PC for scientific computing

Luis_biotech · October 8, 2021

Budget (including currency): $4,000

Country: Canada

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: It will be used exclusively for scientific computing. The program that will be used the most requires 4 GB for each thread. Also, the developer's website says "There is no upper limit on the number of cores. Whatever you can fit into a shared memory machine will work as long as the disk performance scales up with it". However, this is as far as the description goes, so I am afraid it is not a linear scale of performance vs number of cores. For this reason, we are probably going for a Ryzen instead of Threadripper. Also, I heard from other people that writing speeds are important, so I want to pick a very good SSD PCI-E gen 4 for the primary slot.

Other details:

Detail 1: I build it using a small form factor to save some space on the bench. If you think this can be harmful in the long term, please, let me know and I will change for full ATX.

Detail 2: It is based on product availability at a Memory Express store located in our city.

This is the build I put together based on other things I read in this forum:

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 5950X 3.4 GHz 16-Core Processor ($870.95 @ shopRBC)
CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-U14S 82.52 CFM CPU Cooler ($98.28 @ Amazon Canada)
Motherboard: MSI MAG B550M MORTAR WIFI Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard ($189.00 @ Amazon Canada)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws V 128 GB (4 x 32 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16 Memory ($784.99 @ Memory Express)
Storage: Western Digital Blue SN550 1 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive ($109.99 @ Newegg Canada)
Storage: Samsung 980 Pro 1 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive ($287.99 @ PC-Canada)
Video Card: Asus GeForce GT 1030 2 GB Video Card ($118.80 @ Vuugo)
Case: Fractal Design Focus G Mini MicroATX Mini Tower Case ($68.54 @ iSanek)
Power Supply: Corsair CXM 550 W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-modular ATX Power Supply ($65.59 @ Amazon Canada)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 10 Home OEM 64-bit ($116.75 @ Vuugo)
Total: $2710.88
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2021-10-08 12:32 EDT-0400