Building an Ansys system for my dad

[Dman877]

So my father is doing some consulting as an engineer and wants a good system for running Ansys models. Ansys prescribes as much memory as possible and large dedicated 10-15k hard drives for best performance. Also, it appears that in order to take advantage of multiple procs/cores, you need a 64bit OS.

What I need to know is:
A) Are there any limits as far as processors go when using 8 gigs of ram? ie do i have to steer clear of certain core types like with AMD or do all Conroe's work with 8GB (I realize the ram will most likely have to run a divider)

B) For the OS, he has several options, Redhat Enterprise 3 or 4, Suse Pro 9 or 10, or of course, windows XP 64. Any recommendations there? I haven't used any of those OS's. I'm leaning towards windows just because my Dad is used to it, he doesn't like to fool around learning new stuff or fighting to get things working. He will also, most likely, be using this as his primary system for internet/email/pictures/video/etc.


Here is a link to the HW req's at Ansys Linky

 

[Dman877]

After talking things over, my dad wants to try using 4 gigs of ram with his current proc (s939 4200+ x2). I remember hearing a lot about memory limitations on the older athlon 64's. I know osme of them couldn't run 4 gigs at 2T. Running 4 gigs isn't a problem though right?

 

[Zap]

Haha, where I did my Summer internship we used Dell Precision 690 workstations for the really heavy duty engineering stuff (and Precision 390 for the lighter stuff). The 690 had dual procs (can be dual core or quadcore for total 4 or 8 cores) with 16-32GB FBDIMMS, with Nvidia Quadro FX3500 cards and kilowatt PSUs. Those beasts weighed a TON!

Originally posted by: Dman877
After talking things over, my dad wants to try using 4 gigs of ram with his current proc (s939 4200+ x2). I remember hearing a lot about memory limitations on the older athlon 64's. I know osme of them couldn't run 4 gigs at 2T. Running 4 gigs isn't a problem though right?

It wasn't 4GB=2t, but 4 modules = 2t. So, if you have two 2GB modules then you can go 1t, but four 1GB modules = 2t.

 

[edcarman]

I am running ANSYS on an E6600 with a Gigabyte 965-DS3P with 8Gb RAM and 2x WD Raptors in RAID0.

There is a very useful document on the ANSYS customer portal entitled: Obtaining Optimal Performance in ANSYS 11 - White Paper
It can be found under Product Information > ANSYS. It is basically a detailed explanation of how the harware requirements you linked to are derived.

You do not need 64bit to run more than one processor/core, but you do need it to take advantage of memory greater than around 3GB.
The Linux builds apparently offer slightly better memory management than XP64, but this comes at the cost of productivity lost due to working with an unfamiliar operating system. If you go for Linux make sure it is one of the builds that ANSYS has confirmed as being supported.

When going to 64bit, make sure you can get drivers for all of your necessary hardware - printers in particular were a large PITA for me in this regard. Also be sure to check software compatability. Engineers love legacy software and XP64 cannot natively run any 16bit programs. If the programs are DOS based, you can run them with a program called DOSBox. If they are Windows based you will need to look at running a VM or some kind of emulator.

As far as new processors are concerned, you should look at getting the fastest dual core, single socket that you can afford. Quad core is generally not viable for small scale use: you need to purchase an ANSYS HPC license to use more than two cores. This license costs around US$4000.

What size models does your father intend to run? This will dictate how much memory you will need. The linked document above gives suggestions on how to do this for the various different solvers.
ANSYS gets a significant (5x+ depending on model and solver) reduction in solution time if it can run the whole model InCore, rather than having to swap parts of the matrix to disk.
You should look at getting the maximum amount of memory you can afford. If you do not purchase the maximum that the board can support, then try to buy DIMMs so that you can upgrade in the future (i.e. get 2x2Gb rather than 4x1Gb).
For a consulant in particular, the increased productivity from reduced solve times should very quickly pay for the price of the components.

You should also consider contacting your local ANSYS distributor for advice. Your father is likely paying them a fair bit of cash for the annual maintenance on ANSYS - time to get some value for money!

 

[Zap]

Originally posted by: edcarman
When going to 64bit, make sure you can get drivers for all of your necessary hardware - printers in particular were a large PITA for me in this regard.

If running Windows and having an HP laserjet printer that isn't ancient, HP made a generic 64bit Postscript driver package.

 

[aigomorla]

get a super micro or tyan board lga 771 board. Some will take more then 8gb. I personally would go after a seaberg chipset. i5400 server platform.

get a pair of E5430 harpertowns. = octocore


Use that as your core... how much are you willing to dump on this project?


i hope your not thinkn of overclocking your dad's machine..