[Nim3R]

Hi everybody,

I want to ask you for some help because I've been googling a lot and I'm finding contradicted advises about how a WS should be and I'm very confused right now.

First the main task for the WS would be Ansys maxwell and Ansys Icepak (uses fluent solver) let's say up to 1M-2M nodes.

My first doubt is: is it an AMD 39xx-X worth it?. They have 12 - 16 cores with two threads per core. Is this a good option? as far as I know maxwell performance increase primary with the number of cores.

Also I have doubts abou the memory. Is it important the speed (3200 instead of 2666)? and the latency (paying more for a 15 or a 17-18 will work also properly?. Is it better a lowe speed but in a dual o quad channel?

I should remark don't have any limitation on core usage and I have a budget of 1500-2000€ for Spain. I've seen webpages like newegg with very good prices but it is impossible for me to get this prices in Spain.

Thank you very much in advance!

[flotus1]

My first doubt is: is it an AMD 39xx-X worth it?

Probably not. More than 8 cores become pretty useless with dual-channel memory. At least for Fluent and similar solvers. No idea about Maxwell though.

Is it important the speed (3200 instead of 2666)?

Yes, it is. There is even an argument to be made for faster RAM like DDR4-3600.

and the latency (paying more for a 15 or a 17-18 will work also properly?

Sure, the PC will work properly, regardless of the rated memory latency. Worth paying more for lower latency on the sticker? Depends on what you want, and if you are willing to pay for convenience. If you are ok with the price increase for a few percent higher performance, and all you want to do is enable XMP in the bios and forget about it, then it is worth it. If you don't care about a few percent of performance, or are willing to manually adjust memory timings, then it is usually not worth it.
Edit: don't get confused about memory latency though. The advertised numbers have the unit of clock cycles. So DDR4-3600 CL18 still has better cas latency than DDR4-3000 CL16.

Is it better a lowe speed but in a dual o quad channel?

I sure hope you are not planning to run single-channel memory on a Ryzen 3000 CPU. It has two memory channels, and you should absolutely make use of them. Quad-channel would require a different platform like Intels X299.

I should remark don't have any limitation on core usage and I have a budget of 1500-2000€ for Spain

That budget should allow you to switch to a faster platform. X299 for example. 10-core CPUs with quad-channel memory like the I9-9820X or I9-10900X are available starting at around 600€. Maybe a bit more expensive in Spain, I don't know exactly. These will allow you to use quad-channel memory, which is beneficial for higher core counts.