Question Engineering desktop dual xeon build - need some advise

kearkg312

Junior Member
May 11, 2021
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hey all,
im helping a friend build a workstation so he can run transport models as he's recently decided to start up his own consultancy.
apologies if the info here is second hand, but i've gathered as much info from him as i can.
he is used to using a lenovo p920 which is configured to have:
2 x Intel Xeon Silver 4110s , 1TB SSD , Quadro P400 , 32GB RAM (2 x 16GB)

the application he runs are transport modelling apps such as PTV Visum/Vissim and Bentley Cube.

i found the application requirements for PTV which is here:
https://company.ptvgroup.com/en-us/system-requirements

i imagine Bentley would be similar since they are both transport modelling applications.
he says that on the p920 he runs up to 4 instances of the software to run models , but for big models he can only do one because of lack of computing power. so if he can run 4 big models in parallel, it would be a good outcome for him (of course, budget and system specs pending).

he says he would like more cores, more threads , so overall a more powerful machine.
for storage, he needs 1 x SSD to run his modelling on, and say another hard drive just for storage.

so im looking to put together a dual xeon system for him with similar components or better that are in the p920.

i have come up with the following build which comes up to about 7.5K AUD.


Supermicro X11DAi-N Xeon Scalable Production Motherboard
Phanteks Enthoo Pro 2 D-RGB Tempered Glass Full Tower Black SSI-EEB case
2 x Noctua NH-U12S DX-3647
64GB Kingston ecc ddr4 2666 KTL-TS426 (2 x 32GB)
Corsair Platinum hx850 850w modular psu
quadro p400
samsung 970 evo plus 1tb m.2 nvme pcie ssd
seagate ironwolf 4tb nas hard drive (st4000vn008)
tp-link tl-wn881nd n300 wifi adaptor
2 x Xeon gold 5218

some questions that I have are:

would these components work well together?
do i need ECC memory?
are there any other mobo options ?as it seems like the supermicro i have listed is hard for me to find here in aus.


thanks in advance.
 
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