factor. I'll be using the computer primarily for gaming/movie watching (and occasionally for programming with MatLab and some CFD simulation). Listed below is my idea. (link: http://pcpartpicker.com/user/flagbyrd/saved/LpjWGX) Any ideas/suggestions? CPU: Intel Core i5-4690 3.5GHz Quad-Core $223.99 CPU Cooler: Corsair H100i 77.0 CFM Liquid $99.98 Motherboard: Asus H97I-PLUS Mini ITX LGA1150 $107.24 Memory: Corsair Vengeance Pro 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 $179.99 Storage: Plextor M6e 256GB M.2-2280 SSD $219.99 Seagate 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Hybrid- $77.99 Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 780 Ti 3GB TWIN FROZR $669.99 Case: Corsair 250D Mini ITX Tower $84.98 Power Supply: Corsair 650W ATX12V / EPS12V $99.99 Optical Drive: Asus BW-16D1HT Blu-Ray/DVD/CD Writer $54.99 OS: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (OEM) (64-bit) $84.98 Total: $1904.11

Hi, So I have a Titan Black. I planned on 3D modelling with it. My applications include: AutoCAD, AutoInventor, 3ds Max, Maya, Ansys Fluent, and many more. However, I noticed that when I'm in Autodesk Inventor, viewport navigation lags like hell when I pan and zoom around. I checked MSI Afterburner and found that the GPU was doing barely any work, this is the same for the CPU. So what do I need to do to make Auto Inventor make use of my GPU AND CPU? The GPU doesn't even present normal clocks due to the minimal work load. In fact, it runs at around 500mhz to conserve energy. That being said, I game and fold@home without problems. So then, how can I make Autodesk Inventor work with Titan blacks? Or is this a GPU/firmware problem?

I am looking to buy a new laptop since my hostel does not allow desktops . The laptops with professional Quadro graphics are way out of my budget. Also, their availability in my region is extremely limited. So I was thinking of getting a good gaming laptop with as beast of a CPU and GPU as I can afford (may be Alienware or Asus ROG, if possible) with an SSD, but I am afraid that my investment will have little to no effect for my specific applications ( see next para). Also, the "gaming" badge makes it hard to convince my parents that I need it for studies (I am a hardcore gamer as well, but right now my priority is different). I will be using CAD as well as solid simulation and CFD softwares like AutoCAD, Pro-E, Catia, SolidWorks, Ansys, Matlab, Star-CCM+ and anything else my syllabus or projects demand. I know that a powerful CPU and plenty of RAM will be utilized for these applications, and sturdy build is always nice to have in a laptop, but my concern is that will gaming graphics have any effect at all on professional applications?

Anyeone wanna talk about workstation GPUs and Desktop/gaming GPUs. I wanna hear your unbiased thoughts about the two types of GPUs and in the workstation market, the advantages of Nvidia and AMD and maybe you can even talk about Linu's latest build, where he used both variety of GPUs? and yes I do need a workstation style GPU as I am a CAD designer first, gamer second. It will greatly appreciated, fellow Canadian and an engineering student. I am a part of a school SAE team. I am responsible for designing the Diffuser for the car, and possible more components in the future. I want to run Ansys, to do Computational Fluid Dynamics simulation inorder to get the best design. I havent invested in a GPU and was waiting for this moment, so I can get what I need. Whats something good that I can get, that under 1000 dollars, maybe a little over? maybe something that is around 500 dollars, that I can crossfire or SLI? Can I get a R9 290, and a FirePro, and cross fire those, will this be better? as according to numbers, the R9 is pretty up there with the over 1500 workstation GPU. I also love gaming, that why I brought the 290 in the picture, but first priority is 3D CAD and simulations. Thank you in advance!!