Budget CPU - Intel Xeon E5 2650 v3
 

Hey guys!

I'm a marine engineering student with CFD as one of my interests. I have the possibility to buy a used HP Z640 workstation with one Intel Xeon E5 2650 v3 (launched 2014) for around 200€. My plans are to use the PC for CAD applications but also for CFD (with star ccm+ student license and openFOAM).

Does someone has experiences with this CPU for CAD and CFD? I would not expext too much for 200€ but right now this would exactly fit my budget!

Let me hear your experiences and/or recommendations!

Edit: right now I'm using a laptop with Intel Core i5 8265U for CAD/CFD/daily tasks etc.

Let's assume the PC comes ready to run. I.e it includes a usable graphics card, an SSD and at least 4 identical sticks of RAM. Then 200€ sounds like a solid deal.
The CPU is fine for your intended use cases. And quite a bit faster than the laptop you are currently using.
And there is still room to grow. You can upgrade the CPU later. They are pretty cheap already.

Hey flotus1, thanks for your reply. It did not came with graphics card and it has only 2x8GB RAM. But, I had the opportunity to score a GeForce GTX 1060 6GB somewhere else. I thought 'F*** it!*' and bought the PC, mounted the graphics card and now I have a running system for a total of 280€. Probably I could have saved my money for better or cheaper systems but I'm happy. A RAM upgrade will come in the future.

Rhino 3D is running much smoother than on my laptop (although it wasn't very slow on the laptop). Today I will run a star ccm+ simulation to see how my new PC will prestate.

My laptop runs a Intel UHD graphics 620 which also might be a reason for a smoother Rhino 3D experience.

I'm happy with my new setup, the PC seems pretty robust, not only the aluminium case but also the inside is very clean and I assume it's a good base if I want to upgrade. I'm not sure how upgradable it is to modern standards but I guess it still will be a little upgradable.

From my study I have a star ccm+ test case (scaled DTC hull) which I ran a week ago on my laptop. Number of cells is 200k, delta t 0.05 s, which took minimum 5 hours (I don't know exactly since it also ran at night) and converged after a physical time of 44.55 s and 8910 iterations. I started the same simulation on the new PC and guess what? After 15-20 min running time it already simulated 14s physical time. Oh my god that is so satisfying! :D

Generally speaking, upgradability is not the strong suit of OEM workstations. Mostly due to proprietary form factors and connectors. Sometimes because the bios does not support newer hardware. Don't know about the HP Z640 in particular. But that's something we can live with for the price.
Adding another 2x8GB of RAM will be the most cost-efficient upgrade you can make.