PC appropriate equipment in order to run large ABAQUS job
PC appropriate equipment in order to run large ABAQUS job
(OP)
Dear all,
I have a question. Currently we are running 3D simulations using ABAQUS. Our current models consist of about 300000 DOF.
We are using PC's with dual core proccesors and 40Gb RAM with Vista. With this equipment the above job takes about 3 weeks.
We are using ABAQUS 32bit.
Could you please suggest a combination and the type of multiple proccesors together with the appropriate amount of memory that would substantially reduce the computational time?
Thanks in advance
Thanasis
I have a question. Currently we are running 3D simulations using ABAQUS. Our current models consist of about 300000 DOF.
We are using PC's with dual core proccesors and 40Gb RAM with Vista. With this equipment the above job takes about 3 weeks.
We are using ABAQUS 32bit.
Could you please suggest a combination and the type of multiple proccesors together with the appropriate amount of memory that would substantially reduce the computational time?
Thanks in advance
Thanasis





RE: PC appropriate equipment in order to run large ABAQUS job
Rob Stupplebeen
RE: PC appropriate equipment in order to run large ABAQUS job
As Rob suggested, migrate to a 64bit machine and OS running 64bit Abaqus, then you can make use of 40Gb of RAM
RE: PC appropriate equipment in order to run large ABAQUS job
as far as I know 32bit OS does not allow u to allocate the large amount of RAM that u have in your PC (40Gb). In particular, please correct me if I'm wrong, u can allocate (use) only 2^32 that corresponds to about 4Gb with 32bit OS (then u have to subtract the memory amount needed for the OS and any other running application) and 2^64 with 64bit OS.
I think that u are not using all the memory u have and first advice would be to change 32bit for 64bit OS.
Secondly consider that, according to my experience, most of the time spent in the analyses may be not related to CPU time (i.e. performing calculation) but to write results step by step or incerment by increment (obviously it strongly depends on the model). So another advice would be try to write as less as u need in order to reduce writing time or to buy Hard Disk with high rotation velocity for speed up writing phase.
See u
Barney
RE: PC appropriate equipment in order to run large ABAQUS job
by mistake I typed 40Gb instead of 4Gb. The current OS is Vista 32bit.
So from what I read you suggest that I should first switch to vista 64bit and ABAQUS 64bit and then buy a fast Hard disk.
RE: PC appropriate equipment in order to run large ABAQUS job
Rob Stupplebeen
Rob Stupplebeen
RE: PC appropriate equipment in order to run large ABAQUS job
The second thing is it invest in more RAM and use ramdisk for scractch dir - it gives you additional 30% boost.
RE: PC appropriate equipment in order to run large ABAQUS job
I presume you mean compared to windows 64bit (vista, XP or 7 ?), and what is "boost"?
I'm no fan of Microsoft, but what's this based on?
RE: PC appropriate equipment in order to run large ABAQUS job
The choice of OS (lin/XP/Vista) is not that crucial but using 64 bit system is really worth it if you do a lot of computing.
I use linux mainly for two reasons:
- uses less RAM so there is more available for ABAQUS
- has built-in support for dynamic ramdisk to put scratch dir on
Our bencmarking of a geometric nonlinerar job:
XP SP2 32 : 25 min
Vista 64 : 21 min
Vista 64 RAM disk : 16 min
Ubuntu 8.10 64 RAM disk : 16 min
So lin/win perform equally well it is just that Vista eats 1GB of RAM and linux 200 MB.
RE: PC appropriate equipment in order to run large ABAQUS job
A colleague of mine has done a fair amount of bench marking Abaqus on XP64 against linux64 and overal found little to choose between them (as you actually found as well!)