[Chukval]

Hi guys, i'm a doctor and i'm doing phd research of human airways. For that purpose I want to use Ansys Fluent or OpenFOAM (i'am not yet sure), so I want expert suggestions from you for how to build pc to run simulations as fast as possible. My budget is approximately 2500$, there are over 70 models of airways (the link for an example .stl: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1EH...uNcYi3068kdFFR). I will use RANS or laminar steady flow, the volume mesh will have 1000000-1500000 cells. Also I will need to postprocess it all.

[flotus1]

Just to make sure, when you write "how to build pc", what exactly does that entail?
Do you want to build the PC yourself from parts, or are you looking for recommendations on components in pre-built PCs? Also, I am assuming you are not actually looking for guidance on how to build a PC.
Also also, I would need to know which part of the world you are from, as prices and availability can vary greatly depending on the region.

[Chukval]

Hey, I'm from Russia, sorry if the wording was wrong. By building a pc I specifically imply: what type of cpu and how many cores there should be for a reasonable calculation time (6 hours give or take) of such a model; would 64 gb of RAM be enough for that; do I need to buy nvidia quadro and tesla, or some gaming gpu would be enough?

[flotus1]

If we limit ourselves to new components, the fastest PC you could buy for this application is based around an AMD Epyc 7302P. I am not familiar with the hardware market in Russia, so for now, I will just assume it is similar to Europe. I will list prices in euros including tax, as that's what I know. give or take a few percent, the prices in $ are the same.

CPU: Epyc 7302P (870€)
Mainboard: ASRock Rack EPYCD8-2T (400€) make sure to get the latest revision board, older revisions do not support this CPU
RAM: 8x8GB DDR4-3200 reg ECC (320€)
PSU: Anything decent with at least 500W (80€)
Case: Any ATX case you like with enough room for a 165mm tall CPU cooler (80€)
GPU: no need for Quadro or Tesla cards, you just need a graphics card. E.g. Radeon RX 570 8GB or similar from Nvidia (130€)
CPU cooler: Noctua NH-D14s TR4-SP3 (85€)
SSD for the OS: e.g. Samsung 860 Evo 500GB (85€)

Now we are at ~2050€. You can decide if you want the rest of the storage to be 3.5" hard drives (cheaper) or SSDs (faster, more expensive)
64GB or RAM are way more than you will ever need for models with only 1.5 million cells. But you need 8 DIMMs to get the best performance from this CPU, since it offers 8 memory channels. And who knows, maybe your cell size will grow once you have the compute performance for larger models.
Feel free to comment if any of these components are impossible to source at the prices I found.

[Chukval]

Thank you for your helpful post!