Workstation build for CFD

[udid9iv99]

Hey y'all,

This might be a little off topic so please let me know if I should remove it. I am a student who is looking to build a workstation exclusively for CFD. My interest would mainly be simulating small ICE engines and gas turbines and also some vehicle aerodynamics. The software I would be using is fluent and CFX (I may be able to get my hands on Star-CCM+ in the future). I have a budget of 1600 CAD (1150 usd) so I was thinking of picking up a 2x e5 v4 workstation off ebay. However, I am now considering building my own if I can get more performance out of it so what would your suggestions be? I saw on ebay some 1st and 2nd gen epyc processors so what would be your opinion on a build around those processors? And how would they compare to this (https://www.ebay.ca/itm/175350464533) pc? If anyone has any experience with CFD please let me know.

Thanks,

 

[Grog6]

Even if you get the processors cheap, motherboards are not, memory is not, and hard storage is getting unbelieveable; I just bought an 18TB hard drive for $200, new.
For thruput/dollar a dual processor setup with e5 - 1680's gives you 32 cores at 4GHz
I built one with 256GB of ddr3, and it was amazing compared to the sell server we originally set it up on.
The software we were running was dongle locked, and 100k/yr/computer.
That was over 10 years ago; The current v4 versions, combined with nvme memory will really boost thruput.
I'm sure a dual processor threadripper setup would outperform it, but you're talking 20k, not 1600.

 

[udid9iv99]

Yeah, I was initially looking at dual E5 V4 workstations (see link) but I did notice really cheap epyc processors on ebay (32c for ~300 cad). I was wondering if I could build a workstation around those processors instead of the e5 v4s.

 

[dhbarr]

Avoid Zen1. Who pays your power bill?