4 Replies Latest reply on Mar 9, 2018 12:46 PM by Ryan Dark

Using the GPU to supplement the CPU during Flow Simulation?

Kyle Nyberg Mar 1, 2012 1:15 PM

I am curious if you can somehow unlock the GPU to share the processing workload with the CPU, similar to this application:

http://openfoamfoorumi.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/VilleTossavainen.pdf

I currently run my flow sims with an Intel i7-2600K @ 3.40GHz (quad-core with hyperthreading, for a total of 8 cores), and was curious if I can unlock the potential of my ATI FirePro V4800 to speed up the calculations.

Assuming this is possible, could I then Crossfire two V4800's to really ramp things up?

Thank you for any insight, I've found nothing online so far!

Re: Using the GPU to supplement the CPU during Flow Simulation?

Rohit Mitra Mar 1, 2012 2:30 PM (in response to Kyle Nyberg)

I took a quick look at that link that you attached and it looks like that is a program that already utilizes the gpu for the simulation. I spoke to Nvidia about this at SolidWorks World. For ansys and other programs that have been built to utilize gpu the workstation cards and the Tesla card that they mention can be used to speed up the simulations. Unfortunately in SolidWorks, this is not possible.

The processor that you mention can be overclocked fairly easily, especially if you upgrade to liquid cooling. This would be the only quick way to speed up your simulations.
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Re: Using the GPU to supplement the CPU during Flow Simulation?

Anna Wood Mar 1, 2012 7:39 PM (in response to Kyle Nyberg)

SolidWorks Simulation is not coded to use the GPU.

Overclock your cpu, get yourself SSD drives (there are a lot of writes to disk in simulation). Be sure you have a good amount of memory so everything stays in RAM.

Cheers,

Anna
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Re: Using the GPU to supplement the CPU during Flow Simulation?

Jeremy Jansa Mar 9, 2018 7:36 AM (in response to Kyle Nyberg)

Dear all,

Is still true with solidworks 2017?

Cheers,

Jeremy
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- Re: Using the GPU to supplement the CPU during Flow Simulation?
  
  Ryan Dark Mar 9, 2018 12:46 PM (in response to Jeremy Jansa)
  
  Dear Jeremy,
  
  Yes.
  
  Sincerely,
  
  Yes-man
  
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