how to build a FEA workstation? (hardware questions)
how to build a FEA workstation? (hardware questions)
(OP)
I'm going to custom build a FEA workstation.
I called up an ANSYS reseller, and they gave me the general mumbo jumbo "you need lots of RAM, buy the fastest CPU, fastest hard drives, and fastest everything".... bla bla bla. I have a budget here, in fact, the budget is about $1400 USD for the workstation + monitor! This is actually quite resonable, from my experience because I purchased a workstation 9 months ago with 1 gig of RAM at this price and it nicely runs pretty big FEA problems. Computers have become cheaper since then though, so I can get something faster now.
I want more detailed information than what the ANSYS boys gave me, that they couldn't provide on the phone. I have two computer workstations that I have priced out and I need to make a decision between them (cost/performance decision). Assume that I am going to run medium sized problems (with number of elements less than 200,000 tetrahedral, lets say).
System 1:
Athlon 2400+
nForce2 based mother board with Dual-channel DDR 333
1x 80 gig hard drive
System 2:
P4 2.53 Ghz
Motherboard also has Dual-channel DDR ram, but from Tomshardware guide (www.tomshardware.com) the motherboard has ****70% faster RAM bandwidth***
2x 80 gig Maxtor hard drives in type 0 RAID array.
The System 2 costs $300 more than the System 1. Both systems have similar CPU and FPU speeds. However, the RAM bandwidth is a big concern to me.... how much faster can I solve FEA problems with 70% faster physical RAM bandwidth?
Also, how much will the RAID hard drives help in terms of FEA speed? I believe the type 0 RAID allows for 2x the speed of a typical IDE hard drive, total bandwidth getting close to around 60 megs/sec. with 2.
I need to know if the extra $300 should be spent on this new System 2, or should I simply get rid of the RAID, get rid of the faster RAM, and upgrade the CPU to a 3 GHz for the $300 ???? (depends on your answer to previous questions)
These are the questions I have. Thanks!
I called up an ANSYS reseller, and they gave me the general mumbo jumbo "you need lots of RAM, buy the fastest CPU, fastest hard drives, and fastest everything".... bla bla bla. I have a budget here, in fact, the budget is about $1400 USD for the workstation + monitor! This is actually quite resonable, from my experience because I purchased a workstation 9 months ago with 1 gig of RAM at this price and it nicely runs pretty big FEA problems. Computers have become cheaper since then though, so I can get something faster now.
I want more detailed information than what the ANSYS boys gave me, that they couldn't provide on the phone. I have two computer workstations that I have priced out and I need to make a decision between them (cost/performance decision). Assume that I am going to run medium sized problems (with number of elements less than 200,000 tetrahedral, lets say).
System 1:
Athlon 2400+
nForce2 based mother board with Dual-channel DDR 333
1x 80 gig hard drive
System 2:
P4 2.53 Ghz
Motherboard also has Dual-channel DDR ram, but from Tomshardware guide (www.tomshardware.com) the motherboard has ****70% faster RAM bandwidth***
2x 80 gig Maxtor hard drives in type 0 RAID array.
The System 2 costs $300 more than the System 1. Both systems have similar CPU and FPU speeds. However, the RAM bandwidth is a big concern to me.... how much faster can I solve FEA problems with 70% faster physical RAM bandwidth?
Also, how much will the RAID hard drives help in terms of FEA speed? I believe the type 0 RAID allows for 2x the speed of a typical IDE hard drive, total bandwidth getting close to around 60 megs/sec. with 2.
I need to know if the extra $300 should be spent on this new System 2, or should I simply get rid of the RAID, get rid of the faster RAM, and upgrade the CPU to a 3 GHz for the $300 ???? (depends on your answer to previous questions)
These are the questions I have. Thanks!





RE: how to build a FEA workstation? (hardware questions)
If I would be you...
Go for the highest CPU (FSB) speed you can afford, but matching the RAM speed to the CPU is very important, so go for that dual channel DDR (1gig should be enough for the problem size you mentioned). I assume you know how to set RAM speeds accordingly if the bios goes for the safe side. ;)
RAID won't help if the CPU and RAM can not catch up... :(
ah, 1 more thing... I am (still) an Intel fan ;)
hopes this helps...
RE: how to build a FEA workstation? (hardware questions)
RE: how to build a FEA workstation? (hardware questions)
RE: how to build a FEA workstation? (hardware questions)
I'm a little dissapointed that few high-end software vendors support AMD, it would be nice to have a little more competition in the corporate world and drive Intel prices down more. Athlon systems seem to be primary used by home users and gamers. The price of Athlon is very attractive. Though it seems my final choice will be Intel.. thanks for the tips guys.