Help with new dual socket workstation build

[bitseq]

Hello, I was hoping to see if anyone has any golden nuggets of advice for my new machine.

I am looking to build a dual socket quad core machine for fluid dynamics simulation and rendering. I have found a motherboard ASUS DSBV-DX which is well within my price range and would like to know if it will be suitable? also is the ram speed fast enough? Any other advice would be welcome!

Cheers
bitseq

 

[JonJ678]

How much of a rush are you in? Fluid dynamics is raw computing power, so assuming your code is reasonably multithreaded the dual socket i7's shouldn't be too far away.

Otherwise there are dual socket quad core xeon boards available. Any more information on the software you're running? I doubt you need server ram, so that'll bring the price down. I'd be surprised if ram speed is important relative to processor speed, but make sure you have enough that your code isn't seeking to a hard drive during execution.

Yeah, more detail needed. Budget/application. Above a certain bracket, the economical choice is to get many many cheaper computers and make a mini grid across them. I'm a student, so all I get really is one computer. If I had the funds and the space id have many strapped together.

Cheers for a rather more interesting spec me thread than the standard

 

[bitseq]

Cheers Jon, yes I am using Realflow4 for the fluid dynamics, which is multi threaded software however it does not work in a distributed environment yet, hence the dual socket solution. I will be using a network of 5 machines for rendering with 3ds max using vray lighting and also simulating smoke and fire within max using FumeFX (non distributed again).

8gb is more than enough for the rendering and not relevant for the sims, but the simulation data can sometimes exceed 500gb!! So I will be using SSD's where possible to avoid massive bottle necks.

My budget for the core components (MB, RAM, CPUx2) is £850 but would be willing to save a bit more if there is a much better option. Not sure if I can wait for the i7 dual socket mb's could be a while till they are available and will probably be very expensive.