Let's Talk Computers

"shpuker" (shpuker) 08/02/2015 at 11:30 • Filed to: Computers, ooo-computers, matlab, engineering, simulations

0

23

So I’m getting ready to start piecing together a real computer setup and I figure who better to ask for advice than the all knowing Opponauts.

First here are my main “needs” for my future setup:

1) The biggest thing for me by far is the ability to run fairly complex Matlab/Simulink/Maple simulations as quickly as possible. As I’m sure many of you know this can get to the point where you need a computer that has enough processing power to put most anything else to shame.

2) Though if #1 is satisfied this certainly will be, the ability to play back/stream video while simultaneously running various programs. AKA can I run a video teaching me certain aspects of a simulation on one screen while I implement and test features on a different screen.

3) Ability to run simulations into graphical models. EX, running Simulink 3D animations that pull in solidworks models and implement those back into the Simulink model. All of which there are various programs that take care of each portion but the processing power required is quite high.

What I don’t need:

Top of the line audio. Sure I like music atleast as much as hte next guy but I’ve got a laptop already that has a more than adequate audio setup.

Top of the line graphics. Sure it’d be a nice bonus but I’m not trying to do any sort of gaming here so I don’t need anything spectacular.

Obviously I’m still in school so I’m not looking to drop serious money at this point, however I want something that I can add to and upgrade in the future. So my question becomes this, what kind of setup would those of you more experienced in the computer spec world recommend to me? What kind of setups do you guys have and do you do anything like this with them?

Mattbob > shpuker 08/02/2015 at 11:41

1

I’m usually an AMD fan, but for this sort of thing I would try to go with an i7 or i5 with a bunch of memeory. Check to see if the graphics built into the processor will be enough for what you need. If I knew more about their processing power, I would suggest the amd APUs. They have really good built in video combined with good processing and look like one hell of a bang for the buck. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc… (like this one)

Clown Shoe Pilot > shpuker 08/02/2015 at 11:42

1

Do you know if matlab/simulink/maple is optimized for multi-core computers? I’d recommend finding out if the software has a sweet spot and/or a number of cores beyond which you’re just wasting money. You really want to figure out what mix of clock speed, cache, and core count your application works best on. After you know that you can pick an appropriate motherboard and CPU combination. Then it’s just a matter of piling in as much RAM as you can afford and getting reasonable storage. I’d recommend SSD for your system disk just for the speed. If your application uses the disk as scratch, I’d think about a second rotating disk for that so you can avoid running into problems w/ SSD cycle counts

nFamousCJ - Keeper of Stringbean, Gengars and a Deezul > shpuker 08/02/2015 at 11:43

0

Fun site to build/spec/price a rig, checks compatability for you, shops for you, etc. I used to to spec out a replacement rig... $3grand later my wallet said NO.

https://pcpartpicker.com/

BmanUltima's car still hasn't been fixed yet, he'll get on it tomorrow, honest. > shpuker 08/02/2015 at 11:54

2

What’s your budget?

StoneCold > shpuker 08/02/2015 at 12:19

1

1) The biggest thing for me by far is the ability to run fairly complex Matlab/Simulink/Maple simulations as quickly as possible.

That needs a decent CPU and a decent amount of RAM. An SSD would help, also.

2) Though if #1 is satisfied this certainly will be, the ability to play back/stream video while simultaneously running various programs.

A more decent amount RAM would make this easier.

3) Ability to run simulations into graphical models. EX, running Simulink 3D animations that pull in solidworks models and implement those back into the Simulink model.

This will require a mid-level graphics card. At least something better than integrated.

Do you live near a Micro Center ? This would aid in building quite a bit.

shpuker > BmanUltima's car still hasn't been fixed yet, he'll get on it tomorrow, honest. 08/02/2015 at 13:22

0

Non-solidified at this point. In general probably the $1,000-$1,500 range with everything included.

shpuker > StoneCold 08/02/2015 at 13:26

0

Yup there’s one by my parents place so I’ll be back there for a couple weeks. Actually got my laptop from there.

shpuker > Clown Shoe Pilot 08/02/2015 at 13:28

0

Matlab has a parallel computing toolbox they include with their student package that lets it take advantage of not only multi-core processors but multiple-corrs accross multiple computers. The way I understand how the program is set up is that it’s very much so dictated by the computer its on and not necessarily the program itself.

BmanUltima's car still hasn't been fixed yet, he'll get on it tomorrow, honest. > shpuker 08/02/2015 at 13:56

0

Do you have a keyboard, mouse, monitor, etc.?

AthomSfere > Clown Shoe Pilot 08/02/2015 at 14:19

0

I’d be more curious if they are optimized for nodes/ CUDA type computing. Then a decent quad core (AMD/ Intel) for $1-200 would be more than enough and the budget could funnel towards RAM and a good GPU.

Math heavy applications generally benefit from GPU acceleration assuming the code has been updated for massive parallel computing.

bhardoin > shpuker 08/02/2015 at 14:28

0

Ok, here’s how I’d go about speccing parts:

First thing’s first: pick a processor (CPU). This is where you are gonna wanna blow the bank for a workstation. Usually the $300 - 400 CPU range is pretty sweet on a $1-1.5k total budget. I’m not up to date as to Intel’s release cycle right now, but if possible try to time your builds and upgrades with when they release new hardware in your price range. Look up benchmarks to figure out where you start getting diminishing returns for spending more money.

Second: Motherboard (MoBo). This is another area to not skimp. Your mobo should last basically as long as your processor, so you want it to be as futureproof as possible. Things to consider here:
-Must have the same socket as your CPU
-Must handle all the RAM you buy as quick as possible.
-Thing of everything you might want in your computer in the next 5 years. This means pci wifi cards, however many USB slots you need, pci for your graphics card, enough SATA to deal with hard drives.
Pick a mobo form factor that suits your needs.

Move on to finding a case and power supply. Think of these as a relatively long term investment - if you don’t drop it and you don’t blatantly ignore your power supply’s wattage rating, these could last a decade. So money spent here takes cost away from future builds. Get a modular power supply that more than meets your power consumption (estimate that from your CPU, mobo, and graphics card ratings, adding a safety factor for drives and such). You’ll thank yourself later when your supply stays cool, lasts forever, and has enough plugs to power everything you want. For the case:
-Dust is the enemy. If you don’t want to clean it yearly or so, make sure you buy a case with good dust screens that you can yank out, wipe off, and call good again. If you can keep your pc off the ground, it’ll get way less dusty.
-Good cable management options are so worth the money.
-Airflow and Noise are sometimes a compromise. Airflow keeps things cool and reliable, but noise is annoying. Consider that your power supply will have a fan on it, and try to guess how that’ll impact your stuff. Start thinking about what kind of CPU cooler you’re gonna want...
-Size: do you have the space for a monster case that cranks tons of air past your components? Are you gonna want spaces for water cooling? Does your graphics card fit?
-Do you want pretty lights on it? Or will they just piss you off when you’re trying to take a nap through an overnight render and they’re bright as hell?
Overall I’d say you’ll probably end up with an ATX mid case, probably not worth spending the money on a full case.

So, you’ve got the barebones picked out. Here’s where you start budget compromising other components. Some tips:
-Hard drives get cheaper all the time. So only buy as much as you need for the next year or s, and plan on adding drives later as they get cheaper. Otherwise, you’re just paying a depreciation penalty for drive space you’re not using.
-SSDs are your friend.
-I’m actually not sure about graphics cards for SolidWorks. But I’d reccomend getting at least a decent card so that you can handle multiple monitors - it’ll just make your life so much better.
-SolidWorks will eat a ton of ram.
-CPU coolers only work as well as the airflow through your case. If you’re not overclocking, you probably don’t need anything crazy, but it will extend the lifetime of your CPU if you keep it cool.
-Gaming monitors get expensive because they have a fast response time. You probably won’t want something as laggy as a TV, but monitors might be a place you can skimp a bit and save some money.
-For SolidWorks, a really nice mouse is so helpful. I make do with a cheap keyboard, though.

shpuker > BmanUltima's car still hasn't been fixed yet, he'll get on it tomorrow, honest. 08/02/2015 at 14:46

0

Nope. That’s where it gets tricky. Monitors I’m willing to sacrifice on to an extent in order to keep costs down. Mouse and keyboard I’m not that picky, long as everything feels solid.

StoneCold > shpuker 08/02/2015 at 16:30

0

Excellent! The CPU prices are unmatched, even with tax, and the 4690K gets you $20 off any motherboard (used to be $50, but eh).

Here’s the processor.

This pretty nice motherboard should cover all the basics and be able to upgrade for awhile.

That’s about $305, $295 after rebate.

You could live with this motherboard if you don’t think you’ll do any upgrading to it, or overclocking. You can overclock H81 boards it seems with some work, but it is a rather complicated process of finding exactly what you need to do for that particular board. It would lower the price to about $254, though.

As for RAM, I see options:

Low Voltage option , uses less power and creates less heat (without cost to speed, so low voltage is a good thing), but 11 CAS latency is a bit high.

You have a choice of either Blue or Black if you decide to go with low latency 1600 MHz, blue is only on a temporary $10-off-with-promo-code sale, though.

Now if you go with the more expensive Z97 Pro4 board, you have many more options for RAM speeds!

Like this set of 1866 MHz chips.

Graphics cards:

I haven’t looked at the video card scene in well over 3 years, and this is giving me a chance to check out what has changed. Namely, the R7/R9 AMD nomenclature is soooo weird . The old answer used to be hands down an HD7770 and then throw in another one by crossfire and add a beefier power supply when that felt slow. Now....eh

My usual way of eliminating old stuff that’s going for the same price when searching is to limit it to the newest connection standard, in this case, PCI 3.0 x 16.

So far the best I can find is this one, which seems like a great deal for only $130 after rebate (even comes with DiRT Rally :D ).

Here’s a value option to give decent rendering and multi-monitor, but I’d advise spending the extra $50, because the 270X is much more than $50 worth of graphics card compared to the GT 740

For power supply, always always always go name brand. And with the above stuff, I’d go with about 600W. Lots of people like to go over the top on power, but eh, this is a high 400W- ish/almost 500W system.

Here.

That leaves case and hard drives, which is more preference than anything.

StoneCold > shpuker 08/02/2015 at 16:48

0

And now it won’t let me edit to add the main video card link I forgot >:/

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc…

Axial > shpuker 08/02/2015 at 17:23

0

As a starter, you’ll want a motherboard with the Intel X99 chipset. All the CPUs available in the LGA2011-3 socket are at least hexa-core and multi-threaded with phenomenal single-thread performance. In real terms, that means you could run multiple simulations and not suffer processor slow-downs for other applications. Off the top of my head, I can’t remember if MatLab/SimuLink/Maple are capable of multi-threaded operations or are even programmable as such, but if they are then more threads is better, too.

With that, you’ll want to acquire no less than 16 GB of RAM. This is actually likely to be one of the priciest components, since DDR4 is not exactly cheap right now.

Video-card, wise, I don’t know if you want a professional-grade card or are fine with a gaming-grade card. You have to pick something since LGA2011-3 CPUs do not have integrated graphics. For a gaming card, I’d be okay with a GTX 970. Professional, you’d have to tell me what you really need. The primary difference is that a professional card has much better QA on the drivers, support is better, and they are keyed to play nicer with OpenGL; less emphasis is put on DirectX operations. They can do games, but they are meant for professional 3D production applications.

I build a similar system in 2011 with similar goals. I have an X79 (the predecessor to X99) board with a 4-core, 8-thread CPU (I skimped here, should have gone 6-core). Still, it runs MatLab and SimuLink reasonably quickly. I had to program a stochastic model from scratch in Java, and it chewed through that faster than any computer I had access to at the college campus. The only way you will do better than what I suggested above is if you look into a dual-socket set-up, but that’s only going to help you if you can take advantage of all that parallel processing power.

StoneCold > shpuker 08/02/2015 at 17:23

0

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/9jZV8d

Last one; so this is the list of what I’d recommend if I were doing this.

The only things missing are the case (that’s pretty much personal preference and whether you’ll buy a $40 cheap case or a $100 use-it-until-you-die case) and any additions you want to throw in (extra case fans, more hard drives, etc.).

Sorry if this seems intense, but PC building is a hobby of mine :)

BmanUltima's car still hasn't been fixed yet, he'll get on it tomorrow, honest. > shpuker 08/02/2015 at 17:35

0

I’m guessing you’re in the US, so with the prices there, I think $1500 is overkill for just running matlab simulations.

shpuker > BmanUltima's car still hasn't been fixed yet, he'll get on it tomorrow, honest. 08/02/2015 at 18:36

0

You’d be surprised.

Some of what I’m doing now is pushing the limits of the computer I have at work and it’s slightly older but still an ok setup with an i7 processor.

EDIT: This example is probably more representative of what I’ve been doing except instead of 10 components I’m running a model with upwards of 40-50 plus a full simulink engine simulation (simulates an accurate torque curve/fuel consumption, rpm control, etc.) and a connection from this through CAN into the controller hardware.

BATC42 > shpuker 08/03/2015 at 02:06

0

I’ll had to what some said. Don’t cheap out on the Motherboard, it’s quite an important item and a cheap one could prevent you from using the components at their best performance.

CPU, look for the small differences between them. I haven’t been following the scene recently, but Intel has kind of a habbit to release several CPUs with kind of the same performance for widely different prices.

GPU, at first I was going to say go on for a Quadro or another pro card,but it obviously won’t fit the budget. So a mid range car from AMD or nVidia will do.

For the RAM, you should go for at least 8 GB, but more like 16, especially if those programs are memory intensive (I don’t remember Maple being).

BmanUltima's car still hasn't been fixed yet, he'll get on it tomorrow, honest. > shpuker 08/04/2015 at 19:57

0

So I went and did some reading on hardware for running matlab. Most seem to suggest more cores beat out everything else, so I’d recommend an AMD FX-8000 series CPU with 16gb or more of RAM, and then the best Nvidia GPU you can afford for CUDA. Also an SSD is nice. Case can be what you think looks good. For the mouse and keyboard, basically the cheapest you can find that works.

Here’s what I suggest.

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/jFrzrH

shpuker > BmanUltima's car still hasn't been fixed yet, he'll get on it tomorrow, honest. 08/04/2015 at 23:46

0

Holy shit that processor is insane. I love it.

If I go this route the only things I’d really change up much is I’d probably drop for a 500gb SSD instead of the 240 ( http://pcpartpicker.com/part/samsung-i… possibly?) and I’d drop for something like 2 20” monitors rather than a single 24”

shpuker > BmanUltima's car still hasn't been fixed yet, he'll get on it tomorrow, honest. 08/05/2015 at 00:07

0

I take that back looking at read/write speed on that PNY its pretty damn fast, a lot faster than the Samsung.

I think I’m actually salivating at the idea of being able to run this program at the speed its capable of. The simulation I’m running now could probably be done more accurately and in 1/10th the time or less.....

BmanUltima's car still hasn't been fixed yet, he'll get on it tomorrow, honest. > shpuker 08/05/2015 at 06:34

0

For the SSD, I find the read/write speeds aren’t significantly different enough to matter. They’re a whole lot faster than HDDs, so a few extra MB/s you won’t notice. Go for one that is big enough, and cheapest at that size. Also, the monitor is one of the cheapest ones that is still a quality product, unless you can find something on sale somewhere; also, anything smaller is likely a lower resolution too.

A note on the processor; it’s a few years old and isn’t the most powerful out there, but the fact that it has 8 actual cores, as opposed to 4 cores, 4 threads in Intel’s i7 series, will help a ton with multitasking and running matlab.