I need a PC for scientific computing. My budget is 5.000 € for the whole system, PC, monitors, keyboard ... So for the PC I have a budget around 4.000 €. I'm from Slovenia which is part of the EU.
A guy from a different company that does similar work to mine has suggested to me I should focus my build around the Xeon E5 2687W V4. I need high clock speeds but also more cores, so I think this is a good choice.
But I have no idea what motherboard, ram, storage to chose. For the graphics card, I'll probably use a GTX 1080, I don't have the budget for a Quadro.
If someone has some experience with builds like this, please help
My company will pay for it. So I would like a speed the whole budget and get the best I can in this price range. Because I won't get another PC for the next 10 years.
If you can you may still want to hold off until some EPYC benchmarks are available for your particular application though. Looks like you could get literally twice the number of cores for less money.
Not sure about single-thread performance, but the Xeon doesn't look overly fast in that department either.
I have no experience with scientific computing machines, just throwing out some ideas.
The AMD options look great and I'll probably consider them for my personal use. But I would prefer the Xeon, because it is already tested for my specific use and it's exactly what I need. But like I said, I don't have any experience building Xeon machines so I would need some help, choosing the mother board and ram.
Or if someone can share a link of a build with this CPU.
ps. I'm not going to build the PC myself, I just need a parts list
Honestly, try to find proper benchmarks for your workload. Those two architectures are trading blows and you might end up with a slower system in the end. EPYC has 128 PCIe lanes, regardless if it is a single or dual CPU system. Those Xeons have 40 PCIe lanes each, so 80 max in a dual system. Two of those Xeons are around 4000,- bucks, double of what an EPYC 7551P is going for.
Dual Intel 2687W v4
24 cores, 48 threads up to 3.5GHz
2x4 channel memory
2x40 PCIe lanes
vs.
Single EPYC 7551P
32 cores, 64 threads up to 3GHz
8 channel memory
128 PCIe lanes
As a side effect the board will have a lot more space for RAM and PCIe. And if money really isn't a problem....
Dual EPYC 7601
64 cores, 128 threads up to 3.2GHz
2x8 channel memory
128 PCIe lanes
Wait a minute... I completely overlooked the budget, so you are building a single CPU system. The Xeon is crazy if it isn't used in a dual CPU config. You don't even have to look at EPYC to outperform that chip. Threadripper has more cores, more threads, more PCIe lanes, higher clockspeeds and is half the price. That gives you the budget to upgrade your GPU to a quadro or from a 1080 to two of those, maybe even 1080Tis.
I would agree with @noenken. For a single CPU system it is better to go for a threadripper or wait for an Epyc CPU. The extra cores would make a huge difference on Scientific computing workloads and investing more on GPUs will be essential. Depending on your workload GPU acceleration can be more important than multithreading.
Like others have said, for a single socket workstation requiring decently high single threaded perf. as well as many cores, you'll probably want to use a high-end enthusiast platform like Intel's X299 or AMD's X399. Since you're doing scientific computing, you'll probably benefit from having ECC ram which only X399 supports, so I'd wait for that to be released (beginning of August, I believe) and go with that.
Thank you all for your replies. Threadripper really looks great, but it's not out yet. Can please someone recommend a build that I can buy today? I personally would wait for Threadripper, but I have to send the parts list to my boss as soon as possible. I'm sorry I'm not being more specific what exactly I need. I don't have much experience with this. I'm primarily solving PDEs (diffusion equation). All I know is that I need high clock speeds and I also benefit from more cores. But clock speed is more important. I don't use any GPU processing at the moment but, I'll start learning CUDA or opelGL in the coming months. If someone can recommend a build that I can buy today (4000€) and is tested, that would be great. Thanks
i really like to thinker with Builds & Parts but for work i will rather have a prebuilt machine, specially with the Warranty and support on site in 4hours.
I have a massive Xeon 2699v4 workstation… and it’s OK. But I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it.
I suggest considering ThreadRipper instead.
Here’s a link to my system build: https://pcpartpicker.com/b/b8LD4D
