Recommending a build for a remote simulation machine is a difficult problem because the computer requirements are going to vary depending on the type of problem that is being solved and the simulator that is being used. However, there are some generalities that can be followed to help optimize the computer performance for AWR simulators and your application.
General Guidelines
Buy a computer with enough RAM to solve your problem.
This is highly dependent on which simulator you are using, but some general guidelines are below.
Small | Medium | Large | |
---|---|---|---|
AXIEM | 32 GB | 64 GB | 128 GB |
Analyst | 32 GB | 128 GB | 256 GB |
Buy "workstation-class" machines/processors instead of "server-class" machines/processors
When purchasing a computer for remote EM simulation, you should purchase a machine with a "workstation-class" machine processor (i.e. the latest intel i7 or i9) and not a "server-class" one. Workstations (such as the Dell Precision family) are designed for high performance computing applications, typically using extremely fast processors, storage, and RAM. Servers (such as the Dell PowerEdge family), on the other hand, are designed more for high availability, large storage capacity, and high multi-user performance, usually with slower (but more) processor cores. These are all good things for servers to have, but for the NI AWR Design Environment's purposes, money and effort would be better spent on the higher straight-line performance of workstations.
AWR recommends:
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process (i.e. intel Xeon). Above four cores or so, due to the imperfect scaling of simulators with the number of cores it is better to prioritize clock rate over the number of cores. Server-class processors typically have higher core count, lower clock rate, cores and thus typically do not perform as well as workstation-class processors do for the same problem.
AWR Example Build
- 128 GB of RAM
- Intel 9700K
FAQ
Should I buy more machines for my queue or one large machine?
As of AWRDE V14, simulation can now be ran in parallel on a single machine. While this can help better utilize computers/servers you may already own, better performance will most likely be seen on multiple workstation-class machines.
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If you are looking for recommendations for end user systems, please see this page, http://www.awrcorp.com/support-resources/getting-started/system-requirements