I need a serious workhorse computer for complex simulations

[Ganjasaurus Rex]

I am running simulations that involve around 6-10 million calculations. My files (10 of them) are each over 500 MBs large (all data and formulas), if that's any indication of the size of the project i'm dealing with. I am currently bogging down a Dell PC with 2.2 Core Duo processor and 2 gigs of RAM. It literally won't run the program in less than one hour.

I have about $6000 in my lab budget for a computer to run this simulation, but i want to make sure i get the most bang for the buck. I priced the following Mac Pro setup at around $6000 (education price).

Mac Pro
Both Bluetooth 2.0+EDR and AirPort Extreme
One 16x SuperDrive
Apple Keyboard and Mighty Mouse - U.S. English
Accessory kit
Two 3.0GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon
Mac OS X - U.S. English
8GB (4 x 2GB)
750GB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s
ATI Radeon X1900 XT 512MB (2 x dual-link DVI)


Can i beat that system elsewhere for the same price? Please keep in mind that i don't want to use it for daily work... just these, and future, simulations.

TIA

[_dave_]

Possibly, but a MacPro 8 core is indeed a beast [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Your simulations are CPU limited, right?

EDIT: And your simulations can run multi-process/multi-threaded, right?

[Ganjasaurus Rex]

[ QUOTE ]
Possibly, but a MacPro 8 core is indeed a beast [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Your simulations are CPU limited, right?

EDIT: And your simulations can run multi-process/multi-threaded, right?

[/ QUOTE ]
Yes, they are CPU limited and can run multi-threaded.

[Freakin]

is there much disk IO once the projects are loaded?

[Neuge]

We just bought a new Dell Precision 690 in my lab for CFD simulations. It's essentially the same as that, except we also got a dual 750GB Raid 1 HD array and a 24" LCD monitor for about $6000 (education price).

[Ganjasaurus Rex]

[ QUOTE ]
is there much disk IO once the projects are loaded?

[/ QUOTE ]
I'm sorry, i honestly don't understand this question. I'm not familiar with the term "disk IO". I'm not an expert in this area, which is why i'm posting here, so please forgive my ignorance. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[Neuge]

After your data is loaded from the files on the HD, is there a lot of reading and writing to the HD during the simulation?

[Ganjasaurus Rex]

Ok, i get what you're asking. It doesn't seem to be the case based on the lack of noise in the hard drive during the simulation.

[Neuge]

Not to be offensive, but you don't seem to be able to determine the hardware you need (obv why you're asking). Let me see if I can figure it out.

What exactly does the simulation do? What operating system are you running? Do you have access to the source code? Do you know the parallelization (eg. MPI, OpenMP)?

[nuclear500]

Try to get 10K RPM drives if you can.