High Performance Computer for GH

Hi all

I'm an architect working profesionally with parametric design since many years, and I'm about to renovate my workstation Laptop: 24GB/RAM - Intel core i7 2720 - 2.20 Ghz /Nvidia GeforceGTX 460M. I allready read David Rutten post talking about the topic.

http://www.grasshopper3d.com/forum/topics/hardware-requirements-and...

but I would like to ask recomendations to the grasshopper community because I was thinking on investing around 6000€. For this price I would like to know what do you think I could fit in a new computer (not laptop) and where should I invest the most? Processor, Ram, Graphic card?

Any recomendations would be wellcome.

Carlos B.M.

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by peter fotiadis on June 30, 2015 at 12:31pm

Hmm...

... Having in mind that BIM would/should been implied by Law(*) sooner or later (see UK for instance) ... let's skip (for a moment) the trivial and focus to the most expensive (and malicious) thing:

Do you intend to stay on the game board bandwagon or you have aspirations for Quadro[+SLI?]/FirePro[+Crossfire?] type of stuff? (obviously having in mind that ... er ... hmm ... the world extends a "bit" further/beyond GH + Rhino).

(*) meaning Allplan, Revit or AECOSim.

Permalink Reply by David Rutten on June 30, 2015 at 12:42pm

6000 seems like a lot, even for a high end workstation. There's definitely diminishing returns over a certain price range.

Still, if you feel like spending, make sure you don't just get lots of RAM, but get fast RAM. And get an SSD instead of an old-fashioned spinning disc harddrive. GH1 will not use multiple processors or GPU, GH2 will be multi-threaded but still not the GPU.

However having two (or more) high resolution screens is a must in my opinion, so getting two video cards is probably not the worst way to spend your money.

It's also a good idea to have an easy system for making backups, so you'll do it often.

Permalink Reply by Daniel Piker on June 30, 2015 at 1:58pm

Wouldn't it be nice to have a Grasshopper equivalent of Holomark for benchmarking so the effect of these things could actually be measured.

Even just having different users measure the time it takes to calculate the same grasshopper definition and post their results and specs could be interesting.

Permalink Reply by Carlos B.M. on June 30, 2015 at 4:38pm

Wow, that is fascinating. It's a pitty I'm still working with rhino 5 SR6, but as soon as I upgrade it I will test it. But yes, I' agree with you, what a pitty we couldnt measure the resources consumed by GH.

Permalink Reply by David Rutten on July 1, 2015 at 1:40am

Probably a good idea. I'll see about putting something into GH2 when the solver is up and running.

Permalink Reply by Tudor Cosmatu on June 30, 2015 at 1:58pm

U should be able to assemble a workstation for less then 6000 based on this...

in terms of video cards i suggest u look into titan x (or even the dual GPU titan z). it's a beast and works great with gpu based render engines - more info here as well: http://www.geforce.com/hardware/desktop-gpus/geforce-gtx-titan-x

as for the CPU i suggest a Xeon 12-core - very stable and also good for CPU based render engines (24 threads)

Permalink Reply by Rémy Maurcot on June 30, 2015 at 2:28pm

hello,
I am responsible in a large French Engineering I know boen for suppliers of problems.
a workstation costs ~5000€:
I7 3GHz 2*8 coeur
32Go Ram
Quadro 6000
SSD (CPI)

Best,

Permalink Reply by Carlos B.M. on June 30, 2015 at 4:59pm

I was working with some panelizations for Z.H.A. buildings when I was in NEWTECNIC (London) and I had to use special definitions for backing one by one cladding components, but I would like to visualize all components at once to speed up the process for redefining structures, and components. That's not easy when you have more than 30.000 cladding panels and you want to visualize them in real time, and run a sloar analysis in "Diva" or "LadyBug". That's why I'm wondering if 32 GB of ram / i7 3GHz, or Xeon 12 cores.... would be enough? (regarding to what Tudor and Remy said)

The video is just an example with an hipotetic shell I just developed, to show of the workflow in a simplyfied maner. (But the shells I was working with were several times bigger)

http://youtu.be/mhzWLduTvTU

Permalink Reply by Nik Willmore on June 30, 2015 at 8:55pm

"This video is private."

Permalink Reply by Kim hauer on July 1, 2015 at 3:55pm

I would hold off on spending large amounts of money on new computer systems, Until Rhino can demonstrate it can function properly without causing a total white screen, while doing calculations using Grasshopper.

See my post: http://www.grasshopper3d.com/forum/topics/differential-growth-in-cu...

There are a number of computer programs that use 100% of your cores on start up which means they are ready to do serious work. I don't see that readiness when I open Rhino.

Maybe its time to do some serious comparisons, on a standard project, where users can send back their feedback, such as Total Calculation Time/CPU/Cores/Ram/Video

I believe this would create an environment, which would help users make better buying decisions :)

Permalink Reply by Rémy Maurcot on July 2, 2015 at 3:24pm

I specified that I use a plugin that uses the power to Rhino and PC. I never had a white screen ... it would really be a step forward if grasshopper operates 64Bits multi-thread

Permalink Reply by Kim hauer on July 6, 2015 at 1:40pm

You never had a White Screen.... wow!

Have a look at my ram and core values, If I saw 95% ram usage and similar core usage I might be tempted to say Rhino and Grasshopper was being optimized, but at those values there should be no white screen...... I think!