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[Robert Caulk <question657232@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Question #657232 on Yade changed:
https://answers.launchpad.net/yade/+question/657232

Robert Caulk proposed the following answer:
This question was scientifically approached here [1] and here [2]
"Which kind of hardware is right? A lot of cores at low
frequency (AMD) or some cores with higher frequency
(Intel)?"

Some key take-aways:
"Results indicate again that there is an optimum number of threads. It might be best to try a couple of configurations first since it will certainly be problem dependent."
"Performance is … depending on what you simulate"
"Serial collider took a lot of time with large amount of particles -> New collider is
doing way better. Especially without Hyperthreading."

As always, optimal computer configuration depends entirely on what types
of simulations you need to run, how long you need to run them, the types
of analyses you'd like to do, etc. Maybe you want to run thousands of
small simulations for your analysis? Or maybe you want to run a massive
simulation for a long period of time? As Gary mentions, you might try
using Amazon EC2 to test out some configurations [3] (shameless plug to
my AEC2 guide). However, Gary also suggests hyperthreading, which is
generally not recommended for any scientific computing application.

This brings me to another point: I also noticed you are passing -j8 and
hoping to run 10 of these on a 12 or 16 core machine? IINM, you should
avoid this since multiple jobs will demand core time from similar cores
leading to unnecessary swapping in and out of the cache.

In my experience, it is equally important to consider the cache size of
the processor in addition to the speed of the cores. Increasing cache
reduces the number of expensive ram swaps, especially for very large
simulations.


[1]https://yade-dem.org/publi/1stWorkshop/booklet.pdf
[2]https://yade-dem.org/wiki/Performance_Test
[2] https://yade-dem.org/doc/amazonEC2.html

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