ANSYS

Processor

ANSYS Mechanical and ANSYS Fluent take full advantage of all available CPU cores. Therefore, the more cores the better. We recommend dual processor configurations for maximum performance.

Ansys Mechanical, Ansys HFSS and Ansys LS-DYNA, make use of Intel Advanced Vector Extensions 512 (AVX512), and thus perform very well on Intel Xeon Gold 6200 series processors.

Please note that ANSYS software is relegated to a specific number of cores, therefore you should choose a configuration that will maximize the performance of your core license.

Memory

Selecting enough memory (RAM) is key for most Ansys applications to solve “in-core” and to avoid paging to a hard drive (“out-of-core”), which is usually slow. In general, for Mechanical you want about 15 GB of RAM per million degrees of freedom (DOF); for Ansys CFX, Fluent, HFSS and Maxwell you want 8 GB of RAM per core.

For example, with Dual Intel Xeon Gold 6240R processors, you will have a total of 48 cores. 48 x 8 GB of RAM per core will demand 384 GB of RAM.

There is a significant simulation performance decrease if all memory channels are not occupied. With Intel Xeon Gold 6200 series processors, it’s best to have 6 memory modules per processor.

1-2 million nodes = 192GB RAM (12x 16GB) w/ Dual CPUs
3-5 million nodes = 384GB RAM (12x 32GB) w/ Dual CPUs

Storage

We recommend two NVMe SSDs for optimal performance:

1. Primary SSD: operating system and applications
2. Secondary SSD: Ansys projects. Running low on disk space may result in performance issues. Make sure to have plenty of disk space.

2.5-inch SATA SSD performs at ~500MB/s
M.2 NVMe PCIe 3.0 SSD performs at ~2500MB/s

For long term storage or backup, infrequently accessed files, we recommend a SATA SSD or hard drive.

Graphics

ANSYS takes advantage of GPU acceleration, however according to benchmarks, performance gains are more significant with more processor cores vs. using GPU acceleration. For optimal performance maximize the processor core and balance with the memory capacity instead of going with a high-end graphics cards. We recommend the default NVIDIA Quadro P2200.

As of early 2022, Ansys states that GPU acceleration is in beta for a limited subset of applications.

Chassis

The HP Z8 G4 Workstation is recommended if you would like dual processors and/or multiple high performance graphics cards.

The HP Z6 G4 Workstation is recommended if you would like to start with a single high-end processor and single high-performance graphics card with the potential of upgrading in the future. With the Z6 G4, you can add a second matching processor and double the memory using the optional second processor riser. The power supply will also support two mid-range graphics cards.

The HP Z4 G4 Workstation is recommended for majority of workflows. Since Intel now produces single Core i9 and Xeon processors with up to 18-cores and high clock speed, there is no need for dual processors unless you will have heavy CPU rendering or intensive tasks demanding more than 18-cores. Also, the HP Z4 G4 has an optional 1000W power supply that will support the most powerful graphics cards inluding the GeForce RTX 3080 and Quadro RTX A5000.

Recommended Hardware References

• Oct 29, 2020 by Ansys - Blog
  Hardware Tips to Accelerate Simulation
• by Ansys - White Paper
  Intel Processor Selection for Ansys Mechanical and Fluent Workloads
• by Ansys
  Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) Simulation
• Jan 10, 2022 by Ansys
  Platform Support