Anyone here have experience with the Dell Poweredge r715 for computer simulations?

[Mega2]

I was thinking to buy one and wanted to see if it would make for a good server for simulations.

[Electronics Wizardy]

What type of simulation?

 

What budget?

 

Those cpus haven't really aged well, and a r720 would be a good amount faster for not much more.

[jaslion]

What simulations? Hate to break it to you but those opterons are pretty much garbage. Even dual 16 core high clock ones get shredded by a ryzen 3700. So yeah they suck.

[Mega2]

31 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

What type of simulation?

 

What budget?

 

Those cpus haven't really aged well, and a r720 would be a good amount faster for not much more.

The simulations are on Monte Carlo programs, mostly Serpent and OpenMC. Monte Carlo simulations are basically mass-probability simulations that run several hundred or thousand trials to determine how a certain reaction with play out (usually with nuclear stuff at the reactor level). Multithreading is enabled so more cores trumps a higher speed any day.

 

I'm on a pretty strained budget now seeing as I spent $380 on the server. Optimally, I'd be making modifications to the server.

 

Would you mind elaborating a bit on what you meant by them not having aged well? Is that just because newer Ryzen CPUs are faster for things like gaming, or is it something else?

[Electronics Wizardy]

Just now, Mega2 said:

The simulations are on Monte Carlo programs, mostly Serpent and OpenMC. Monte Carlo simulations are basically mass-probability simulations that run several hundred or thousand trials to determine how a certain reaction with play out (usually with nuclear stuff at the reactor level). Multithreading is enabled so more cores trumps a higher speed any day.

 

I'm on a pretty strained budget now seeing as I spent $380 on the server. Optimally, I'd be making modifications to the server.

 

Would you mind elaborating a bit on what you meant by them not having aged well? Is that just because newer Ryzen CPUs are faster for things like gaming, or is it something else?

Those opterons just aren't great chips compared to the slightly newer intel parts you can get now. THe xeon e5 and e5 v2 are a good amount faster, much faster per clock, more power efficent, and will fit in your budget just fine.

 

How much do you care about power consumption and noise, a newer system might make sense here, esp with how quickly desktop chips have been gaining cores.

 

[Mega2]

19 minutes ago, jaslion said:

What simulations? Hate to break it to you but those opterons are pretty much garbage. Even dual 16 core high clock ones get shredded by a ryzen 3700. So yeah they suck.

In terms of them getting shredded, is that in terms of speed or overall? Keep in mind I'm working with Monte Carlo probability simulations on the atomic level, so more cores with multithreading enabled trumps speed any day.

[Mega2]

1 minute ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Those opterons just aren't great chips compared to the slightly newer intel parts you can get now. THe xeon e5 and e5 v2 are a good amount faster, much faster per clock, more power efficent, and will fit in your budget just fine.

 

How much do you care about power consumption and noise, a newer system might make sense here, esp with how quickly desktop chips have been gaining cores.

 

Thanks for the advice; power consumption and noise really aren't an issue for me, since some of the longer simulations will only go on for 5 days max and I'm not the one paying for power

 

I noticed that the AMD Opteron 6380 has a max clock speed of 3.4 GHz, base clock speed of 2.5 GHz, and 16 cores. Given that it seems to be regarded as pretty low-end, how much of those 3.4 GHz should I expect to squeeze out?

[Electronics Wizardy]

1 minute ago, Mega2 said:

I noticed that the AMD Opteron 6380 has a max clock speed of 3.4 GHz, base clock speed of 2.5 GHz, and 16 cores. Given that it seems to be regarded as pretty low-end, how much of those 3.4 GHz should I expect to squeeze out?

you can't compare clock speed like this at all. The intel chips of the era did much more per clock. Those opterons are basically dual fx8350s that were clocked very slow.

 

The e5 2680 v2 and simmilar chips will run circles arount those opterons in almost every task.

[jaslion]

19 minutes ago, Mega2 said:

In terms of them getting shredded, is that in terms of speed or overall? Keep in mind I'm working with Monte Carlo probability simulations on the atomic level, so more cores with multithreading enabled trumps speed any day.

In everything it gets beaten easily.

[Mega2]

25 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

you can't compare clock speed like this at all. The intel chips of the era did much more per clock. Those opterons are basically dual fx8350s that were clocked very slow.

 

The e5 2680 v2 and simmilar chips will run circles arount those opterons in almost every task.

Thanks for the advice. Do you think the e5 2680 v2 be the best Xeon processor for this purpose?

[Electronics Wizardy]

2 minutes ago, Mega2 said:

Thanks for the advice. Do you think the e5 2680 v2 be the best Xeon processor for this purpose?

If you don't mind the extra power compared to modern chips, yea.

 

If you can scale really well with cores, you can get the r820 for 4 sockets.

[Mega2]

5 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

If you don't mind the extra power compared to modern chips, yea.

 

If you can scale really well with cores, you can get the r820 for 4 sockets.

Thanks, do you know if this is compatible with the Dell Poweredge r715 or is their a specific list of compatible CPUs I have to consult?

[Electronics Wizardy]

3 minutes ago, Mega2 said:

Thanks, do you know if this is compatible with the Dell Poweredge r715 or is their a specific list of compatible CPUs I have to consult?

The r715 is g34, so amd only. 

 

Look at dells site for compatible cpus. 

 

Bud id go r720 or r820 here.

[Mega2]

4 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

The r715 is g34, so amd only. 

 

Look at dells site for compatible cpus. 

 

Bud id go r720 or r820 here.

Thanks for the advice but I already bought the server. Is there any chance I might be able to buy some sort of an adapter to get it to work with a Xeon?

[Electronics Wizardy]

Just now, Mega2 said:

Thanks for the advice but I already bought the server. Is there any chance I might be able to buy some sort of an adapter to get it to work with a Xeon?

Nope, its amd only. What cpus does it have now?

 

Can you sell it or return it?

[jaslion]

10 minutes ago, Mega2 said:

Thanks for the advice but I already bought the server. Is there any chance I might be able to buy some sort of an adapter to get it to work with a Xeon?

No. Cancel the order and get a decent server. A 600$ or less new consumer desktop beats that amd opteron with ease in any task. One thread of a 3700 is worth about 5 of the opteron.

[Mega2]

47 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Nope, its amd only. What cpus does it have now?

 

Can you sell it or return it?

Currently it's got 2 CPUs (AMD Opteron 6380).

 

In terms of returning it, im very doubtful. I'll see how it runs compared to my PC, a 4 GHz program, and a desktop used for this sort of stuff.

[Electronics Wizardy]

Just now, Mega2 said:

Currently it's got 2 CPUs (AMD Opteron 6380).

 

In terms of returning it, im very doubtful. I'll see how it runs compared to my PC, a 4 GHz program, and a desktop used for this sort of stuff.

What cpu does your desktop have?

 

You can't just compare clock speed in cpus, as newer cpus do much more in a single clock.

[charlie_root]

Returning it or selling it is not worth the hassle and the shipping costs IMO. I say just use it and see if the performance is acceptable. 

[Mega2]

44 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

What cpu does your desktop have?

 

You can't just compare clock speed in cpus, as newer cpus do much more in a single clock.

I'm not entirely sure about the 4 Ghz laptop and the desktop. They're both accessed remotely for work so I have no real reference. That said I'll be comparing them by having them run simulations from the software I intend to run going forward.

[Mega2]

1 hour ago, jaslion said:

No. Cancel the order and get a decent server. A 600$ or less new consumer desktop beats that amd opteron with ease in any task. One thread of a 3700 is worth about 5 of the opteron.

Thanks for the advice. I already received the server so I'll have to run the program and compare it. Out of curiosity, do you have experience dealing with scientific simulations using a Ryzen or AMD CPU?

[jaslion]

19 minutes ago, Mega2 said:

Thanks for the advice. I already received the server so I'll have to run the program and compare it. Out of curiosity, do you have experience dealing with scientific simulations using a Ryzen or AMD CPU?

I have experience using them for rendering and neural network use. My dual xeon e5 2697v2 were faster than my single ryzen 2700x but it was pretty much the same when I used a single cpu. Keep in mind a single e5 2697v2 is a lot better than 2 of the best opterons available togheter

[ProjectBox153]

2 hours ago, Mega2 said:

Thanks for the advice but I already bought the server. Is there any chance I might be able to buy some sort of an adapter to get it to work with a Xeon?

No, you can't adapt an AMD CPU socket to run an Intel chip. You might want to think about returning that server. You can't compare different CPUs just based on clock speeds. That's not really a useful comparison at all. 

[Mega2]

49 minutes ago, jaslion said:

I have experience using them for rendering and neural network use. My dual xeon e5 2697v2 were faster than my single ryzen 2700x but it was pretty much the same when I used a single cpu. Keep in mind a single e5 2697v2 is a lot better than 2 of the best opterons available togheter

Thanks for the advice. I found an IBM X3850 X5 (7143-AC1) with Intel Xeon 8-Core E7-4830 processors (a total 32 cores). Fortunately for me it's about the same price as the other server I bought. Since I probably won't be able to afford a Xeon e5 2697v2 server, would the IBM server be a good route?

[Electronics Wizardy]

14 minutes ago, Mega2 said:

Thanks for the advice. I found an IBM X3850 X5 (7143-AC1) with Intel Xeon 8-Core E7-4830 processors (a total 32 cores). Fortunately for me it's about the same price as the other server I bought. Since I probably won't be able to afford a Xeon e5 2697v2 server, would the IBM server be a good route?

Those are hot and very power hungry, but it should work fine. I think those can use a few hundred watts idle. But Id really aim to get something newer if you can.