6 Replies Latest reply on Jul 28, 2008 8:59 PM by Anthony Botting

    Quad Core or Duo Core?

    joseph byra
    joseph byra Jul 28, 2008 4:30 PM
      We're buying new machines for Cosmosworks. They will be running Win XP 64bit. What's the best bang for the buck? Our machines must stay UNDER $1500 each. I'm looking for the best performance for the buck basically. Which processor and memory would recommend at this price point?

      (The machines will never be "upgraded" once purchased. Engineering gets new computers every three years and the rest are handed down to lowly accountants.)
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        • Quad Core or Duo Core?
          Albert Whatmough
          Albert Whatmough Jul 28, 2008 4:32 PM (in response to joseph byra)
          Tell the accountants you need to spend more then $1500 every 3 years... that is crazy!!! Unless they are paying you $1 / hour to watch an hour glass you need to spend more $$$. Over three years you are going to more then save the investment of a faster PC.



          That being said COSMOSWorks will make use of multicore processing so if you are seeing heavy processor usage when running your test then quad core would be beneficial to you. It does really all depend on that work you are doing.


          Al
          • Quad Core or Duo Core?
            Bill Van Der Plaats
            Bill Van Der Plaats Jul 28, 2008 4:35 PM (in response to joseph byra)
            I would suggest a quad core and as fast as you can get it the higher the gh the faster the mesh i had a quadcore 2.6gh and it took 9 minutes to mesh anna's punch holder. we just got a new quad core 3.33 slightly over clocked computer and it only takes 6 minutes.

            One other note though when running studies on 09 solidworks it is separate so you no longer have to wait to do something your study runs in the background.
              • Quad Core or Duo Core?
                joseph byra
                joseph byra Jul 28, 2008 5:53 PM (in response to Bill Van Der Plaats)
                Thanks for responses but still haven't seen the answer to my question. WHY the quad core exactly? Dollar per dollar I can pick up a substantially faster duel core processor.

                I just read that that Cosmos doesn't full utilize the quad core and is a waste of money.

                Will a 2.5Ghz quad core run Cosmos faster than a 3.16Ghz duel core for the same price? If so, how?
              • Quad Core or Duo Core?
                Anthony Botting
                Anthony Botting Jul 28, 2008 5:08 PM (in response to joseph byra)
                Hi Just for another data point to help with decisions: I meshed Anna's punch holder using default size settings, High quality solids and that took 13.22. That's 87,979 elements. Running SW 08, SP4, X64 edition on AMD X4 Phenom, model 9550, quad core on an ASUS mobo with 8GB RAM. CPU runs at 2.2GHz.
                • Quad Core or Duo Core?
                  Anthony Botting
                  Anthony Botting Jul 28, 2008 8:59 PM (in response to joseph byra)
                  I read that COSMOSWorks will take advantage of multiple processors during solve, but currently only for Static studies. Additionally it depends on the solver you choose. Tests show the Direct Sparse solver finishes roughly twice as fast on a dual-core vs. a single core, but the FFEPlus solver finishes only marginally faster on a dual-core vs. single core. Also note the mesher: it uses only one CPU (as evidenced by my recorded time meshing). More good news - if you run COSMOSFloWorks, it is known you can get four times as much work done on a quad core vs. a single cpu - you can instruct the software to solve one study on each processor!