New Workstation

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Skeer
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Re: New Workstation

Post by Skeer »

Agree'd on all points.

> Lastly, as scanners get faster I wonder whether more data is always better.

This. This is something that I just cannot gauge right now.

But I am still interested to hear about the platforms you other guys are using.
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Re: New Workstation

Post by James Hall »

Skeer wrote: Sat Oct 26, 2019 8:06 pm Agree'd on all points.

> Lastly, as scanners get faster I wonder whether more data is always better.

This. This is something that I just cannot gauge right now.

But I am still interested to hear about the platforms you other guys are using.
"What Intel givth Microsoft takth way." An analogous situation with Faster scanners and processing their out put. What is needed is enough info to get the job done pulse a little extra. You can decimate most of the data out of a Leica P50 down to what you get out of an Old scan station and be able to extract road and corridor information just fine. Do you really need so much data. Answer No. I need to get done in the field and in the office as efficiently as possible. I would rather use a C-10 then a RTC360 for most of my work. Because it gets done faster. Less time downloading, less time fixing bad registrations.

James
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Re: New Workstation

Post by Mike H »

What do you guys think of my new workstation quote for Autodesk Civil3d and Cyclone.

Xeon W-2125 4.0Ghz 4 Core
64gb Ram
Quadro P4000 8gb
Win10
2 - 1TB M.2 Nvme drives for OS and Projects
2 - 4TB HDD for storage and backups

Could I have the temp folders on the OS nvme drive and Projects and the second nvme?
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Re: New Workstation

Post by smacl »

Mike H wrote: Tue Oct 29, 2019 11:24 pm What do you guys think of my new workstation quote for Autodesk Civil3d and Cyclone.

Xeon W-2125 4.0Ghz 4 Core
64gb Ram
Quadro P4000 8gb
Win10
2 - 1TB M.2 Nvme drives for OS and Projects
2 - 4TB HDD for storage and backups

Could I have the temp folders on the OS nvme drive and Projects and the second nvme?
Not bad but a single 4 core / 8 thread Xeon may become a bottleneck on any routines that are heavily multi-threaded on the above setup. With the above spec it would be worth considering a motherboard with a 2nd CPU slot in case you wanted to improve on this in the future.
Shane MacLaughlin
Atlas Computers Ltd
www.atlascomputers.ie

SCC Point Cloud module
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Re: New Workstation

Post by sim.herrod »

Mike H wrote: Tue Oct 29, 2019 11:24 pm
Could I have the temp folders on the OS nvme drive and Projects and the second nvme?
We have it set up so OS is on one NVME SSD, Temp folder is on a 2nd, and Projects are on a 3rd. An older workstation needed a PCIE expansion card for the 3rd SSD, but our newer on has enough M.2 slots.
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Re: New Workstation

Post by Mike H »

smacl wrote:
Mike H wrote: Tue Oct 29, 2019 11:24 pm What do you guys think of my new workstation quote for Autodesk Civil3d and Cyclone.

Xeon W-2125 4.0Ghz 4 Core
64gb Ram
Quadro P4000 8gb
Win10
2 - 1TB M.2 Nvme drives for OS and Projects
2 - 4TB HDD for storage and backups

Could I have the temp folders on the OS nvme drive and Projects and the second nvme?
Not bad but a single 4 core / 8 thread Xeon may become a bottleneck on any routines that are heavily multi-threaded on the above setup. With the above spec it would be worth considering a motherboard with a 2nd CPU slot in case you wanted to improve on this in the future.
We are limited to the Dell Precision Xeon. Would a 3.7Ghz 8 Core work better? Does the 4.5Ghz Turbo work in point clouds?
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Re: New Workstation

Post by smacl »

Mike H wrote: Wed Oct 30, 2019 12:45 pmWe are limited to the Dell Precision Xeon. Would a 3.7Ghz 8 Core work better? Does the 4.5Ghz Turbo work in point clouds?
The 4.5ghz versus 3.7ghz means a potential 21% speed gain across all operations if the processor can sustain this speed. Doubling the core count would potentially double the processing speed on processes that were multi-threaded, which is based entirely on how cyclone is implemented. If Precision with Xeon is what you're getting, I'd say the spec you've got seems fine. My personal choice would be higher core count but that's more to do with development work and the SCC point cloud engine.
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Re: New Workstation

Post by James Hall »

smacl wrote: Wed Oct 30, 2019 1:47 pm
Mike H wrote: Wed Oct 30, 2019 12:45 pmWe are limited to the Dell Precision Xeon. Would a 3.7Ghz 8 Core work better? Does the 4.5Ghz Turbo work in point clouds?
The 4.5ghz versus 3.7ghz means a potential 21% speed gain across all operations if the processor can sustain this speed. Doubling the core count would potentially double the processing speed on processes that were multi-threaded, which is based entirely on how cyclone is implemented. If Precision with Xeon is what you're getting, I'd say the spec you've got seems fine. My personal choice would be higher core count but that's more to do with development work and the SCC point cloud engine.
What Shane said is spot on. I would go the other way because I do more raw point cloud possessing with just cyclone. Fewer faster cores serve my use better. Many Cyclone operations are still single core and multi-threading helps not at all with those.

James,
Last edited by James Hall on Wed Oct 30, 2019 4:01 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: New Workstation

Post by James Hall »

sim.herrod wrote: Wed Oct 30, 2019 12:16 pm
Mike H wrote: Tue Oct 29, 2019 11:24 pm
Could I have the temp folders on the OS nvme drive and Projects and the second nvme?
We have it set up so OS is on one NVME SSD, Temp folder is on a 2nd, and Projects are on a 3rd. An older workstation needed a PCIE expansion card for the 3rd SSD, but our newer on has enough M.2 slots.
Are you doing timed benchmarks with common operations? How is your setup's performance? It sounds like it should be supper fast.
The built in I/O controller can have issues keeping up. That is one reason for having a PCIE expansion card, for the separate I/O Controllers.

James,
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Re: New Workstation

Post by gsisman »

James Hall wrote: Wed Oct 30, 2019 3:50 pm
smacl wrote: Wed Oct 30, 2019 1:47 pm
Mike H wrote: Wed Oct 30, 2019 12:45 pmWe are limited to the Dell Precision Xeon. Would a 3.7Ghz 8 Core work better? Does the 4.5Ghz Turbo work in point clouds?
The 4.5ghz versus 3.7ghz means a potential 21% speed gain across all operations if the processor can sustain this speed. Doubling the core count would potentially double the processing speed on processes that were multi-threaded, which is based entirely on how cyclone is implemented. If Precision with Xeon is what you're getting, I'd say the spec you've got seems fine. My personal choice would be higher core count but that's more to do with development work and the SCC point cloud engine.
What Shane said is spot on. I would go the other way because I do more raw point cloud possessing with just cyclone. Fewer faster cores serve my use better. Many Cyclone operations are still single core and multi-threading helps not at all with those.

James,
James/Shane or anyone,

We are doing most of our processing in Reg360 which I thought used multi-threaded processing. And then Civil 3D 2019 with Cloudworks using Jetstream and LGS files
Would more cores be better. We have Lenovo Think Station C30 with 48GB & 72GB RAM & 16 & 20 Cores respectively on a Single processor but have another processor Slot available on the motherboard and 4 ram slots open. Nvidia K4200 Graphics cards.
1TB SSD for OS and Apps,2TB HDD for Temp
Using 1GB network connection to Synology NAS 48TB-8drive RAID 5 for import, Project storage, and Jetstream & LGS Projects
Have 10TB (of the 48TB total) iSCI drive partition on Synology connected through the Jetstream Enterprise server for Archiving


STEVE'S_WORKSTATION_SPECS_2019-10-30_1424.png
Looking to beef these up more.
Suggestions?
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