Hardware Suggestions for Ansys Mechanical, Sherlock and Mechanical

Kips · October 12, 2022, 18:34

Hi All,

I work at a small business that has started to get into the simulation space and have been lurking the forums here a bit which has been very helpful, especially the stickies. There's likely still some considerations I'm missing, but I think I'm at the point of a rough outline of how things should look, would appreciate any suggestions or comments.

To answer the checklist before posting from the sticky:

1. Intended software is Ansys Icepack, Sherlock and mechanical.
2. The plan is to be licensed for 32 Cores.
3. Unclear yet as to scale/detail, however primarily circuit boards and relatively small mechanical components. Cell count is TBD.
4. Budget is $10k, including additional networking equipment for integration.
5. The setting for engineering in a business environment. The intention is also to set it up as a server and install RSM on one box shared between a couple of users.
6. Flexible on sourcing, but currently figuring we would probably get more value from building ourselves.
7. Location is USA.

So far the 7373X in a 2P configuration and 7573x have caught my eye, but I'm not sure how the performance scales in Icepack, Sherlock and Mechanical versus Fluent. I noticed in some published benchmarks for Mechanical the 73F3 was used, so I'm not sure if these programs benefit more from increased frequency than cache. The Xenon 8362 or 8253 2P is also being considered, but from what little I've seen the AMD offerings seem likely to be faster.

Uncertainty on the cell and DoF count seems like it's definitely a big x factor on our end, especially for RAM sizing and network speed considering it will be going over the network. My hope is room to expand the memory and a decent NIC can somewhat mitigate the concern. Not sure how much of a hit only using half the RAM channels would be though.

Also, what is the performance difference of a 2P 16 core and a 1P 32 core system all else being equal? Not sure what the relative impact is of a 2x larger cache versus increased latency between sockets. Maybe workload dependent?

Currently the rough build is:

Gigabyte MZ72-HBO Mobo
AMD 7373x x2 CPU
Silverstone XE04SP3 4U Cooler (don't think I can fit the larger Artic SP3 cooler on the motherboard)
512GB (32x8) 3200mhz Registered ECC RAM
Mellanox ConnectX-5 NIC
L45000 8 Fan 4U Case

Thanks,
Nic

October 12, 2022, 18:34	Hardware Suggestions for Ansys Mechanical, Sherlock and Mechanical	#1
Kips New Member Nic Join Date: Oct 2022 Posts: 4 Rep Power: 3	Hi All, I work at a small business that has started to get into the simulation space and have been lurking the forums here a bit which has been very helpful, especially the stickies. There's likely still some considerations I'm missing, but I think I'm at the point of a rough outline of how things should look, would appreciate any suggestions or comments. To answer the checklist before posting from the sticky: 1. Intended software is Ansys Icepack, Sherlock and mechanical. 2. The plan is to be licensed for 32 Cores. 3. Unclear yet as to scale/detail, however primarily circuit boards and relatively small mechanical components. Cell count is TBD. 4. Budget is $10k, including additional networking equipment for integration. 5. The setting for engineering in a business environment. The intention is also to set it up as a server and install RSM on one box shared between a couple of users. 6. Flexible on sourcing, but currently figuring we would probably get more value from building ourselves. 7. Location is USA. So far the 7373X in a 2P configuration and 7573x have caught my eye, but I'm not sure how the performance scales in Icepack, Sherlock and Mechanical versus Fluent. I noticed in some published benchmarks for Mechanical the 73F3 was used, so I'm not sure if these programs benefit more from increased frequency than cache. The Xenon 8362 or 8253 2P is also being considered, but from what little I've seen the AMD offerings seem likely to be faster. Uncertainty on the cell and DoF count seems like it's definitely a big x factor on our end, especially for RAM sizing and network speed considering it will be going over the network. My hope is room to expand the memory and a decent NIC can somewhat mitigate the concern. Not sure how much of a hit only using half the RAM channels would be though. Also, what is the performance difference of a 2P 16 core and a 1P 32 core system all else being equal? Not sure what the relative impact is of a 2x larger cache versus increased latency between sockets. Maybe workload dependent? Currently the rough build is: Gigabyte MZ72-HBO Mobo AMD 7373x x2 CPU Silverstone XE04SP3 4U Cooler (don't think I can fit the larger Artic SP3 cooler on the motherboard) 512GB (32x8) 3200mhz Registered ECC RAM Mellanox ConnectX-5 NIC L45000 8 Fan 4U Case Thanks, Nic