Graphics card or Processor for Fluent
 

Hi all, I am currently looking at investing in a machine to run simulations on flows over fairly large heliostat fields and I need some advice as to whether I should invest in an Nvidia quadro K2000 graphics card in the system or rather skimp on the graphics and improve the processor? Either way the system will be kitted with 32GB of ram and with the K2000, i'd be using a Xeon® E5-1620 Processor, whereas say with a quadro NVS 300, I could use a Xeon E5-1650 processor. Any advice would be greatly appreciated :)

Do you have the licenses to run more than 4 processor cores? If not then I'd go with the 1620 and K2000.

Thanks for the reply, yes I am able to run more than four licenses, but recently I've had to cancel the choice of using the Xeon range of processors due to the noise factor when it comes to cooling. Taking this into consideration are there any recommendations you can make?

Well I'm not really sure what you mean, the CPU doesn't have much to do with the noise from cooling, (other than its heat load) its more the CPU cooler and fans. You can get a XEON cpu and still cool it quietly.
If this is just someone in authority's rule that your going to have to follow even if it makes absolutely no sense (I know how that is!) the i7-3820 and the i7-3930K are pretty much identical to the XEON E5-1620 and 1650 respectively.

Thanks for the feedback, and unfortunately it is a situation where the higher ups have cut me down. I am currently looking into the 39XX series of processors which look promising. I'm not sure if you know how well they would stack up against equivalent Xeon series processors, especially with the difference in cache size?

The i7-processors I mentioned are equivalent to the Xeon processors, cache size is the same as their XEON twin as well. And the i7-3960X is the twin to the XEON E5-1660. Their should be no real performance difference between either the XEONs or their equivalent i7. It seems memory performance is of great importance, and usually with the E5 XEONs you get 1600 MHz ECC memory with slower (11) timings. Non ECC RAM usually has timings of 9-10 for 1600 MHz, and you can get higher than 1600MHz RAM, which will make more of a speed increase than the difference between any of those processors.