CST and HFSS: Choose Intel or AMD processor & RAM select

hfss intel or amd

Hi

Iam going to buy a new PC for antenna simulation using CST and HFSS (and general office use). The budget is low budget.

I have two CPU's in mind. The brand new dual core (Core 2 Duo) from Intel (together with the corresponding brand new Northbridge chipset, P965) and the (single core) Athlon64 3500+ from AMD. The prices is listed below.

INTEL:

242$ CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo, Model: E6300 (1.866GHz)
219$ Motherboard: ASUS P5B-E, Chipset: Intel P965
------
461$ <- Total


AMD:

118$ CPU: Athlon64 3500+, 2.2GHz
150$ Motherboard: MSI K9N-Platinum, Chipset: nVidia nForce570
------
268$ <- Total

Besides, the price for the whole PC (including 2GB of RAM) is approx. 1000$.


QUESTION 1:

The question is, which processor will have the best performance for 1: single core application (which is the case for CST, more or less), 2: dual-core applications (which is the case for HFSS, due to it simulation at multiple frequences) ?

Does anyone have experience about that ?


QUESTION 2:

Which of the 2 types of RAM will perform best (same price):

PC2-4200 CL4 / 533 or
PC2-5300 CL5 / 667 ?

I mean, what is best: high speed or low latency RAM ?



QUESTION 3:

Should I buy a CPU with or without Cooler (Intel Boxed or Bulk) ? (If I choose the Bulk-type, obviously I have to buy another cooler)

Thanks in advance for helping.

Best Regards
hilper

best workstation hfss

Both of CST2006 and HFSS10 have better performance in a x64 xp and AMD CPU system than x32 system.
If you want to enjoy the advantage of x64 version, the more RAM, the better performance. 8 or 16 GB DDR2 667 is recommended.

how choose intel or amd

look at

I think that there is no diff. between the CL4 / 533 or CL5 / 667 but its better if you can to buy the motherboard up to 1330 fsb with CL4 / 533 RAM and in the
next year to upgrade it to 667 with CL less then 5.

pl

hfss cpu benchmark

a cooler may be needed .because the simulation will generate more heat

cst cpu

Hi fulizhang

Do you mean a cooler for the RAM-Module ?

Best Regards hilper

cst mws performance ram cpu

asjade said:

Both of CST2006 and HFSS10 have better performance in a x64 xp and AMD CPU system than x32 system.
If you want to enjoy the advantage of x64 version, the more RAM, the better performance. 8 or 16 GB DDR2 667 is recommended.

Click to expand...

CST is not performance in AMD CPU and simulation on x64 system is faster only about a few percent. We found out this

PC1:
AMD Athlon 4400+ X2 - 2x2.2GHz, 2x1MB L2 cache
4x1GB RAM DDR400@333MHz
MB chipset nVidia-nForce4

total solver time ~ 65min
both cpu performance ~60-80%

PC2:
Intel Core2 Duo (E6700) - 2x2.66GHz, 4MB L2 cache shared
2x1GB RAM DDR2 800MHz CL5
MB chipset Intel P965/G965

!! total solver time ~ 21min !!
(results same, without problems like )
both cpu performance ~95-100%

Conclusion:
solver time more depends on cpu L2 cache and RAM speed, extra I thing Intel has better mathematical coprocessor

I was very disappointed above my AMD X2 cpu, when colleague bought Intel Core2 Duo

amd cst

Dear petr,

That would be great if you could provide similar test result for a normal Pentium 4 or Xeon processor (particularly those with high clock speed). That will help me figure out if it's time to upgrade my workstation or not.

Regards

amd hfss

Do you mean normal Pentium4 like P4 @ 2.4GHz with DDR? Because we tested also Pentium4 2.4GHz with DDR200 and solver time was ~210min. Whereas Pentium4 3GHz HT with DDR400 had 48min and Pentium4 3GHz HT with DDR2 666MHz had 41min.

I don't understand why CST on P4 is 2x faster while AMD AthlonX2 is 2x faster in benchmark Sandra SiSoftware in comparison AMD AthlonX2 versus Pentium4 with HT.

I am sorry to say CST & Intel RULEZ.

choose ram for amd x2

Dear petr,

Thanks for the answers. Based on your data, my P4 3.8 with DDR2 533 MHz would take about 35 minutes to do the same CST MWS simulation which means Core2 duo E6700 is about 67 percent and Core 2 duo X6800 (3 GHz) is about 88 percent faster than that, not to mention the WoodCrest 3 GHz with FB-DIMM 667 MHz. This is really good.

I wonder what is the benchmark for HFSS? In 2001 I did some benchmarking for CST MWS and HFSS on then best of Intel and AMD based workstations. For CST MWS, Intel system was 7 times faster but for HFSS it took only a few percent less simulation time. Actually CST technical support documents recommend using dual xeon based systems.

Regards