[CIG-LONG] GALE dedicated workstation

[Walter Landry]

Hi Marco,

Cc'ing the list.

Marco Billia <maaubi at gmail.com> wrote:
> Dear Mr Landry
> 
> I have been using GALE for some time now and just got funding for a
> new workstation dedicated for running numerical models. What
> specifications would you recommend for running computationally intense
> 3D models and visualizing them? Which hardware component would you
> consider as the bottleneck by running those models? I guess there is a
> possibility to compile GALE for multi-core support, isn't there?

Gale supports multi-core out of the box.  That is what MPI does.
However, if you really want to run 3D models, then I would suggest
getting an account on a supercomputer.  You will have a hard time
doing 3D runs with reasonable resolution in reasonable time on a
single machine.

However, for 2D models, or for checking parameters for a 3D model, a
single machine can be sufficient.  You should first figure out how
much memory you need to run your models and get enough to cover that.
Beyond that, I would recommend as many cores as you can get.  Gale
should be able to use all of the cores well.

I would not spend any money on a graphics card at this point unless
you want to set up triple-monitors.  I am using Intel's integrated
graphics chip with dual monitors and it is not an impediment.

Cheers,
Walter Landry