Pro configuration for CAD/computation

[THMC]

Hello,

I would appreciate a sanity check / advice for a new PC configuration.

Usage:

=> Business (R&D) => reliability and cost effectiveness are important ; noise should be kept reasonable.​

1. CAD : Dassault Solidworks => mostly single thread ; usually Pro GPUs are advised. However, the RTX4090 is one of the best choice for the second need and after some investigation is also more than capable for Solidworks.
2. CFD/FEM simulations : Ansys Discovery Live ( => the solver uses one nVidia GPU to solve multiphysics problems interactively (using simple precision) ; not very CPU intensive
   => 6000 Ada being out of reach budget-wise, I consider the 4090 as the best alternative. I'm pretty sure it is "worth" the price since we pay the software license by the hour (and engineer salary of course.).

Monitor: Should not be a criterion since the application is not gaming and the GPU will mostly be used for physics "live" computation and displaying CAD.

Budget: Max 4000£ inc VAT ; Upwards of 3000£ should already provide a great system for our needs (estimated conversion from CHF).

Below is my current best estimate of a "balanced" configuration for our needs, with some reasoning for the choices, and questions.

Configuration:​

Case: be quiet! SHADOW BASE 800 FX GAMING CASE

=> Good trade-off between airflow and quietness?​

Here I hesitate also with:​

* The Fractal Define 7 Quiet (better look for a business environment but even though it can be configured with a lot of fans, I'm worried that the airflow and hence cooling will be poor, especially for the GPU).​

* The Corsair 5000D Airflow (or maybe even 4000D), both cheaper.​

* The even cheaper PCS Spectrum II => I think the front 3x140 should help reduce noise for a given flowrate.​

(The big front fans of the Lian Li 215 and Fractal Torrent make them look interesting options. However, they are not available in the B2B configurator.)​

Processor (CPU): AMD Ryzen 9 9900X 12 Core CPU (4.4GHz-5.6GHz/76MB CACHE/AM5)

=> 9900X looks interesting compared to 7950X given its better single-thread score and less heat generation. I think 7900X is a bit too weak and 9950X overkill.​

Motherboard: GIGABYTE B650 AORUS ELITE AX V2 (AM5, DDR5, PCIe 4.0, Wi-Fi 6E)

=> I would tend to choose Gigabyte given all I've read about Asus. It seems to me this B650 is sufficient for the current setup. Somehow it would look interesting to have PCIe 5.0 for futureproofing. However, I have the impression that a single PCIe 5.0 for M2 does not make much sense. PCI 5.0 for GPU looks more useful, but I may be wrong and I wonder if AM5 will still make sense anyway when PCIe5 GPUs become interesting.​

I do not really see any real advantage (for us) on the GIGABYTE X670 AORUS ELITE AX. The ASUS TUF GAMING X670E-PLUS WIFI has the advantage of the PCIe5 for 1 GPU but other than that does not convinces me. The ASUS ProArt X670E-CREATOR WIFI looks very impressive but it feels overkill and very expensive also.​

Memory (RAM): 64GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR5 5600MHz (2 x 32GB)

=> We need to be able to upgrade to 128 GB in the future if necessary.​

=> I hesitate between 5200, 5600 and 6000. We do not want to tinker with the settings and the system must be stable. However, if 6000 MT/s is usable from factory or at least with an extremely easy one-time procedure, then 6000 MT/s might provide a small advantage.​

Graphics Card: 24GB NVIDIA GEFORCE RTX 4090 - HDMI, DP

=> Choice based on usage described above. I see that with the "gamer" category, the Asus TUF OC OG is also available. Any thought?​

Graphics Card Support Bracket: NONE (BRACKET INCLUDED AS STANDARD ON 4070 Ti / RX 7700 XT AND ABOVE)

1st M.2 SSD Drive: 2TB SAMSUNG 990 PRO M.2, PCIe 4.0 NVMe (up to 7450MB/R, 6900MB/W)

=> I would rather choose 2 SSDs, but my colleague for whom this machine is configured prefers a single disk...​

=> I hesitate between 990Pro and Solidigm P44 Pro. Both may be a bit overkill for the usage, but the extra cost seems rather small vs the overall system when taking the P41 instead.​

Power Supply: CORSAIR 1000W RMx SERIES™ - MODULAR 80 PLUS GOLD, ULTRA QUIET

=> Enough? There is no option for 1200W in the B2B configurator.​

Processor Cooling: PCddS FrostFlow 200 Series High Performance CPU Cooler (250W TDP)

=> It looks sufficient even for the 9950X. For a professional machine, air cooling seems more appealing to me (reliability and maybe quieter). However, I'm still unsure if it would nevertheless be better with liquid cooling (either to get more margin with 270 or 290W, to leave more space to the 4090 to breath, or to smoothens reaction to transient CPU peaks).​

Note: I'm convinced air-cooling can be enough for the largest TDP imaginable if well designed; I've never seen an OEM professional workstation dedicated to heavy computation (HP, Dell, ...) being liquid cooled. E.g. the Threadripper Pro 7995wx with 350W is air-cooled in the HP Z6 G5A.​

Thermal Paste: STANDARD THERMAL PASTE FOR SUFFICIENT COOLING

=> I've read that it may not be a good idea to select the better paste, since then it depends on the quality of the deposition by PCspecialist. Correct?​

Extra Case Fans: 3 x 120mm Thermaltake TOUGHFAN 12 Case Fans

=> Do the Toughfans really have an advantage over the standard PCS fans?​

Sound Card: ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Card: ONBOARD 2.5Gbe LAN PORT
USB/Thunderbolt Options: MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 2 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS

Operating System: Windows 11 Professional 64 Bit - inc. Single Licence
Windows Recovery Media: Windows 10/11 Multi-Language Recovery Image - Unlimited Downloads from Online Account
Anti-Virus: NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE

Warranty: 3 Year Platinum Warranty (3 Year Return to Base, 3 Year Parts, 3 Year labour)

=> It looks like PCspecialist do not offer a warranty with an "on site" service, which is a bit annoying for businesses. Do you have some advice about that?​

Delivery: 3 DAY DELIVERY TO SWITZERLAND

Price: £3545 including VAT and Delivery

Unique URL to re-configure: https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/saved-configurations/amd-b2b-ddr5/haD7Bwg6yv/

Many thanks for any advice!

 

[TonyCarter]

I’ve never seen the B2B configurator, but it seems to have limited choices compared to the other configurators, so I’d just use the gaming tool, unless there’s a specific reason for using the B2B tool.

There’s no inherent problem with air coolers, it’s just that the offerings from PCS are very poor at the moment.

If your colleague is happy to run the risk of having all his eggs in one basket, then the Crucial T705 is the fastest drI’ve PCS offer. It’s a gen5 drive so is about twice as fast as the P44 Pro. But if that’s too expensive, the the Solidigm or Corsair options are more reliable & have better endurance ratings than the Samsungs.

 

[raymond a]

Although I am currently using the Gaming forum to help spec a machine for my own projects using Siemens NX / 3 DS Max / Substance ect. At work I use Nx and Femap / Adina. on a machine that has 512 Gb ECC ram but the Zeon has only 22 cores and 2 RTX 5000. 16 cores actually seems seem to be the sweet spot for FEA /CAE. The software you use does not have a specific requirement for a professional GPU [ its only if you need tech support from Dassault / Ansys / Nvidia that it becomes a requirement ] so the 4090 is a fine choice. The ram would be best if it was ECC especially if you have simulations running overnight only to find when you arrive in the morning to find the simulation has failed because of memory errors If such simulations are not the norm for your company then it MIGHT not be so critical. although I would always go with ECC ram [ for company work ] FEA also requires the fast storage, the faster the better.

 

[THMC]

Thank you both for your answers.

I’ve never seen the B2B configurator, but it seems to have limited choices compared to the other configurators, so I’d just use the gaming tool, unless there’s a specific reason for using the B2B tool.

I suppose the idea is to filter what is usually not desirable / useless in a business environment. However, I'm a bit suprised that the Fractal Torrent is not made available. Although it has 2 glass panels which is useless, other than that it looks a great option and is available for the subcategory "workstation" (Threadrippers) of B2B.
I also thought that PCspecialist might have slightly different processes / quality controls for B2B (?).

If your colleague is happy to run the risk of having all his eggs in one basket, then the Crucial T705 is the fastest drI’ve PCS offer. It’s a gen5 drive so is about twice as fast as the P44 Pro. But if that’s too expensive, the the Solidigm or Corsair options are more reliable & have better endurance ratings than the Samsungs.

2 disks would be better I agree. However, all the important data should be stored/backup in a separate server of the company anyway.
I disagree that the T705 is about twice as fast: that is true only for sequential read/write of huge files. Moreover, if r/w occur between two disks, such a transfer rate can only be reached if both sources and their interface can sustain that rate.
About reliability and endurance: I would be interested if you have sources showing that the Solidigm is better than the Samsung.
I saw that Samsung had issues in the beginning but it looks resolved (if reliability data is old, it may be biased). About endurance, I saw two sets of data showing different results: the 990 Pro is better in the Passmark's consistency test carried out by Techtesters, and the P44 Pro is better in a sustained test of 15 minutes made by TomsHardware.

The software you use does not have a specific requirement for a professional GPU [ its only if you need tech support from Dassault / Ansys / Nvidia that it becomes a requirement ] so the 4090 is a fine choice.

Solidworks seems to be kind of an exception. Some non-pro cards do not support the "RealView" feature. However, it looks like the 4090 supports that and there exist solutions to make it work if it does not by default. Besides, my colleague told me he almost never use that feature.

The ram would be best if it was ECC especially if you have simulations running overnight only to find when you arrive in the morning to find the simulation has failed because of memory errors If such simulations are not the norm for your company then it MIGHT not be so critical. although I would always go with ECC ram [ for company work ] FEA also requires the fast storage, the faster the better.

Sorry, I should have been a bit more specific and not used the acronym "FEM". That machine will not be used to carry out "standard" mesh-based and CPU-based simulations. We have another workstation for that (with ECC and more memory channels).
Ansys Discovery Live relies (almost) entirely on the GPU to solve the equations and is "mesh-less". The work is rather interactive, with the simulations solved close to real-time (hence the keyword "Live"), so probably never left to run overnight.


Any other advices?
I would especially be grateful for any recommendations (or confirmation if my choices are good) about the adequacy of the case and coolers for the selected components.

Thank you very much for your inputs!

 

[raymond a]

Thanks for the update. Not familiar with Ansys or Solidworks. I am a bit like you as regards components ect, I leave that mostly to others more qualified than me [ only know how to use the software ] Im sure others will keep you right about cases / coolers ect.