Laptop hardware for faster optistruct in HW 11 and 12

Altair Forum User

Hi all,

I am planning to buy a new laptop with a max budget of ~1500€ (with renew hardware if needed).

Have you got any recommendations/benchmarks for hardware inside this small budget to obtain the best speed with optistruct (HyperWorks 12 and 11)?

How to balance the hardware characteristics (CPU speed, RAM, graphic board)?

I had a look on the recommended graphic card list for HyperWorks 11. Like for other CAD/CAE softwares, AMD FirePro or NVIDIA Quadro are recommended/certified.

I read about the new trend for GPU computing to accelerate simulations, however is that a good choice in my case, should I better invest in a gaming laptop with a better CPU but weaker graphic card (gaming graphic card)?

For example, my first choice at the upper limit of my budget was a DELL Precision M4700:

- Intel Core i7-3520M 3rd generation (2,90 GHz Turbo, 4 MB)

- AMD FirePro M4000 Mobility Pro (1 GB GDDR5)

- RAM 16GB 1600MHz DDR3

But now, I wonder if a gaming laptop with a better CPU (with only a GeForce GPU) wouldn't be a better choice.

Any recommendation would be much appreciated.

Thank you,

Kind Regards,

Marc

Altair Forum User

Marc:

Just a short recommendation from my experiance:

- 16Gb of Ram might be sufficient depending on the size of your models

- Definitly invest in an SSD! Especially if you run simulations which run out-of-core this gives you a huge performance boost. Most of the time it's much cheeper to put the SSD into a new laptop on your own, than buying it with the laptop itself

- The GPU you need is also depending on the size of your models. If you edit just small ones, a cheeper GPU will do the job. If you have bigger models (geometry and FE) invest in a more expensive one. Please also check the compatibility list you find in the HyperWorks help.

Regards

Stefan

Altair Forum User

Hi all' date='

I am planning to buy a new laptop with a max budget of ~1500€ (with renew hardware if needed).

Have you got any recommendations/benchmarks for hardware inside this small budget to obtain the best speed with optistruct (HyperWorks 12 and 11)?

How to balance the hardware characteristics (CPU speed, RAM, graphic board)?

I had a look on the recommended graphic card list for HyperWorks 11. Like for other CAD/CAE softwares, AMD FirePro or NVIDIA Quadro are recommended/certified.

I read about the new trend for GPU computing to accelerate simulations, however is that a good choice in my case, should I better invest in a gaming laptop with a better CPU but weaker graphic card (gaming graphic card)?

For example, my first choice at the upper limit of my budget was a DELL Precision M4700:

- Intel Core i7-3520M 3rd generation (2,90 GHz Turbo, 4 MB)

- AMD FirePro M4000 Mobility Pro (1 GB GDDR5)

- RAM 16GB 1600MHz DDR3

But now, I wonder if a gaming laptop with a better CPU (with only a GeForce GPU) wouldn't be a better choice.

Any recommendation would be much appreciated.

Thank you,

Kind Regards,

Marc[/quote']

Hi,

Explicit analyses need more cpu power and are more scalable with the cpu count. On the other hand, Implicit analyses need more memory. GPU accelerating option lets you to accelerate the cfd and implicit analyses for now (this is altair's own explanations).

If you plan to play the modern games, absolutely you need a good graphic card. CPU is less important for them wrt. the gpu.

SSD is an important factor for the i/o need. Explciit analyses do perform lower i/o, but implicit analyses could perform high i/o depending on the memory usage (in-core, out-core, min-core) and actual physical memory. If swapping starts, you will need a good i/o results.

Use cpu and vga charts from passmark's website.