New Workstation

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dhirota
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Re: New Workstation

Post by dhirota »

smacl wrote: Thu Jul 30, 2020 9:10 am ...

Going for a 3960x also gives you headroom to expand performance by dropping in a 3970x or 3990x at a later date without having to fork out for a new rig.
Shane

I seldom disagree with you, but in this case, it may depend on how one plans to pay/finance it.

Ryzen 3960X = Amazon US$1,330
Ryzen 3970X = Amazon US$1,850

Unless you do not have the US$520 increase in cost, which may be possible to invest in a GPU, the 10% increase in the total cost for the Ryzen 3970X system may not be relevant. The probability of swapping out a 3960X or 3970X is too expensive unless some one is going to purchase your used processor, which is possible. One might be stuck with an expensive drink coaster or sell it cheap to a friend. Before doing that purchase of a lower core processor, I would check on the what I would need to accomplish in the event of needing more processing power. See my cost to move from 18-cores to 64-cores on this LSF link:

viewtopic.php?p=84826#p84826

We have both workstations for post-processing and may build another. In both cases, I decided on the most cores available and affordable at that time, since the US-IRS helps in that decision making process, which is probably a different decision mode than Shane's.

On another note, the cost of Samsung 860EVO 4TB SSDs are increasing by significant amounts recently. I purchased 2 each, 4TB in January, 2020 for US$550 each from Amazon. Yesterday, if you can find them US$750 to US$950 each.
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Re: New Workstation

Post by smacl »

dhirota wrote: Thu Jul 30, 2020 7:46 pmUnless you do not have the US$520 increase in cost, which may be possible to invest in a GPU, the 10% increase in the total cost for the Ryzen 3970X system may not be relevant. The probability of swapping out a 3960X or 3970X is too expensive unless some one is going to purchase your used processor, which is possible.
Dennis, I think this depends very much when you're swapping out the CPU. If it is within a year, I agree entirely with you. If it is in a few years and your extending the life of a PC it makes much more sense as the upgrade may be considerably cheaper as there will be newer generation CPUs on the market. There's also a fair chance that the next generation threadripper will be socket compatible with the current release, as was the case with TR1 to TR2 (though not TR2 to TR3) so you could well be replacing a 3960x with a 4970x or similar. As you say depends very much on your budget and how tightly you stick to it. As a long term computer enthusiast, if I didn't stick to my budget rigidly I'd tend to overspend.
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Re: New Workstation

Post by fobos8 »

smacl wrote: Thu Jul 30, 2020 9:10 am Going for a 3960x also gives you headroom to expand performance by dropping in a 3970x or 3990x at a later date without having to fork out for a new rig.
If your projects are over 100 scans on a regular basis, then the advice from FARO is to use a CPU with 32 cores. Applying that advice you should go for a Theadripper 3970X now which has 32 cores oppossed to the 3960X's 24 cores. Granted the CPU speed is slightly less (0.1MHz) but on balance wouldn't a 3970X be the best choice for SCENE users with 100 scan projects?

As its difficult to see PC benchmarking stats for scan processing software I wonder which if any of the typical CPU benchmarking test might approximate scan processing software behaviour.

Blender makes use of multiple cores in the same way SCENE does. This might be the best mainsteam benchmarking test we should be looking at for working out a new PC configuration.

Regards, Andrew
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Re: New Workstation

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fobos8 wrote: Mon Aug 03, 2020 7:42 am
smacl wrote: Thu Jul 30, 2020 9:10 am Going for a 3960x also gives you headroom to expand performance by dropping in a 3970x or 3990x at a later date without having to fork out for a new rig.
If your projects are over 100 scans on a regular basis, then the advice from FARO is to use a CPU with 32 cores. Applying that advice you should go for a Theadripper 3970X now which has 32 cores oppossed to the 3960X's 24 cores. Granted the CPU speed is slightly less (0.1MHz) but on balance wouldn't a 3970X be the best choice for SCENE users with 100 scan projects?
Agreed, well worth the extra money if you have the budget and your workload is typically over 100 scans, less so if > 100 scans is an exceptional case though data sizes seem to get bigger and more CPU demanding year on year. Worth considering as well whether all your work will be scanning or are you also likely to use drone based photogrammetry which is going to benefit more from a beefy GPU? Again, this is as easy upgrade which can be done as needed, so it is worth asking your software vendor do they use mostly CPU, GPU or both?

I'm not convinced benchmarks translate well from one point cloud application to the next as the dependence on single threaded speed, multi-threaded speed, GPU usage and disk thrashing can vary considerably. If you buy the best of everything it will work well for all software but you could end up spending a lot of money on under utilised hardware.
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Re: New Workstation

Post by Bimbox »

I will most definitely post a link to the article. We are running speed tests against AMD's 112 core Intel system this week with a scan set provided by one of our clients. It has 258 scans from a x330. The intel system cost close to $35,000. It's fun when your partner has all the expensive toys.

Also, we will be doing a presentation on AEC hardware, building the business case, and overcoming industry myths later this month for the Boston Revit user group. Wanted to throw out the invite in case anyone wanted to join.

https://www.meetup.com/Boston-Revit-Use ... 272339888/

We will be discussing the challenges to building a system and why you can't buy systems by GPU and processor alone.
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Re: New Workstation

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Bimbox wrote: Mon Aug 03, 2020 6:58 pm I will most definitely post a link to the article. We are running speed tests against AMD's 112 core Intel system this week with a scan set provided by one of our clients. It has 258 scans from a x330. The intel system cost close to $35,000. It's fun when your partner has all the expensive toys.

Also, we will be doing a presentation on AEC hardware, building the business case, and overcoming industry myths later this month for the Boston Revit user group. Wanted to throw out the invite in case anyone wanted to join.

https://www.meetup.com/Boston-Revit-Use ... 272339888/

We will be discussing the challenges to building a system and why you can't buy systems by GPU and processor alone.
Sounds really interesting, though not quite sure what an 'AMD 112 core Intel system' entails, guessing testing a 3990x against and top end intel HEDT build. Are you planning on including a breakdown of CPU, GPU and disk usage in your benchmark results? For me, knowing where the bottleneck lies can be as important as knowing the total end to end processing speed. Similarly, knowing which resources are significantly underused, e.g. GPU largely idle, thread count never maxed out, RAM never more than 50% used etc... can be a good indication of where economies can be made. It can also highlight hardware mismatches for the task in hand, e.g. not enough RAM to allow full available CPU core and thread usage. It would also be interesting to see the thermal profile for the extended benchmark to see if any CPU or GPU throttling is occurring due to thermal issues.
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Re: New Workstation

Post by boxel0 »

We have just bought a new PC for a big project, we are running the AMD Threadripper 32 core, 64gb RAM, Quadro K6000, 2TB NVME drive

We have only had it since Friday, but has certainly speed up certain workflows
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Re: New Workstation

Post by fobos8 »

boxel0 wrote: Tue Aug 04, 2020 2:21 pm We have just bought a new PC for a big project, we are running the AMD Threadripper 32 core, 64gb RAM, Quadro K6000, 2TB NVME drive

We have only had it since Friday, but has certainly speed up certain workflows
Lewis, that's great news. I'm eager to know more! What CPU and how much RAM did you have before?
How much has it sped thinngs up by 2 times, 3 times? Are you using C2C? Cyclone or Scene?
Sorry for the 3rd degree but when someone has just upgraded a PC they can give terrific insights into what improvements can be made.
Cheers Andrew
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Re: New Workstation

Post by dhirota »

landmeterbeuckx wrote: Thu May 26, 2016 9:48 am I've got an estimate for following machine (main parts):
-dell 7910
-Dual Intel Xeon Processor E5-2650 v3 (10C HT, 25MB Cache, 2.3GHz Turbo) [338-BFDN]
-128GB ram
-MegaRAID SAS 9341-8i 12Gb/s PCIe SATA/SAS controller - SW RAID 0, 1,5,10 [403-BBHC]
-1 * 1TB Adata DP910 SSD 2.5 inch SATA 6Gb/s, 1M Hrs MTBF {CS] [252-10179]
-1 * 1TB Adata DP900 SSD 2.5 inch SATA 6Gb/s, 1M Hrs MTBF {CS] [252-10183]
-Nvidia Quadro K5200 8GB (2 DP, 2 DL-DVI-I) (2 DP to SL-DVI adapter) [490-BCCO]

and some other stuff.
Price wthout screen, mouse, keyboard and VAT is 8800,00€
What do you guys think off this?

Greetings
Lieven

I am trying another experiment since we need another Ubuntu workstation/server to process data.

This time I am trying a refurbished HPE Proliant DL380p Gen8, looks almost new, runs like new.
dual Intel Xeon E5-2637 V2 @ 3.5GHz, 16 total threads
HP raid 6 with 8 each Seagate 10TB SAS drives downgraded from production server (60TB) free
12 each 32GB LRDIMM for 384GB RAM, with 12 empty RAM slots remaining, for potential of 768GB.
No GPU needed, but possible
No NVME needed, but possible

Total cost so far US$1,380. Price without screen, mouse, keyboard, or OS=Ubuntu 18.04 LTS free

I swapped out the 4X1GbE ports for 2X10GbE ports for an extra US$15, which saved me a few bucks.
Dennis Hirota, PhD, PE, LPLS
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dhirota
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Re: New Workstation

Post by dhirota »

The experiment is still continuing. We have never used HPE for anything after they split from the great HP print group.

LESSON LEARNED: Be sure to check out all the details even if the deal is too good to pass up. HPE Proliant DL380p Gen 8 rack mount server, for 8X3.5 inch HDD, with raid controller, 24 RAM slots, 2X10GbE ports, 2X PowerSupplies, 2X Xeon E5-2637 v2 @3.5GHz, 12X32GB LRDIMM DDR3@14900=384GB RAM, total cost US$1,380 + US$200 Fedex overnight. I did not leave my chair to order it or pick it up. Pre-assembled and tested without 8X10TB Seagate SAS HDD installed.

20200806_133603.jpg

12X32GB LRDIMM DDR3@14900=384GB RAM up close

20200806_120819.jpg

Now for the bad news. HPE does not allow out-of-warranty servers to install BIOS and firmware even with their iOL system, which we did not find out until after the system arrived. They want US$800 for a single year. We decided that might mess up too many things, so we said "Thank you" + the dump symbol from another LSF thread.

https://www.laserscanningforum.com/foru ... 789#p87789


Most of the other vendors allow the upgrading of firmware, drivers, and bios without additional cost.

We called HPE support and were told that their QuickSpecs sheet indicated that 8TB HDD was the largest disk that they have certified to run on the system. We know that 10TB HDD will not run on the system without bios and firmware upgrades and even with the upgrades, the 10TB HDD may still not install. Plan B is to wait for the miniSAS cables to arrive tomorrow (I ordered them at noon from LAX and they will arrive in HNL tomorrow morning) and use our AVAGO raid controllers which are working with 16TB HDD. Plan C is to use 8X8TB, giving us 48TB instead of 60TB storage for this system.
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