Workstation for OpenFOAM and Fluent
 

Thank you for this. I almost bought a system with 5950x for CFD, Due to budget constraints. But now I have a better Idea. Thanks again. I will go for a threadripper system.


If I just for the sake post my requriement,

1. Which software do you intend to use? - Openfoam mostly with a bit of Fluent (Both for LES)
2. Are you limited by license constraints? I.e. does your software license only allow you to run on N threads? - No
3. What type of simulations do you want to run? And what's the maximum cell count? LES, 20-30 Million Cells.
4. If there is a budget, how high is it? Yes. Very Tight Budget. Converted, Its roughly 4500 USD, but the computer parts costs are expensive here (I'm from Sri Lanka)
5. What kind of setting are you in? Hobbyist? Student? Academic research? Engineer? - Academic Researcher
6. Where can you source your new computer? Buying a complete package from a large OEM? Assemble it yourself from parts? Are used parts an option? - Assemble it myself sort of a thing
7. Which part of the world are you from? It's cool if you don't want to tell, but since prices and availability vary depending on the region, this can sometimes be relevant. Particularly if it's not North America or Europe. - From Sri Lanka. As I said, very hard to find parts. Import costs are sky high.
8. Anything else that people should know to help you better? - Well the tight budget is the biggest. Also, I'm trying to do combustion modelling via LES.

So can you buy used parts? If so then you can get really good ratio of price performance with for instance a used dual Xeon E5-2673. Compare the results in posts #309 (Threadripper 3990X) vs #349 (dual Xeon E5-2673), in the benchmark thread. The Threadripper is faster, but not by much. You could probably purchase 2-3 Xeon systems for the same price as a new 3990X system, including Infiniband to connect them. The drawback is the hardware guarantee of course.

Thank you for this reply. It is a good idea, and I will look to that. But the main issue is it is not easy to find these in my country as we do not have many companies that use these. Importing is another nightmare at the moment as the costs are very very high.



That is why I thought to go for a Threadripper.