Hardware Selection Advice: Difference between revisions

* For GPU simulations, the number of CUDA cores, the core speed, GPU card architecture, memory speed and interfacing with the motherboard PCI lanes and CPU are all important.

* The system must be well cooled to avoid throttling (meaning reduction of clock speeds to reduce heating).<br>

 

=The TUFLOW Software Suite=

TUFLOW HPC on GPU Hardware is typically our fastest solver for 1D/2D pipe and floodplain simulations.

* TUFLOW HPC supports CUDA enabled NVIDIA GPU cards. For list of supported CUDA enabled graphics cards please visit the <u>[https://developer.nvidia.com/cuda-gpus NVIDIA website]</u>.

* TUFLOW HPC on GPU Hardware can be run in either single or double precision. However, for the vast majority of flood applications single precision is sufficient. We typically run our models on single precision. If you are unsure we recommend running with both the single and double precision solvers and comparing your results.

The precision solver you require will determine the type of GPU card that is best suited for your compute. For any given generation/architecture of cards, the “gaming” cards such as the GTX GeForce and RTX provide excellent single precision performance – typically comparable to that of the “scientific” cards such as the Tesla series. If double precision is required then the scientific cards are substantially faster, but these are also significantly more expensive. The Quadro series cards sit in between for both double precision performance and cost. When checking the specifications of the card it should provide you with a breakdown of the single and double precision throughput in flops. Single precision compute is typically sufficient for TUFLOW HPC modelling.