Affordable HEDT, is there such a thing?

[Rorre]

Ok so you want to stay with standard ATX and Intel. Sadly, there are not a lot of options anymore for that combination. I'm in very much your situation. I want to upgrade from my X299 system and other than Threadripper, there just aren't any great options.

Hey Lex, I just outlined the options above in my discussions with Solaris17, beyond Threadripper 5900wx and TR 3900x which both are affordable and provide the necessary increase in PCIe lanes, they do not have AVX512 instruction set support that I require. The Xeon W-3300 IceLake platform has the increased lanes with Gen4 support, and AVX512 instruction set support. The motheroard and Xeon CPU can be had on eBay for less than the TR series.

 

[lexluthermiester]

The Xeon W-3300 IceLake platform

I looked at IceLake. The clock speeds seem a limiting factor. Can't debate the AVX512 though so if that is a desired feature then yeah, certain Intel Xeons would be the way to go.

 

[Wirko]

However it was the requirement for overclockable ECC RDIMM DDR5 ram that broke me....$1000 for 128GB?!!

Overclockable? It's the CPU that sets the memory data rate, not the memory itself. But 5 sure is much faster than 4 at 5600 MT/s vs 3200 or so. How much does memory bandwidth matter for CFD?

Also, those are Canadian dollars, right?

 

[Rorre]

I looked at IceLake. The clock speeds seem a limiting factor. Can't debate the AVX512 though so if that is a desired feature then yeah, certain Intel Xeons would be the way to go.

Affordability, increased PCIe gen4.0 lanes, and AVX512, in that order. With regards to clock speeds, I do wish to point out that the W-3335 (16c,32t) has a somewhat impressive base clock of 3.4 GHz an all core Turbo of 3.7 GHz with single core Turbo of 4.0. Pretty competitive with TR. but what really matters is the IPC. Number of cores is not important for my workloads, however I do agree the higher core counts do clock markedly lower.
My projects have migrated to more GPU compute.

Overclockable? It's the CPU that sets the memory data rate, not the memory itself. But 5 sure is much faster than 4 at 5600 MT/s vs 3200 or so. How much does memory bandwidth matter for CFD?

Also, those are Canadian dollars, right?

Overclockable to the extent that the W790 motherboards and Sapphire Rapids allow for overclocking and to use XMP profiles. Previous ECC DDR4 could not utilize XMP profiles.

Affordability, increased PCIe gen4.0 lanes, and AVX512, in that order. With regards to clock speeds, I do wish to point out that the W-3335 (16c,32t) has a somewhat impressive base clock of 3.4 GHz am all core Turbo of 3.7 GHz with single core Turbo of 4.0. Pretty competitive with TR. but what really matters is the IPC. Number of cores is not important for my workloads, however I do agree the higher core counts do clock markedly lower.
My projects have migrated to more GPU compute.


Overclockable to the extent that the W790 motherboards and Sapphire Rapids allow for overclocking and to use XMP profiles. Previous ECC DDR4 could not utilize XMP profiles.

And that's just it, I don't need overclocking capability.

 

[lexluthermiester]

Affordability, increased PCIe gen4.0 lanes, and AVX512, in that order. With regards to clock speeds, I do wish to point out that the W-3335 (16c,32t) has a somewhat impressive base clock of 3.4 GHz am all core Turbo of 3.7 GHz with single core Turbo of 4.0. Pretty competitive with TR. but what really matters is the IPC. Number of cores is not important for my workloads, however I do agree the higher core counts do clock markedly lower.

Fair enough. However, that 16core model is only marginally better than what you have now. But as you said PCIe lanes for GPGPUs is more important for you.

 

[Rorre]

Overclockable? It's the CPU that sets the memory data rate, not the memory itself. But 5 sure is much faster than 4 at 5600 MT/s vs 3200 or so. How much does memory bandwidth matter for CFD?

Also, those are Canadian dollars, right?

Memory bandwidth is extremely important for CFD, 8 channels would ne most helpful. Thus is a good article addressing best requirements.

General recommendations for CFD hardware [WIP] -- CFD Online Discussion Forums

*WORK IN PROGRESS* The goal of this thread is to cover most of the basics that come up in almost every CFD hardware recommendation topic. There will

www.cfd-online.com

Actually thats incorrect now. 621 was the intermediary socket. With some manufacturers designating "WC" instead of just "C"; Passed that workstation chipsets are designated "W" with server chipsets designated "C". Additionally, server chipsets keep the nomeclature such as "C741" whereas workstation chipsets adhere (for now) to desktop naming conventions IE "W790". Of course given there slower release cadence they will reflect whatever is current at time of release.

Just something to keep in mind when you come across a good deal since they changed the naming convention. For example some supermicro C741 can be had used cheap, but they will not boot your $1000 ES xeon.



Snap it up before its gone!

There are a few Xeon W-3300 series CPU's on eBay competitively priced. As well the corresponding SuperMicro and AsRock motherboards.

 

[Wirko]

Yeah, so any upgrade based on DDR4 is very sub-optimal, but with Ice Lake W at least you have the possibility to upgrade again in a couple years. That's if/when many-core models become cheaper on the used market. Server variants (Gold etc) would also work in the same motherboards, right?

 

[unwind-protect]

Yeah, so any upgrade based on DDR4 is very sub-optimal, but with Ice Lake W at least you have the possibility to upgrade again in a couple years. That's if/when many-core models become cheaper on the used market. Server variants (Gold etc) would also work in the same motherboards, right?

The speed difference between DDR4 and DDR5 was very small.

And DDR4, at least ECC registered is like half the price. For the typical usage pattern (with lots of RAM) that translates to substantial overall savings.