Building a CFD machine, hardware recomendations?

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no7fish

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Jan 27, 2007
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Hi guys, I've been lurking for a while here but this is my first post. I'm hoping you guys can help me build a few machines for work. We are running Unigraphics NX 4 and need 2 CAD machines as well as 1 machine for Computational Fluid Dynamics simulation.

Can any of you recommend hardware for this? I am looking at either SLI mainly so that we can upgrade in a year or so for far less muney than a whole new vid setup. So far I have come up with this:

2 x CAD machines:
-e6600 Conroe
-500W PSU
-2 x 36g Raptors in RAID 0 (all data is stored on the server)
-Striker mobo (for SLI)
-either 8800 or Quadro vid card in the $500 range (not sure which is better, CAD is OpenGL so the Quadro's supposedly work better but they are stupid expensive for similar spec...?)
-4g DDR2 800 RAM

1 x CFD machine
-e6600 Comroe
500W PSU
-1x 74g Raptor
-mobo ??
-any vid card really, not as much graphics on it
-8g DDR2 800 RAM

Questions, is Quadro that much better being OpenGL native than a better spec, similar price, 8 series Geforce? Am I going to have issues maxxing out the RAM on the CFD machine? Any ideas on a good mobo for the CFD machine since SLI isn't important? Have I matched some parts that don't work well with each other?

I have built a few machines before so I'm not worried about it working but I don't want to spend a lot of time setting up the system so I am not willing to jump into some of the ASUS mobos like the P5n32 I used for my home system.

Any help/comments/suggestions are GREATLY appreciated! Thanks!
 
Would a quad core CPU help you out more? I don't know what kind of budget you're working with.

I'd probably go with a Bad Axe 2 or the P5W64-WS for those machines. 8GB of RAM...I'm not sure you're going to be able to do that with regular boards...you might have to go with a low end server board for that.
 
All of the boards I am looking at SAY they support 8g RAm, but does that mean they DO? Or they MIGHT?

Also, the software is not up to taking advantage of multi-core really at this point. Some but not enough to warrant quad-core. It works well if you set it to affinity 1 and everything else on affinity 0 though.

I like the badaxe but I would really like the SLI ability on at least the workstations.... is it worth it?
 
no7fish said:
All of the boards I am looking at SAY they support 8g RAm, but does that mean they DO? Or they MIGHT?

Also, the software is not up to taking advantage of multi-core really at this point. Some but not enough to warrant quad-core. It works well if you set it to affinity 1 and everything else on affinity 0 though.

I like the badaxe but I would really like the SLI ability on at least the workstations.... is it worth it?
Click to expand...

I don't know...I never worked with CAD really. You can SLI Quadro cards too I believe, so maybe SLI is something you should look into. So you should be looking at 680i boards. I don't think the Striker is all that great compared to the P5N32-E SLI board. Essentially it's the same board but $70 cheaper. SLI is kind of a gimick really. Personally, I'd just go with the Bad Axe 2 and then just upgrade the single card anytime you feel like you need a new one.

As for the RAM, you'd need 4x2GB modules to get 8GB. I suppose any of these would work providing your OS supports that much memory. I hadn't looked for 2GB Dimms and hadn't seen any for the desktop market (unregistered/non-ECC)...but there they are :).
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...Subcategory=147&description=&Ntk=&srchInDesc=
 
I build Pro-Engineer workstations.

I suggest you check your CAD software site for cards certified or recommended with your software. Sometimes if cards are not on their list, they wont support you if a issue exists.

Go with the open GL cards unless you can find a good support site where someone has tried the "consumer" cards with your software and with benchmarks proven they perform well. Its not the card that expensive, its the expensive labor cost of the operators time wasted waiting for redraws, take 2 mins a work day x 250 days = 500 mins year x life of machine 5 years = 2500 minutes = 41.6 hours waste.

so now compare the cost of a "normal" card and add the weekly salary of the operator with the cost of the open GL card. The difference suddenly got a lot less.

hmm only Quadros are supported.

http://support.ugs.com/online_library/certification/

One trick I used was to look at what the suppliers of a complete platform supplied and build something simular, if you can find enough detailed info.
 
I understand the cost equivalent issue, I'm just curious how the 8 series stacks up in terms of redraws. I have never used them side-by-side so I have trouble believing that the Geforce cards with twice the spec and half the cost isn't a better card. Maybe I am indeed wrong... Can you shed some light on it? All of the cards on the site are FX and Quadro series.

Also, why is it a gimmick? In a year I could add an additional card for half the price of upgrading a card and have similar performance, right? Does it not work that way in real terms?

Thanks for the help guys!
 
Unless you are doing 3D CAD, the requirements aren't that high.

If this is for a business I'd grab OEM machines from Dell or HP so that I've got a full warranty on them and they'll all have identical hardware.

If you are set on building them yourself, I'd go with this configuration:

Core 2 Duo E6600
Intel D975XBX2
4GB Corsair XMS2 PC6400 memory
2x7200.10 Seagate 320GB SATA drives (RAID1)
2xQuadro FX 5500 (SLI will work on Intel chipset based boards using Quadro series cards.)

Or

Core 2 Duo E6600 or E6700
Intel D975XBX2
4GB Corsair XMS2 PC6400 memory
Raptor 150GB
2xQuadro Cards (G80 derived cards when released)

For the case, get something like the Antec Solo or something else with good airflow and not alot of bling. For the PSU, I'd say grab a Silverstone 650Watt or a PC Power & Cooling 500-750Watt PSU.
 
kirbyrj said:
I don't know...I never worked with CAD really. You can SLI Quadro cards too I believe, so maybe SLI is something you should look into. So you should be looking at 680i boards. I don't think the Striker is all that great compared to the P5N32-E SLI board. Essentially it's the same board but $70 cheaper. SLI is kind of a gimick really. Personally, I'd just go with the Bad Axe 2 and then just upgrade the single card anytime you feel like you need a new one.
Click to expand...

I would not buy a 680i motherboard for a workstation oriented machine. Also, you can run SLI with Quadros on non-NVIDIA chipset based boards. NVIDIA doesn't have any Xeon compatible workstation chipsets, or even anything workstation oriented for the Core 2 Duo right now. So as of right now they haven't locked that functionality on non-NVIDIA chipsets at present. This is probably due to the fact that they aren't competing in that motherboard market right now. Rest assured, they'll likely lock out Quadro SLI on non-NVIDIA chipset based boards if and when they start marketing workstation motherboards for the Intel platform.
 
Why not the 680i ?? These are 3d CAD machines so I will def need the rendering power. I can't find any indication of how well a "game" card will do the job so I may just take the safe route with the Quadro.

What would you recommend other than the 680i? And are you saying I can get SLI cards and stack them on a non-Nvidia board and they will work?
 
no7fish said:
Why not the 680i ?? These are 3d CAD machines so I will def need the rendering power. I can't find any indication of how well a "game" card will do the job so I may just take the safe route with the Quadro.

What would you recommend other than the 680i? And are you saying I can get SLI cards and stack them on a non-Nvidia board and they will work?
Click to expand...

Yuo can use Quadro graphics cards on non-NVIDIA chipset based motherboards. Geforce cards are still a no go, but Quadros are ok from what I understand.

The motherboard has nothing to do with rendering power. Simply put the 680i is too damn flaky to be trusted for professional use. It's one thing to have one in a gamers box or a home users PC.

And actually, the video cards have nothing to do with actual rendering. They have everything in the world to do with drawing what you'll see in the viewport. Actual rendering is all CPU and memory.
 
Really? I thought the difference between good and bad vid cards was precisely the 3D capabilities, not so much the 2D. Or is that what you mean by viewport? When I say rendering I don't mean making pretty pics, I mean rotating and gyrating the solids around using a spaceball so I can select and zoom on stuff.

I agree the 680i has had issues, I didn't realize they were that far-reaching (I thought it was a few specific boards) but either way I've ended up going with Intel. I gave up on the SLI deal because the cards that do it are either too expensive for the moment ($900 price jump) or are not in stock.
 
no7fish said:
Really? I thought the difference between good and bad vid cards was precisely the 3D capabilities, not so much the 2D. Or is that what you mean by viewport? When I say rendering I don't mean making pretty pics, I mean rotating and gyrating the solids around using a spaceball so I can select and zoom on stuff.

I agree the 680i has had issues, I didn't realize they were that far-reaching (I thought it was a few specific boards) but either way I've ended up going with Intel. I gave up on the SLI deal because the cards that do it are either too expensive for the moment ($900 price jump) or are not in stock.
Click to expand...

The viewport is what you look at when you are creating objects. (That's what it's called in 3D Max at least.) What you are building and creating, rotating and whatever bennefits from the 3D Acceleration. The actual object rendering for output in the final form is the rendering I am speaking of. This is %100 CPU and memory. Video cards do not help here.
 
Ah, in what I do about 80% of the work is done in 3D modelling, the drawing detail and dimensioning is all that is done without 3D and that takes very little time.

In any case, I completed the order and have just finished building the machines. All have booted fine and work well with Vista installed (not yet sure if that was the best idea but we'll see....) and I'm installing the CAD software now.

Ended up with the Quaddro FX 1500 in the CAD machines and just a crappy little 7300GS in the CFD machine. (I will literally spend almost zero time viewing anything through that machine)

CAD x 2 :
Intel 4300
Bad Axe2 mobo
4g Patriot DDR2 800 (4-4-4-12)
74g Raptor
Tuniq tower
Antec full tower with
500w Smartpower PSU
Quadro FX 1500 graphics
LiteOn CD-DVD burner
Razer Krait mice

CFD :
e6600
Asus P5B Deluxe
74g Raptor
6g G.Skill DDR2 800 (3x 2g)
Tuniq tower
7300GS
LiteOn CD/DVD

And they all seem to work just fine so far.

Thanks for the help guys!
 
no7fish said:
Ah, in what I do about 80% of the work is done in 3D modelling, the drawing detail and dimensioning is all that is done without 3D and that takes very little time.

In any case, I completed the order and have just finished building the machines. All have booted fine and work well with Vista installed (not yet sure if that was the best idea but we'll see....) and I'm installing the CAD software now.

Ended up with the Quaddro FX 1500 in the CAD machines and just a crappy little 7300GS in the CFD machine. (I will literally spend almost zero time viewing anything through that machine)

CAD x 2 :
Intel 4300
Bad Axe2 mobo
4g Patriot DDR2 800 (4-4-4-12)
74g Raptor
Tuniq tower
Antec full tower with
500w Smartpower PSU
Quadro FX 1500 graphics
LiteOn CD-DVD burner
Razer Krait mice

CFD :
e6600
Asus P5B Deluxe
74g Raptor
6g G.Skill DDR2 800 (3x 2g)
Tuniq tower
7300GS
LiteOn CD/DVD

And they all seem to work just fine so far.

Thanks for the help guys!
Click to expand...


Why didn't you put the E6600 in the first machine and the E4300 in the second?
 
because there are two of the first machine and only one of the second. The second is only for calculation stuff, flow simulation, it needs processor and RAM and not much else. The others are CAD stations and needed better vid cards. With the $240 I saved by using the 4300 in them I managed to get us a step better vid card.

Thanks again for the help everyone.
 
Considering that any CFD program is heavily multi-threaded, this may be a situation where a quad core CPU makes a lot of sense.

I'd also urge you to perhaps get an E-ATX case in the event you ever want to run a dual processor system.
 
The CFD system we use is not multithreaded. Even the ones that are you have to purchase the licenses per core rather than per machine so it gets very expensive very quickly. The main reason dual-core is good for this is because you can set affinity of everything to one core and just the solver to the other.

They plan to include the clustering capability in the next version of the software so at that point we may upgrade or at least multiply our machines but that's over a year away. Pretty much any CFD system needs as much RAM as you can throw at it to do what it does swiftly and currently the limitation on that seem to be the number of RAM slsot, if you are running 64 bit and paying for licenses by the core, it would be better to run separate machines in a cluster, each with as much RAM as they will fit rather than to do anything multi-processor.
 
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