[y2jdmbfan]

We recently hired a new Engineer with CFD experience and he is in need of a new machine. Currently has a Ryzen 7 1700X system with 16GB of RAM. The machine will also run Autodesk AutoCAD and Inventor Professional. We have a standard Fluent 4-Core license. The HPC pack does not fit into our budget at this time. From the research I have done, it looks like the AMD Epyc processors are the best right now. I think the 72F3 fits our use case / 4-core license best as it has the highest clock speed per core in the 7003 family. I will be building the machine, it's most cost effective that way.

AMD EPYC 72F3
Supermicro H12SSL-NT motherboard
8x8GB Sticks DDR4-3200 ECC RAM
Seagate Firecuda 530 2TB NVME SSD
Windows 11 Pro / Windows Server 2022 (Haven't decided)

Any input of this build is much appreciated. The CFD will be done on burner / combustion assemblies / parts for the most part.

[wkernkamp]

The system you selected is certainly high performance. However, you will not be able to use it's full potential with a 4 core license.


A very fast and much cheaper system for running 4 cores can be found here:

Originally Posted by ErikAdr

I think something found on ebay could have a better quality for price ratio, but for new hardware you could be right. The Ram prices are high at the moment, so the ratio could improve with lower Ram prices. The Ram was the most expensive component.

In total Dkr 7.533 which is € 1005 or $ 1147 (prices are excl V.A.T)
The components are:

Intel i5-12600 (Dkr 1599,20)
Kingston Fury Beast 2x16 GB 6000 MHz (Dkr 2636,80)
Asus TUF Gaming B660M-plus wifi (Dkr 1247,20)
Samsung 970 EVO plus 1TB (Dkr 709,60)
Noctua cpu (NH-U9B SE2) and cabinet coolers (Dkr 525,60)
Seasonic Focus GX550 (Dkr 479,20)
Fractal Design Core 1100 (Dkr 335,19)

I had hoped to be able to just use the cooler included with the cpu, but it was to noisy to share office with (or I had installed it poorly).

I'm considering to buy three more of these as an alternative to a dual EPYC 7313 system, since I have given up finding EPYC 7313 for sale. I think/hope the Ram prices will reduce in near future. The chipset/board is born with 2.5 Gb ethernet, and I think that could be sufficient for our need. A 5 port switch supporting 2.5 Gb ethernet is about Dkr 750 ~ 100 €.

[wkernkamp]

To reach the high perforamce overclocking the DDR5 memory is required:

Originally Posted by ErikAdr

The version openfoam2112 did not provide an executable of 'surfaceFeatures' and that was why I could'nt get any results for the motorbike benchmark. I gave up on openfoam2112. I went for a go with version 9 from openfoam.org. First I installed ubuntu 20.04.3 (standard installation) and then I followed the guide from openfoam.org to install on ubuntu. Next I downloaded the 'bench_template.zip' in post 447 by Simbelmynë and then I followed the guide from step 4 to 7 in post 448 by linuxguy. Everything worked in first attempt. That was a strange feeling after the many previous attempts.



I have build a quite low end computer, but with quality components. It is using a i5-12600 cpu with two channel DDR5 Ram. I'm pleased with the performance.



12th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-12600 DDR5 @ 4800

# cores Wall time (s):
------------------------
1 427.45
2 234.12
4 149.91
6 125.75



12th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-12600 DDR5 @ 5600

# cores Wall time (s):
------------------------
1 410.79
2 219.95
4 137.39
6 112.58

12th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-12600 DDR5 @ 6000

# cores Wall time (s):
------------------------
1 399.94
2 213.75
4 131.87
6 107.09

[flotus1]

I think Milan-X would be a no-brainer compared to the Epyc 72F3.
The 7373X has slightly lower single-core boost, but more than makes up for it with huge L3 cache. And they cost about the same at close to 3000€. Plus you get 16 instead of 8 cores just in case you might need them later.

@wkernkamp: As far as saving money on the setup is concerned: I'm usually all for it. But with an expensive license and a CFD engineer using the system, it will pay for itself within a few weeks at most.