[complete.basis]

Hello everyone,
I am doing simulations of a supersonic reactive flow in a shocktube using openfoam (maximum - ~50 million cells, detailed chemical kinetics with up to 300 reacting species). I need a workstation for prototyping/debugging, for me to be able to run the full simulation of the case on a cluster available at the university. Also I will analyse the results in paraview / python using this maschine.
Now I am doing all my work on AWS c5.2xlarge (4 cores, Intel Xeon Platinum 8000 v1/v2 3.6GHz)

I'd like to buy a used workstation and spend ~1000-1200 EUR.

Here are options on the market:

1-st option

CPU: 2x Intel Xeon E5 2683 v3 ES QEY7 14 cores 2.1 GhHz.
8 x 16Gb DDR4 ECC Reg = 128 Gb
motherboard ASUS Z10PE-D8 WS (Socket 2011-3)
SSD: Intel S3500 600 Gb
Case:4U Supermicro SuperChassis 743TQ
Coolers CPU 2x.: Noctua
Power: 2x Supermicro 1400 W

2-nd option
CPU: 2x 2697 v2 12 cores 2.7-3.2 Ghz 30mb 130w
RAM: 6x 16gb (96gb)
Motherboard: ASUS Z9PE D16 / 4l
Power CORSAIR 1000w
SSD Samsung 860 pro SSD 256Gb
Cooler SNK- P0050AP4

3rd option
CPU: 2 x 2673 v3 ES 12 cores
Motherboard: Supermicro MBD X10DRLi,
RAM: 6x16gb ddr 4 kingston.
GPU: Gigabyte geforce gtx 1060, 6gb
HDD: 2 Tb
SDD: Kingston Hyper Fury 240gb
Case: ATX FRACTAL DESIGN Define S, Midi-Tower
Power: Cougar CMX 700W
Coolers: Thermalight

What do you think? Which one should I choose?

[danbence]

I think the second hand workstation that has the current crown for price/performance is a DELL T5600 with two e5-2690 or E5-2687W,


I recently ran a fluent case on a T5600 and compared it to the latest Epyc. The epyc was 20% faster per core, so the T5600 is holding up well on performance. Where it wont compare well on is power consumption.


The T5600 is not in fashion, so can be picket up for a bargain.

[complete.basis]

Originally Posted by danbence

I think the second hand workstation that has the current crown for price/performance is a DELL T5600 with two e5-2690 or E5-2687W,


I recently ran a fluent case on a T5600 and compared it to the latest Epyc. The epyc was 20% faster per core, so the T5600 is holding up well on performance. Where it wont compare well on is power consumption.


The T5600 is not in fashion, so can be picket up for a bargain.

Hi! Thank you for the answer!

I’ve found this configuration for 1100€:
Dell T7600 Precision 2-Xeon E5-2690 2.9Ghz
256Gb ECC DDR3 HDD 3Tb HDD 2Tb NVidia Quadro 295
DVD-RW

Is it worth this money? Is it ok to buy DDR3 in 2020?

[danbence]

That is a good price. Make sure the ram is 1600Mhz, as this is likely to have an effect on performance.

>Is it ok to buy DDR3 in 2020?

Not sure what you mean. 8 channels of 1600mhz ram is well matched for the 16 cores. If you wanted more than 16 cores in a machine then you would probably need more bandwidth than DDR3 can provide.

As for availability, there is plenty of DD3 server ram on ebay at a decent price.

[danbence]

On closer inspection of your option list, if "ES" is engineering sample, I would advise against.



The particular engineering sample revision might not be supported by the motherboard, so it would be a gamble whether the machine would even boot.