[thandor]

Hi everyone,

I'm looking to build a simple home workstation to work on some side projects with open source solvers and continuing to work on unfinished codes. Some use cases could be to characterize aircraft polars (with simple 20-30M meshes) and run optimization processes (airfoils, etc). I'll also use lower fidelity codes like panel methods.

I've set up a budget of 1k€ since this is just for side projects, I only have a laptop outside of work. I'm very open to second hand stuff.

1. Which software do you intend to use? Open source solvers (OF, SU2) and my own codes. I'll also use low-fidelity panel methods.
2. Are you limited by license constraints? I.e. does your software license only allow you to run on N threads? Not at all.
3. What type of simulations do you want to run? And what's the maximum cell count? Mainly external aerodynamics, at most 20-30M cells. For the most part I'd be interested in running several simulations at a time, with a lower cell count, for optimization.
4. If there is a budget, how high is it? Around 1k€ preferably
5. What kind of setting are you in? Hobbyist? Student? Academic research? Engineer? I'm an engineer, but this would be for playing around and learning a bit.
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? Anything is an option, including aliexpress/ebay.
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. Europe.
8. Anything else that people should know to help you better?

From what I've seen from lurking around this forum, a good budget option could be a LGA2011-3 dual socket option like:

• CPU: 2x Xeon E5 2697A v4
• RAM: 8x 16GB DDR4 2400 ECC sticks
• Mobo: something from aliexpress or preferably from a reputable brand on ebay
• Coolers: 2x 2011-3 compatible coolers (something like a Deepcool Gammaxx)

Plus the usual case, storage, PSU... This would be around 700-800€ with current second hand prices from what I've seen.

If you could give me some opinions/recommendations on this, I would greatly appreciate it

Thank you very much