DEVELOP3D workstation special report - April 2020

WORKSTATION SPECIAL REPORT APRIL 2020 | DEVELOP3D.COM

WORKSTATION SPECIAL REPORT

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AMD RADEON PRO W5500 REAL-TIME VIZ AND VR FOR THE PRICE OF A TYPICAL CAD-FOCUSED GPU

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WORKSTATION SPECIAL REPORT

All workstations have bottlenecks that slow you down, but do you know where they are? Greg Corke shares some tips to help you identify the components in question and get the most out of your workstation budget

F

or engineers and product designers, the workstation may be an essential piece of equipment, but for many, it’s also just a black box that sits under the desk. Very little attention is paid to the components inside, and when things slow down, it’s the ‘bloody workstation’ that gets both barrels, rather than the CPU, GPU, memory or storage.

It can pay dividends to discover when and where bottlenecks occur. This can help you understand where to allocate workstation budget or how a simple upgrade or change in behaviour might boost performance. Key to this is knowing how the software you use every day actually works.

This is a lot easier than it sounds with some simple tools to help. Some are built into Windows; others are freely downloadable. Many of the major workstation manufacturers, including Dell, HP and Lenovo, offer their own utilities.

At DEVELOP3D, we regularly use Windows Task Manager (right-click the Taskbar and click Task Manager), GPU-Z (techpowerup.com/gpuz) and CPU-Z (cpuid. com). These give you real-time feedback on how each workstation component is being stressed at any point in time. For longer term monitoring, there’s also Windows

Performance Monitor (type ‘perf’ into Windows search and click the result).

MEMORY One of the first and easiest things to check is system memory. When it becomes full, the workstation slows down because applications have to fall back to permanent storage – on solid state drive (SSD) or hard disk drive (HDD) – which is much slower.

These days, we use multiple applications with huge datasets. Even simple Office applications can use crazy amounts of memory. If your memory regularly becomes full, either limit the number of applications you keep open or get a memory upgrade.

Memory is very easy to fit.

With compute-intensive software, including simulation and point cloud processing, memory usage can go up and down over a long period of time. Windows Performance Monitor is a great way of tracking this without staring at your screen for hours on end.

CPU The main thing to look out for with CPUs is core utilisation; that is, how many CPU cores your software uses. If it uses one core the software is single-threaded, and the

Windows Task Manager is your friend

bottleneck is likely to be CPU frequency. If it uses lots of cores, the software is multithreaded and may benefit from a CPU with more cores.

Even though modern workstation CPUs feature a minimum of six or eight cores, a lot of software still can’t take advantage.

Most CAD software, for example, is singlethreaded, although there can be certain processes within it that are multi-threaded.

It’s relatively easy to track core utilisation in Task Manager, as there’s a graph for each logical processor – both the physical core and the virtual core (enabled through Intel HyperThreading (HT) or AMD Simultaneous Multithreading (SMT)).

However, as the charts in Task Manager show CPU utilisation within the entire workstation (including operating system, background operations, graphics drivers and so on), it’s important to make sure your workstation is only doing one thing at a time. Closing other applications certainly helps.

CPU rendering software is extremely good at utilising multiple CPU cores so will devour all the processing power you throw at it. However, this isn’t true for most other multi-threaded software. Some point cloud processing, simulation and CAM applications, for example, only use a few cores. Others use around a dozen or more.

Only a few applications will benefit from virtual cores (SMT or HT). Core utilisation can also vary by dataset and available system memory.

Task Manager is a good starting point for finding out exactly how many cores your software uses. It’s usually quite easy to see if the software is single- or multi-threaded.

And with rendering software, all cores will generally be at 100%. However, things get more complicated with other multithreaded software.

Too many cooks can certainly spoil the broth, so even if Task Manager shows lots of cores in use, the software won’t necessarily be using them efficiently. In some cases,

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WORKSTATION SPECIAL REPORT

the software might actually run faster on a workstation with fewer cores. To get to the nitty-gritty, you really need to do some benchmarks, testing with different numbers of cores by disabling them in the BIOS. Keeping track of CPU frequency is also very important. All modern CPUs feature some kind of ‘boost’ that increases the frequency of one or more cores above the base clock speed. This is done wherever possible, so long as the CPU stays within its power and temperature limits.

Boost speeds can vary dramatically and have a huge impact on performance. In general, in single-threaded workflows, the CPU should hit or get close to its top advertised Turbo frequency. In multi-threaded workflows, it usually sits somewhere between the base and Turbo.

When a CPU gets really hot, it can even be throttled so it goes below the base frequency. If this happens, you can really feel the workstation slow down.

To observe CPU frequency, simply use Task Manager or CPU-Z. If it’s lower than expected, first check out Windows Power Options and see if selecting a high-performance power plan makes any difference. If it doesn’t, then it could be that a heatsink or fan is covered in dust, or that vents are blocked, which makes the CPU harder to cool. This can be a particular problem with mobile workstations where the CPU is crammed into a small space.

However, if you are experiencing throttling because of overheating, you’ll probably also notice excessive noise as the fans will already be working overtime. Here, a quick clean can sometimes do wonders.

Alternatively, simply make sure your machine has enough ventilation, especially in hot weather. Those who are more technical could also upgrade the cooling system.

Sometimes, frequencies can drop over a longer period of time; for example, during ray trace rendering. Frequencies might start high, but slow down after a few minutes when the CPU heats up. Performance Monitor is a good way to track this.

Mobile workstation CPUs can also slow down when running off battery, simply because they can’t get enough power. You may be surprised at how much slower a mobile workstation runs when it’s not plugged in, which will make you think twice about where and how you work.

Frequency variations are not limited to the CPU. Graphics processing units (GPUs) can also experience the same issues, and these can be tracked through GPU-Z or Performance Monitor.

GPU For the GPU, utilisation and memory usage are the main things to look out for.

With any 3D application, load up your largest dataset, turn on your common viewing modes, then move the model around the viewport. It’s important to do this ‘full screen’, as when the application is Windowed, it typically uses less resources.

To stop Task Manager becoming hidden behind your 3D application, click options > Always on Top. You can do similar in GPU-Z. If GPU utilisation hits 100%, as it will likely do in any real-time viz, VR or GPU rendering application, then you can be fairly certain that the GPU is causing the bottleneck. Here, upgrading to a more powerful GPU will increase 3D performance or reduce render time.

However, if GPU utilisation is very low – as it often is in CPU-limited CAD and BIM applications like Autodesk Inventor or Autodesk Revit, then it’s quite likely that the bottleneck is in the CPU and there would be little to no benefit from upgrading to a more powerful GPU. In such cases, the best way to increase 3D performance would be with a higher frequency CPU. For CAD, GPU memory typically isn’t a bottleneck, especially with newer professional graphics cards, although anything under 4GB can cause problems with larger models. But, with the rise in real-time viz, GPU rendering and VR, memory demands have grown. And if you do run out of GPU memory, things can really slow down, or sometimes even crash.

For real time 3D applications, there is a little bit of leeway. Some GPU rendering tools also support ‘out of core’, where some of the memory from the GPU is offloaded to the main system RAM. Generally speaking, however, if you regularly push the memory limits, you’ll likely benefit from a GPU with more memory. However, unlike system memory, it’s not possible to upgrade GPU memory. You have to upgrade the entire GPU. Getting a better understanding of GPU memory usage can be really important in making the best decisions. For example, there are a wide variety of 8GB professional GPUs out there, and while some offer a huge upgrade in terms of raw performance, you may still experience a bottleneck unless you go up to 16GB. One final mention should go to mobile workstations. If you’re experiencing really poor 3D performance, it could be that the software is using the wrong GPU. Most mobile workstations offer switchable graphics, which is designed to use the high-performance Nvidia Quadro or AMD Radeon Pro GPU for 3D applications, and Intel-integrated graphics for less demanding tasks. However, sometimes it gets muddled up. A quick look at GPU-Z will show which GPU is in use and

allow you to change settings accordingly.

Sometimes, switchable graphics needs to be disabled in the BIOS.

STORAGE Task Manager and Performance Monitor include several tools for tracking disk performance and activity, but generally, the best way to identify storage bottlenecks is through real-world benchmarking. In effect, that will involve testing different drives to see how long it takes to complete tasks such as opening or processing datasets or booting up Windows and launching applications.

Synthetic benchmarks, such as CrystalDiskMark, which measure sequential or random read/write performance, only tell part of the story, so don’t be seduced by numbers on charts.

Most operations also involve some form of processing and disk activity may only contribute to a relatively small part of the overall time. When it comes to opening a CAD assembly, for example, a fast SSD is hardly any quicker than a slow HDD. Disk performance becomes more important when working with huge multiGB datasets used in point cloud processing, simulation or 8K video editing. It becomes even more critical when system memory is in short supply.

Of course, disk performance is not just important for tasks that take seconds, minutes or hours. Responsiveness is very important, as is the ability to read data from, and write data to, multiple sources at the same time. This is why you should absolutely not be using a rotating HDD as the system drive in your workstation. As SSDs are now so cheap these days, it’s a bottleneck no one should have to endure.

CONCLUSION Understanding where your bottlenecks occur can help ensure you get the most out of your workstation budget. Over the years we’ve heard several examples of money being thrown down the drain by firms investing in multi-core CPUs or high-end GPUs to ‘speed up’ CAD. While some software companies publish recommended workstation specifications, these tend to be base level and, because of fast-changing hardware, not always up to date. In addition, as everyone’s datasets are different, ‘one size fits all’ advice doesn’t exist.

We’ve also seen cases where technical reality is distorted by marketing ambition.

There are many ways you can identify bottlenecks in your workstation beyond those noted in this article, but hopefully this gives a good starting point. We all want our workstations to go faster, as this can have a huge impact on our productivity. And if it also helps to keep profanities at bay, then that’s no bad thing, either.

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Armari Magnetar® X64T Workstation THE WORLDS FIRST CUSTOM DESIGNED WORKSTATION THAT FULLY UNLOCKS THE PERFORMANCE OF AMD’s 64 CORE 3990X THREADRIPPER PROCESSOR Armari Magnetar® X64T-RD1600G3 FWL – Dual GPU ready workstation Starting from under £6,000 plus VAT

“When testing the 64 Core Magnetar X64T workstation, we were astonished to discover it was 12x faster in VFX rendering than our older workstations and 4x faster than some of our newest workstations.”

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They are behind some of the stunning VFX shots in Star Wars: The Last Jedi and Star Wars: Rogue One.

Guaranteed 32% faster than a stock 3990X, and up to 25% faster than competing 3990X equipped workstations with AIO closed loop liquid cooling.

Magnetar X64T-RD1600G3 FWL achieves 3.89GHz sustained on all cores; performance you can count on for real-world heavy duty application workloads (vs 2.95GHz – 3.0GHz typical frequency boost for a stock 3990X).

The AMD Ryzen™ Threadripper™ 3990X Processor 64 cores and 128 threads for lightning-fast rendering workloads. An unprecedented 88 total PCIe® 4.0 lanes to meet large GPU and NVMe needs.

Up to 288MB of combined cache for rapid access to large data sets.

Up to 256GB Quad-channel DDR4 with available ECC support for reliable throughput.

The Threadripper’s perfect partners: AMD Radeon Pro™ W5500 Professional Graphics Card Features

Ideal for

Next Gen PCI Express 4.0 – Optimal Interface for working with AMD Threadripper

Medium to large-scale modeling and design­

6GB 128bit GDDR6 High speed graphics memory

Visualization­ Virtual Reality Real-time

4x Display Port 1.4 outputs

AMD Radeon Pro™ W5700 Professional Graphics Card

Also available as a Quad GPU ready workstation: Armari Magnetar® X64T-RW2000G3 FWL

Call 01923­225 550 or email sales@armari.co.uk to order the X64T today.

armari.com

Features

Ideal for

Next Gen PCI Express 4.0 – Optimal Interface for working with AMD Threadripper

CAD Design and Modeling

8GB 256bit GDDR6 High speed graphics memory 5x mini Display Port 1.4 + 1x USB-C outputs

Visualization Virtual Reality Multitasking

WORKSTATION SPECIAL REPORT

AMD RADEON PRO W5500 Greg Corke test drives AMD’s new affordable pro graphics card that delivers real-time viz and VR capabilities for the price of a typical CAD-focused GPU

Price $399 amd.com/radeonpro For years, the sub-£400 graphics card has been a mainstay of the CAD and BIM workstation. Each new generation delivers more power, but because of the nature of most CAD and BIM software, better performance on paper might not necessarily translate to a better experience for the end user.

The fact is, the majority of 3D design software is very CPU-limited. In other words, 3D performance is bottlenecked by the CPU, not the GPU. So, even if you got the most powerful workstation graphics card in the world, your 3D model still wouldn’t move more smoothly. With topend cards costing close to £5,000 you could end up wasting lots of money on graphics processing power you never use.

But workflows are changing. In architecture in particular, the use of realtime visualisation and virtual reality (VR) is on the rise. These applications are extremely

Solidworks 2020 SP1 Black Owl PC model

4K

Shaded with edges

1.23

Components = 295 Triangles = 3.6 million

Radeon Pro WX 5100

Frames Per Second (FPS)

62.26

Solidworks 2020 SP1 Production machinery model

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SPECIFICATIONS The Radeon Pro W5500 follows on from the Radeon Pro W5700 to become AMD’s second professional GPU based on its new 7nm ‘Navi’ RDNA architecture. The singleslot graphics card features 8GB GDDR6 memory and four DisplayPort 1.4 outputs to drive up to four 4K displays.

The maximum power consumption is 125W and the board requires an external 6-pin connector, which is fed from the PSU. With this spec, it should be compatible with almost all desktop workstations, apart from Small Form Factor (SFF) models, which tend to take low-profile graphics cards.

The Radeon Pro W5500 is PCIe Gen 4-compatible, which offers double the bandwidth of PCIe Gen 3. The new interface

Solidworks 2020 SP1 MaunaKea Spectroscopic Explorer telescope Shaded with edges

Radeon Pro W5500

57.75

6.96

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6.53

97.09

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90.04

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11.34 13.25

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35

7.21

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30

3.51

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Quadro P2000

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25

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Solidworks 2020 SP1 (RealView) MaunaKea Spectroscopic Explorer telescope

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100

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36.92

Radeon Pro W5700

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350

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Frames Per Second (FPS)

10.52

Quadro P2200

Quadro RTX 4000

4K

5.61

Radeon Pro WX 7100

Radeon Pro W5700

113.20

1.23

Components = 8,000 Triangles = 59 million

Radeon Pro WX 5100

58.83

Radeon Pro WX 7100

0

priced like a professional GPU for CAD or BIM, but it’s significantly more powerful and can also be used for VR.

20 FPS

Solidworks 2020 SP1 (RealView) Black Owl PC model

Radeon Pro WX 5100

Frames Per Second (FPS)

46.09

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20 FPS 0

1.23

Components = 591 Triangles = 5.7 million

Quadro P2200

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Shaded with edges

Radeon Pro WX 5100

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Quadro P2000

GPU-intensive and are not bottlenecked by the CPU in the same way that CAD software typically is. Tools like Enscape, Lumion, Twinmotion, Unity, Unreal Engine, IrisVR, VR4CAD, eDrawings Professional and others will happily devour all the graphics processing power you throw at them.

If you currently own a sub-£400 professional graphics card, you probably won’t be getting the performance you need for real-time viz, especially at 4K resolution. And you can forget about VR. To use these GPU-hungry applications effectively, you’d have to invest in a more powerful and more expensive GPU. The ‘VR Ready’ Nvidia Quadro RTX 4000 and AMD Radeon Pro W5700 would certainly get you there, but will set you back some £700 and typically take the cost of your workstation beyond £2,000.

Now, with the release of the AMD Radeon Pro W5500, those with more limited budgets can also get on board. At $399, it might be

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standard is currently only available in workstations with 3rd Gen AMD Ryzen or AMD Ryzen Threadripper CPUs, but AMD’s graphics card will still work perfectly well in PCIe Gen 3-based Intel systems.

This isn’t really a big deal for CAD or design viz centric workflows, however, as having more bandwidth is unlikely to make any real difference to performance.

In terms of positioning, the Radeon Pro W5500 sits below the double height 205W Radeon Pro W5700. We see it as the natural replacement for both the CADfocused Radeon Pro WX 5100 (8GB) and the entry-level ‘VR Ready’ Radeon Pro WX 7100 (8GB), both of which are over three years old and based on AMD’s 14nm Graphics Core Next (GCN) design.

have a max power consumption of 75W, which is 50W less than the Radeon Pro W5500. However, AMD claims a workstation powered by the W5500 actually consumes less electricity at the plug, in certain CADcentric workflows.

TEST SET-UP To test out the Radeon Pro W5500 GPU, UK firm Armari provided one of its excellent Magentar X Series workstations with the following specification:

THE COMPETITION In terms of price point, the natural competitor to the Radeon Pro W5500 is the Nvidia Quadro P2200. This CAD-focused GPU launched in Spring 2019 as an incremental update to 2017’s Quadro P2000. It has since become a mainstay in many CAD-focused workstations.

Both the P2000 and P2200 are based on Pascal, and not the newer Turing architecture that powers Nvidia’s higherend Quadro RTX GPUs. Fitted with 5GB GDDR5X, they feature less memory but

Autodesk Inventor 2020 Mastenbroek model 1.23

AMD Radeon Pro Driver version – Enterprise 20.Q1 • Nvidia Quadro driver version – 442.19 •

Autodesk Revit 2020 Hotel model

4K

Shaded with edges

AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3970X CPU (32-cores) • 128GB of DDR4 memory • 1TB Corsair MP600 PCIe 4 M.2 NVMe SSD • ASRock TRX40 Creator motherboard • Microsoft Windows 10 Pro •

Frames Per Second (FPS)

4K

Shaded

Frames Per Second (FPS)

1.23

Radeon Pro WX 5100

39.9

Radeon Pro WX 5100

17.5

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40.2

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17.3

Radeon Pro W5500

41.5

Radeon Pro W5500

17.3

Radeon Pro W5700

42.3

Radeon Pro W5700

17.1

Quadro P2000

41.7

Quadro P2200

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Autodesk Revit 2020 Hotel model Realistic

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15.4

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10.1

Radeon Pro W5500

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10.2

Radeon Pro W5700

943

695

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256

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257

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14.8

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6

1,000 passes, accurate quality FHD (1,920 x 1,080 resolution)

4K

Radeon Pro WX 5100

4

Solidworks Visualize 2020 (ProRender) FHD 1969 Camaro

Radeon Pro WX 7100

18.9

50

4K

Realistic + all shadows

2

When using CAD or BIM software, being able to move models quickly and accurately into position is important for creative flow. But with most CAD software being bottlenecked by the CPU and singlethreaded performance in CPUs advancing at a very slow rate, this is not always possible when working with large models.

As a result, software developers have had to look for other ways to improve 3D performance.

The answer has been to temporarily simplify the model when it’s in motion, then fill in the details once it stops.

Different software deals with this in different ways. In Solidworks, for example, detailed geometry is turned into simplified blocks. In Autodesk Revit, lines, shadows and small objects are removed. In Autodesk Inventor, you can set a minimum frame rate between 0 and 20 frames per second (FPS) and in order to maintain it, smaller objects disappear.

To accurately test the relative performance of GPUs, we disable all performance optimisations, so the model is always displayed in full detail. Observing how the Radeon Pro W5500 and other GPUs work

20 FPS

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Autodesk Inventor 2020 Mastenbroek model

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PERFORMANCE IN CAD / BIM

Radeon Pro WX 5100

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The AMD Ryzen Threadripper workstation has a bigger brother, the Armari Magnetar X64T-G3 FWL, which we review in depth on page WS12.

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with Revit and Inventor exposes just how looked at the OpenGL 4.5-based graphics only went below 20 FPS when RealView CPU-limited these applications are, with all engine when it was still in beta in Solidworks was enabled. It looks like AMD has some GPUs giving near-identical FPS scores when 2019. You can read the in-depth article at optimisation work to do here. rotating a model in a consistent way using a tinyurl.com/SW-D3D. 3Dconnexion SpaceMouse Pro. In Solidworks 2020, we tested with a range PERFORMANCE IN REAL TIME VIZ In general, we find anything around of models and viewing modes – shaded with Performance in CAD and BIM software 20 FPS and above to be adequate for 3D edges and with the more realistic RealView, may have been mixed, but the Radeon Pro modelling. Even lower frames can be with shadows and Ambient Occlusion W5500 starts to show its true colours in acceptable to some, but going below 10 FPS enabled. We observed GPU utilisation to real-time viz. It doesn’t hit the heights of is undesirable. Our Revit hotel model is be significantly higher, often hitting 100%. a design viz-focused GPU like the Radeon relatively small and while the Mastenbroek It means users can get a real benefit from Pro W5700 or Nvidia Quadro RTX 4000, but heavy machinery model in Inventor more powerful GPUs, as shown in our it does offer a significant benefit over the is larger, architects and engineers are benchmark charts.

Nvidia Quadro P2200. certainly working on much more In the AEC-focused LumenRT, complex models. And as model it was between 25% to 31% faster. complexity increases, frame rates We experienced similar with our AMD has filled a bit of a gap in the pro will go down, increasing the test model in Autodesk graphics market, offering a GPU that goes automotive reliance on the software’s model VRED Professional, although the beyond CAD into real-time viz and VR at a Quadro P2200 took a slight lead simplification.

To illustrate just how CPUwhen anti-aliasing was enabled. very competitive price point bottlenecked these applications In Enscape, where we use a are, we used the freely very large architectural scene downloadable utilities GPU-Z, and CPU-Z. For our small to medium-sized models, of a museum and its surrounding area, When rotating a model in Inventor and the Black Owl PC (295 components, 3.6M the W5500’s lead got even bigger at 4K Revit, CPU utilisation hit 100%, but the triangles) and production machine (591 resolution. This probably isn’t down to the Radeon Pro W5500 hardly got out of first components, 5.7M triangles), the Radeon raw power of the GPU, but available GPU gear, using only around 10-20% of its Pro W5500 was well above the minimum memory. At 4K, the model needs around resources. In CAD/BIM applications like ideal 20 FPS, even at 4K resolution. However, 7.5GB, which far exceeds the Quadro these, of which there are many, you could with our largest model, the colossal P2200’s 5GB. use a much lower specced GPU and still get MaunaKea Spectroscopic Explorer telescope For CAD, 5GB is usually plenty, but the same 3D performance.

(8,000 components, 59M triangles), it fell because real-time visualisation uses more Solidworks used to suffer from similar below. If working with models of this size, realistic materials and lighting, it often problems in some viewing modes, but for you’d probably want to boost performance needs more. the 2020 release, it got a brand-new graphics by enabling Level of Detail (LoD). The Nvidia But what do these results show us? In engine that is much less CPU-limited. We Quadro P2200 performed much better and general, the Radeon Pro W5500 looks well-

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Enscape 2.6 Museum model

FHD

GPU memory required = 6.15GB

Radeon Pro WX 5100

1.23

Frames Per Second (FPS)

14 26

Radeon Pro W5500

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GPU memory required = 2.49GB

22

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19

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1.23

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1.23

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Radeon Pro WX 5100

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Radeon Pro W5700

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VR

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Lumen RT Roundabout model

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233 112

Quadro P2200 37.5

Radeon Pro WX 7100 9

Radeon Pro W5700

162

Quadro P2000

14.5

Radeon Pro WX 5100 8

Radeon Pro W5500

142

Radeon Pro W5700

12.5

0

50

4K

Radeon Pro WX 7100

77

Radeon Pro W5500 32.5

Frames Per Second (FPS)

20 FPS

Enscape 2.6 Museum model

Radeon Pro WX 5100

1.23

Radeon Pro WX 7100

Quadro RTX 4000

20 FPS

VR

Radeon Pro WX 5100 16.5

Quadro P2200 59

VR Mark Orange

Frames Per Second (FPS)

8.5

Radeon Pro WX 7100

Quadro P2000

0

1.23

Radeon Pro W5700

8 (erratic)

Quadro RTX 4000

FHD

Radeon Pro WX 5100

Radeon Pro WX 7100

Quadro P2000

Lumen RT Roundabout model

23

Quadro RTX 4000

55

20 FPS 0

5

10

15

20

25

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

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suited to real-time work at FHD resolution, but may struggle with some scenes at 4K and above. If you need to maintain frame rates at these higher resolutions, you’d really need to look at a more powerful GPU.

for pro VR, but it’s really for entry-level VR workflows. A quick run through the VRMark benchmark shows it to be around 13% to 23% faster than the Radeon Pro WX 7100, but significantly slower than the Radeon Pro W5700 and Nvidia Quadro RTX 4000.

PERFORMANCE IN GPU RENDERING Of course, VR for design, architecture In addition to real-time 3D, the AMD and engineering is a complex matter and Radeon Pro W5500 can also be used for ray performance is not only influenced by the trace rendering. However, its use is limited application, but the size of the dataset, the by application support. complexity of the geometry (number of As you’d expect, it works with applications triangles), how well the geometry has been that use AMD Radeon ProRender, either optimised, as well as the lighting and textures. directly or via a plug-in. These include We tested it out on some real-world CAD Autodesk 3ds Max, PTC Creo, Modo, data using an Oculus Rift. In Enscape, we Solidworks Visualize, Cinema 4D, Acca were pleasantly surprised to get a generally Software and others. It’s not compatible good experience with our colossal museum with Nvidia Iray or Nvidia RTX, which is model, although for it to be completely found in Luxion KeyShot 9, V-Ray NEXT, flicker-free from all angles, we needed to Unreal Engine, Enscape and many others. dial down quality to low. However, for the Solidworks Visualize 2020 supports both excellent Enscape application, low quality is Nvidia Iray and AMD Radeon ProRender – still pretty good. but it’s not possible to compare performance In Autodesk VRED Professional, we directly, because there are visual differences fired up the automotive Genesis sample between all render engines. model (5.7M triangles). It worked fine with In the world of Radeon ProRender, we Anti-Aliasing (AA) set to off, but flickered were surprised by what we saw: the Radeon as soon as it was enabled, even on low.

Pro W5500 stood shoulder to shoulder with In summary, the W5500 isn’t the kind of the more powerful Radeon Pro W5700. The GPU you’d use for automotive styling, but GPU was also significantly faster than the it should do a pretty good job with less Radeon Pro WX 5100 and WX 7100. visually rich models and in AEC workflows – unless you’re working with really complex PERFORMANCE IN VR datasets. Here, it’s important to note that The Radeon Pro W5500 is the first subthe Oculus Rift is an entry-level VR headset $400 professional GPU that can be used with a per-eye resolution of 1,080 x 1,200.

Autodesk VRED Professional 2020 Automotive model Anti Aliasing (disabled)

FHD 1.23

Radeon Pro WX 5100

Frames Per Second (FPS)

22.6

Radeon Pro WX 7100

Anti Aliasing (medium)

Radeon Pro WX 5100 37.3 54.3 82.7

Quadro P2200

22.9 34.8

Quadro P2000

43.0

18.8

Quadro P2200

Quadro RTX 4000

95.2

23.7

Quadro RTX 4000

50.1

20 FPS 0

20

20 FPS 40

60

80

Anti Aliasing (disabled)

4K 1.23

Frames Per Second (FPS)

8.9 17.0

Radeon Pro W5500

34.0 12.1 15.2

5

10

15

20

60

4K Frames Per Second (FPS)

30

35

40

1.23

Frames Per Second (FPS)

4K

3D performance with Black Owl PC model (shaded + edges) in Solidworks while rendering in the background with KeyShot (CPU)

80.6 18.4

3D performance with Black Owl PC model (shaded + edges) in Solidworks while rendering in the background with Solidworks Visualize (GPU)

6.9

Radeon Pro W5700

Radeon Pro W5500 Quadro P2200

10.9 7.2

22.9 0

5

10

26.9 0

6.00

20

40

60

80

100

3D performance with Mastenbroek model in Inventor (shaded + edges) while rendering in the background with Solidworks Visualize (GPU)

8.9

Quadro RTX 4000 20 FPS

25

Multitasking

Radeon Pro W5500 Quadro P2200

20 FPS 0

50

5.7

Quadro P2200 37.7

40

2.8

Quadro P2000

Quadro RTX 4000

30

1.23

Radeon Pro W5500

Radeon Pro W5700

20

Anti Aliasing (medium)

Radeon Pro WX 7100 21.6

Quadro P2200

10

Autodesk VRED Professional 2020 Automotive model

Radeon Pro WX 5100

Radeon Pro WX 7100

Quadro P2000

0

100

Autodesk VRED Professional 2020 Automotive model

Radeon Pro WX 5100

Frames Per Second (FPS)

16.7

Radeon Pro W5700

33.6

AMD has made a lot of noise about the multitasking capabilities of the Radeon Pro W5500 and how it compares favourably to the Quadro P2200. The Radeon Pro team specifically highlights how its new GPU can maintain 3D performance even when the CPU is being taxed heavily on a multithreaded task like ray trace rendering.

We put this to the test, rendering a scene in KeyShot using the CPU, while modelling in Solidworks at the same time. Using the Black Owl PC model, the Radeon Pro W5500 maintained a solid 80 FPS, virtually the same as it did when KeyShot was not in use. Meanwhile, the Quadro P2200

8.75

Radeon Pro W5500

Radeon Pro W5700

MULTITASKING

FHD 1.23

Radeon Pro WX 7100

Radeon Pro W5500

Quadro P2000

Autodesk VRED Professional 2020 Automotive model

With more modern headsets, which have higher resolution displays, so more pixels to render, performance may go down. This includes the HTC Vive Pro (1,440 x 1,600) Oculus Rift S (1,280 x 1,440) and HP Reverb (2,160 x 2,160).

Finally, with the W5500, you don’t have to be tethered to your workstation to use VR. With AMD ReLive for VR, which comes with the Radeon Pro driver, users can get a professional wireless VR capability by streaming data from the GPU to an HTC Vive Focus Plus headset.

We haven’t tested it out ourselves with the W5500, but AMD has had ReLive for VR working with Unreal Engine and Solidworks eDrawings Professional. You can read more about it at tinyurl.com/D3D-relive.

15

20

25

0

20

40

43.0

Radeon Pro W5500 Quadro P2200

24.0 0

20

40

60

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went down from 141 FPS to 18 FPS, a significant slowdown.

There are workarounds for this that effectively tune your workstation. Setting CPU affinity, for example, which binds a process to specific CPU cores, can help reduce the performance impact on the Quadro P2200. With our 32-core Threadripper 3970X workstation, we set Solidworks and the Nvidia Quadro driver to run on cores 1-4 and KeyShot to run on cores 5-32 and got a fast 139 FPS out of the P2200.

Of course, with a 32-core CPU you have the luxury of losing a few cores and not impacting render times significantly. But in a standard quad-core or six-core workstation, you’d miss out on a lot by going down this route.

The AMD Radeon Pro W5500 also performs well when handling multiple GPU tasks at the same time. Rendering a scene on the GPU using Solidworks Visualize, we got 27 FPS out of the Black Owl PC model in Solidworks. With the Quadro P2200, it went down to an unusable 6 FPS. For the Quadro P2200, the extent of the performance impact does depend on how demanding the 3D application is. As mentioned earlier, Solidworks 2020 uses 100% of the GPU. With Autodesk Inventor, which uses far less, the Nvidia Quadro P2200 dropped from 41 FPS to an acceptable 24 FPS and in Revit from 19 FPS to 12 FPS. It’s important to note here that with Nvidia’s Turing architecture, the foundation for Quadro RTX, Nvidia has improved the multitasking capabilities of its GPUs considerably and, from past experiences, we’ve found the Quadro RTX 4000 can handle concurrent GPU rendering and realtime 3D tasks very well.

REMOTE WORKING One of the less publicised features of the AMD Radeon Pro W5500 is out-of-the-box support for AMD Remote Workstation technology. As the name suggests, this allows users to access their physical workstation remotely, from almost any device – PC, laptop or tablet. AMD says you get the same workstation experience you’d expect to get in the design office, although this will depend on the quality of your internet/network connection, both in terms of latency and bandwidth.

This feature would typically resonate with those who need to work from home on occasion (think flexible working, boiler service or sick child) or finish off a design in the evening, but with the current COVID-19 pandemic, it’s become even more relevant.

AMD doesn’t charge a licence fee for the technology, which works with Microsoft Remote Desktop Connection and Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops.

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The W5500 isn’t the kind of GPU you’d use for automotive styling in VR, but it should do a pretty good job with less visually rich models and in AEC workflows – unless you’re working with really complex datasets

 We tested it out using Microsoft Remote Desktop Connection on our local network and it worked very well, even over wireless.

Set-up is remarkably easy. In Windows, simply ‘allow’ remote connections to the host workstation; then, on the client device, use the Remote Desktop Connection app to connect remotely.

Remote Desktop automatically uses the Radeon Pro GPU on the host workstation, so you get full 3D acceleration in your CAD application.

In our tests, everything was so responsive it felt exactly as if we were working locally.

Nvidia Quadro GPUs also work with Microsoft Remote Desktop Connection and we got a similarly good experience with the Quadro P2200.

On a local network, this feature could be great for getting 3D acceleration into a meeting room without having to physically move a workstation, but the real power of the technology comes when accessing workstations from different locations. We didn’t try this out, as it’s a bit more complex, involving port forwarding on the router and connection over virtual private network (VPN), but this should be bread-and-butter work for most IT departments.

CONCLUSION With the Radeon Pro W5500, AMD has filled a bit of a gap in the pro graphics market, offering a GPU that goes beyond CAD into real-time viz and VR at a very competitive price point. Previously, a professional VR Ready GPU would have set you back around £700 + VAT. The W5500 is half that price.

Product designers and engineers should certainly take note, but the new GPU looks to be a particular attractive proposition for architects, who increasingly want to augment their 3D design process with rich interactive visualisation or immersive VR. Client presentations are one thing, but there is huge potential to use VR during the design process, dipping in and out of the virtual world to get a much better sense of scale and proportion for your evolving building. Previously, this simply wasn’t possible with the typical workstation that sits on the desks of most architects.

The W5500 isn’t for everyone. Those who simply use CAD, especially CPU-limited applications like Revit and Inventor, could certainly get away with a lower spec GPU. In addition, those who take their real-time viz or VR seriously would be much better served by the significantly more powerful Radeon Pro W5700, Quadro RTX 4000 or even the Quadro RTX 5000. But if you want to dip your toes into viz or VR, or give your entire design team the capability to do so, then the $399 price tag is much easier to swallow.

Of course, we don’t expect Nvidia to stay quiet for long. Its current competitive card, the Quadro P2200, is based on its older Pascal architecture and there’s a huge performance gap between the CAD-centric GPU and the powerful Quadro RTX 4000, which is built on the more modern Turing architecture.

AMD has said the Radeon Pro W5500 will be available from Dell in the first half of 2020. We’d be surprised if other workstation manufacturers didn’t follow suit.

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ARMARI MAGNETAR X64T-G3 FWL [64-CORE AMD THREADRIPPER] With its new 64-core Ryzen Threadripper 3990X, AMD has completely transformed the design viz workstation. Ray trace rendering and CAD have never been such good bedfellows, writes Greg Corke

Price £6,664 (Ex VAT) armari.com

A

few years ago, it was almost charge a premium, and the area of those used in its other Product spec unthinkable for there to be a CPU Threadripper 3990X doesn’t workstations. with 64 cores. And, even if there come cheap. The 64-core On average, Armari reckons ■ AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3990X was, the frequency of those cores CPU will set you back $3,990, it can sustain 550-650 Watts of CPU (2.9GHz, 4.3GHz would be so low that you wouldn’t really matching its model number power in real-world applications, Boost) (64 cores) want one inside your workstation. precisely. This might seem with momentary boosts in excess ■ 64GB (4 x 16GB) Corsair Vengeance Lots of cores are great for rendering, but if expensive but, when you of 800 Watts. In practice, this LPX DDR4-3600 C18 that comes at the expense of single-threaded consider the huge impact it can means the machine can maintain SDRAM performance, which is what makes CAD have on design viz workflows, very high clock speeds over long ■ ASRock TRX40 Taichi motherboard and many other design and engineering many will consider it money periods of time; not just in single ■ 2 x 1TB Corsair applications tick, then it’s a compromise few well spent. After all, there’s threaded workflows, but when MP600 PCIe 4 M.2 would be willing to make. only so many coffee breaks you rendering as well.

NVMe SSD (RAID 0) Until recently, advances in CPU technology can take in one day, while you We left it rendering in the ■ AMD Radeon Pro W5700 GPU (8GB) had become quite predictable, but it’s wait for a render to finish. design viz-focused KeyShot ■ Full Water cooled amazing how quickly things can change. for well over an hour and it Loop system (FWL upgrade) – includes In summer 2017, AMD launched Ryzen THE RENDER GOD maintained a phenomenal one free service Threadripper. The first-generation CPUs Armari has a long history of 3.90GHz on all 64 cores. Fan ■ Microsoft Windows featured up to 16 cores and were great for developing high-performance noise was noticeable, but not 10 Pro for Workstations 64-Bit multithreaded workflows but lacked the workstations that are both too distracting. However, it’s ■ Armari Magnetar all-important single-threaded performance extremely well-built and wellimportant to note that this is a S/M/R/X Series - 3 to make them a serious threat to Intel. Today, tuned. The UK firm was one prototype system and, when the Year RTB workstation warranty two and a half years later, and with AMD’s of the first to get on board with machine hits production, Armari 3rd Gen Threadripper rollout complete, that 1st Gen Threadripper and now says the radiator fans will be tuned couldn’t be further from the truth. offers AMD CPUs across its entire Magnetar back to around 50-60% duty cycle maximum.

Early February saw the release of Ryzen range, from single-socket Ryzen and The machine completed our 4K, 128Threadripper 3990X, a 64-core, 128-thread single-socket Threadripper, to single- and pass test render in a record breaking 38 beast of a CPU, which hardly compromises dual-socket EPYC, which is AMD’s official secs. That’s nearly twice as fast as a 32on frequency at all. It has a base clock of enterprise CPU. core Threadripper 3970X and more than 2.9GHz and a max boost of 4.3GHz, but with For the Threadripper 3990X, Armari has ten times as fast as the six-core Intel Xeon sufficient cooling in place, it designed and manufactured E-2176G, the kind of CPU you’d typically can even get close to 4.0GHz a completely bespoke find in a CAD workstation. It was also on all 64 cores. Viz specialists, The Threadripper chassis to handle its extreme streets ahead of the competition in the V-Ray architects, engineers and demands. The 3990X is NEXT benchmark, with a result of 93,436 3990X is product designers can rated at 280W Thermal ksamples. phenomenal really have their cake and Design Power (TDP) but, But this isn’t just about numbers on charts. eat it too. It’s a phenomenal A CPU like this can have a huge impact proposition for unlike AMD EPYC, it can proposition for anyone that on workflow. With high-quality 1,280 x CPU rendering. actually be pushed much uses a CPU renderer. higher. And when more 720-resolution renders literally taking a As far as multi- power gets pumped into As far as multithreaded few seconds and 1,920 x 1,080-resolution threaded performance is concerned, the CPU, the brakes come renders not much longer, there’s no more Intel simply can’t compete. performance is off and Threadripper really stop and start. You really can iterate in real The closest it has is the to fly in multithreaded time without having to compromise on concerned, Intel starts Core i9-10980XE (18-cores) workflows. quality or resolution – although, naturally, simply can’t ($1,000) and the Xeon To do this, Armari uses this depends on your scene’s complexity. compete W-3175X (28-cores) ($2,999).

AMD Precision Boost If you want more cores, Overdrive, which will SYSTEM MEMORY you’d need the serveressentially continue to Memory also plays a very important role focused Xeon Platinum 9282 (56-cores) push the frequency of the CPU as long in rendering. 3rd Gen Threadripper can ($50,000) or two Xeon Platinum 8280s as the workstation can cool it adequately. support up to 256GB, spread across eight (28-cores) ($20,000). And you still wouldn’t And the Magnetar X64T-G3 certainly can. slots, which is important if you work with be able to beat Threadripper 3990X. Its Full Water Loop (FWL) cooling system very large scenes. This is the theory, at least.

Of course, with limited competition on is impressive and comes with a giant Armari tells us compatible 32GB modules the desktop workstation front, AMD can radiator with nearly three times the surface are currently quite expensive, which is one

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CHAOS GROUP ON 3RD GEN THREADRIPPER Chaos Group CTO Vladimir Koylazov

The third generation Threadripper CPUs are great for ray tracing – and there is one crucial breakthrough that makes it possible.

The Threadripper 3990X CPU implements uniform memory access for all

cores, which gives a huge performance boost for rendering.

That’s because usually, the main bottleneck for manycore machines is RAM. Especially with ray tracing, different cores usually need different parts of the scene

geometry or shaders.

Scenes these days can be very large, measuring hundreds of gigabytes.

Making sure that each CPU core gets the data that it needs from the system RAM as quickly as possible is a fairly difficult task.

To make it somewhat easier for hardware manufacturers, the socalled ‘NUMA’ architecture was introduced (where NUMA stands for ‘NonUniform Memory Access’).

For multi-CPU systems, this means that each CPU only has access to a portion of the system RAM directly, and if it needs data from the other portions, it needs to ask another CPU to fetch it.

Within a single CPU, it means that only certain

cores have direct access to the memory, and other cores must ask them to fetch the data they need.

For ray tracing specifically, this adds quite a bit of overhead, and typically, NUMA configurations affect performance in a significantly negative way.

Unfortunately, there is no easy way to optimise the software around this hardware peculiarity.

This is one of the reasons why many-core dual-CPU systems have sometimes not performed as expected for our customers, especially with large scenes that are far larger than the CPU caches.

At Chaos Group, we have profiled many such systems with CPUs from different manufacturers

and, barring bugs or other multithreading problems, what we have found, invariably, is that the main bottlenecks tend to occur when the CPU cores are left waiting for data to arrive from the system RAM. Anything that slows that operation, like a NUMA architecture, has an adverse effect on performance.

In the newest [3rd Gen] Threadripper CPUs, all cores have equal access to the system RAM without additional delays like asking another core to fetch the data.

This allows each CPU core to move through the compute operations a lot faster than with previous NUMA-based architectures.

What you get are 64 CPU cores operating closer to their maximum potential – something that has not been possible with any other CPU previously.

This means that, on the whole, we have found that we have not had to do much to optimise the V-Ray and Corona code for the new Threadrippers.

We did have one piece of code in V-Ray (the light cache calculations) that was limited to 64 threads and which we had to rework a little bit in the latest V-Ray builds, in order to use all 128 logical threads.

But beyond that, we only had to make sure that each CPU core could operate as independently as possible from the rest. chaosgroup.com

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1

2

1 64 cores, 128 threads rendering in KeyShot ● 2 Interior of the Armari Magnetar X64T-G3 (yes, ●

that’s a heat sink at the top taking up half the chassis) 3 Flip handles for easy carrying ● 4 Full Water Loop (FWL) cooling system ●

of the reasons why our test machine was configured with 64GB (4 x 16GB Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR4-3600 C18 SDRAM modules) – the other being that 64GB is a good amount for mainstream viz workflows.

But it’s not just about capacity. 3rd Gen Threadripper also features a new memory architecture that gives every single core fast and equal access to memory. In contrast, with 2nd Gen Threadripper, not all cores had direct access to memory, so sometimes had to ask other cores for data and then wait for it to arrive.

Chaos Group’s CTO Vladimir Koylazov explains this in more detail in the box-out on the previous page.

probably be better spent on the 24-core AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3960X, which is less than half the price, or even the 16-core AMD Ryzen 9 3950X. In saying that, it’s important to note that Threadripper beats Ryzen hands down when it comes to memory bandwidth and cache, both of which can be really important for memory intensive workflows like point cloud processing or simulation. 3rd Gen Threadripper can also support much more memory – 256GB, compared to 128GB in 3rd Gen Ryzen.

For single-threaded applications like CAD or BIM, the 64-core 3990X is never going to beat a top-end, eight-core Intel CPU like the Core i9 9900K. But it’s not that far behind.

USB 3.1 Gen 1 ports and (on the production version, at least) a USB 3.2 Gen2x2 port.

There are plenty more USB ports on the rear of the machine, as well as two Ethernet ports (2.5Gb/s and 1Gb/s).

To handle the big power demands of the 3990X, Armari uses the ASRock TRX40 motherboard. With limited on-board M.2 sockets, it comes with a Hyper Quad M.2 PCIe add-in board that can host up to four M.2 NVMe SSDs. In our review machine, it has a pair of 1TB Corsair MP600 M.2 NVMe SSDs configured as a 2TB RAID 0 array.

The MP600 is based on PCIe 4.0, offering twice the bandwidth of PCIe 3.0, so is already a fast SSD. It boasts sequential read and write speeds of 4.95GB/sec and BEYOND RENDERING 4.25GB/sec respectively, but Of course, designers, configuring it as RAID 0 engineers and architects aren’t takes it to new levels. In the In all the years I’ve been reviewing only interested in ray trace CrystalDiskMark benchmark, workstations I can’t remember a CPU ever rendering. Putting BIM and it clocked 9,062MB/sec read CAD to one side for a moment, impressing me as much as the 64-core 3990X. and 8,298MB/sec write and there are several multithreaded It truly is a phenomenal feat of engineering copied a 90GB zip file in just tools that can benefit from over 50 secs. multiple CPU cores, although Of course, SSD performance very few apart from video encoding and It completed our Solidworks 2020 IGES like this will only truly benefit those working editing that can use all 64 cores as efficiently export test in 84 secs, only 9 secs slower with colossal datasets, typically seen in as a ray trace renderer. Many simulation than an overclocked 4.9GHz Core i9 9900K, workflows such as high-end viz, 8K video, and point cloud processing tools, for which is still one of the best CPUs out point cloud or simulation. Anyone with example, are limited to a dozen or so cores, there if you want a workstation that is 100% more mainstream viz workflows will likely or offer very little additional benefit if your focused on CAD. be more than happy with a single MP600, workstation CPU has more. With some backed up by up one to four 3.5/2.5-inch applications, processing times can even go INSIDE THE MAGNETAR X64T-G3 SATA/SAS HDDs/SSDs. up once you hit the CPU core sweet spot for Armari’s 64-core Threadripper workstation If you’ve forked out $4k for a 64-core CPU, the software or dataset you’re working on. is a serious piece of engineering and one the chances are you’ll only really want to With this in mind, unless you know for of the heaviest workstations we’ve ever use the GPU for 3D graphics or VR. The certain that your design and engineeringreviewed, thanks in part to its hefty cooling Magnetar X64T-G3 came with a single AMD focused software will benefit from 64 system. To make it easier to carry, there Radeon Pro W5700 (8GB), which is a decent cores, we wouldn’t really recommend the are two handles on top that flip around 180 choice for mainstream design viz.

Threadripper 3990X for anything other than degrees, so they sit flush when not in use.

For more demanding 3D workflows, the ray trace rendering. Instead, money would Next to the front handle, you’ll also find two machine can handle one or two Nvidia

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Quadro RTX 5000, 6000 or 8000 GPUs, but if you want three or four GPUs, perhaps for GPU rendering, then you’re best off talking to Armari.

With a different motherboard (the ASRock TRX40 Creator) and a 2000W PSU (instead of our test machine’s 1300W EVGA SuperNOVA G2 GOLD Modular), the workstation can support four GPUs. However, it may not be able to deliver the same power to the Threadripper 3990X, so all core clock speeds may be lower.

CONCLUSION In all the years I’ve been reviewing workstations, I can’t remember a CPU ever impressing me as much as the 64-

4

core Threadripper 3990X. It truly is a phenomenal feat of engineering, giving the best of both worlds for single-threaded CAD and multithreaded ray trace rendering.If you use a design viz tool like V-Ray or KeyShot, then it’s completely untouchable. Intel has nothing that gets remotely close.

But Intel Core or Intel Xeon aren’t the only competitors to AMD Threadripper. In the last few years, the GPU has also become a serious challenger for rendering.This is especially true for Nvidia RTX GPUs, which feature dedicated cores for ray tracing and AI denoising, and more memory on the high-end Quadros. RTX is also supported by an increasing number of viz tools, including V-Ray, KeyShot and Enscape.

GPU rendering has certainly been gaining traction, but with AMD Threadripper delivering genuinely huge leaps in performance and offering quick access to up to 256GB memory, the battle is far from over.

Of course, a 64-core CPU isn’t for everyone.

Designers, architects and engineers who only use CAD or BIM will likely fare better on Intel, which still offers faster singlethreaded performance with an eight-core CPU like the Core i9-9900K. But if you’re into ray tracing in any form, any one of the 3rd Gen Threadrippers, including the 24-core 3960X and the 32-core 3970X, should serve you well. And Armari is proving to be one of the best at getting the most out of this exciting new platform.

THREADRIPPER WORKSTATIONS SOME ALTERNATIVES

Boston offers two Threadripper workstations in its VENOM range, the mid-tower TR31-10NP and the full-tower TR32-10NP. The main difference is expandability, with the TR32-10NP offering up to four double-width GPUs and up to eight 3.5-inch HDDs. The Venom TR3 series is available for testing, purchase or hire.

The BOXX APEXX T3 is one of the smallest Threadripper workstations out there, with the same chassis as the AMD Ryzen-based APEXX A3 we reviewed earlier this year (tinyurl.com/BOXX-A3).

For more memory (up to 256GB), more GPUs (up to four), more M.2 SSDs (up to four) and slighly higher clock speeds, there’s also the larger APEXX T4.

Interpro’s Threadripper workstation might go under a single name (IPW-TR), but it’s highly customisable, with many different combinations of chassis, motherboard and cooling to suit requirements. The IPW-TR is said to be near silent in operation and can be overclocked, but Precision Boost Overdrive is proving most popular.

Puget Systems is a US firm that specialises in custom workstations. To demonstrate its knowledge of software, it has tailored its Threadripper workstation to different workflows, including photogrammetry and rendering. The website features several articles on Threadripper which include some benchmarks.

Scan’s 3XS WA6000 Viz workstation, which we reviewed in February, was recently rebranded to the Scan 3XS GWP-ME Q248T. Like Armari, Scan is getting the most out of the 3rd Gen Threadripper architecture by pairing it with the superfast PCIe 4.0 Corsair MP600 NVMe M.2 SSD. You can read the full review at tinyurl.com/Scan-TR.

Workstation Specialists’ WS-1640A-G4 Threadripper workstation can take up to four double-height GPUs and can be rack-mounted with an optional kit. The UK firm also offers a 2nd Gen Threadripper mini workstation, but the current lack of Micro-ATX motherboards for 3rd Gen Threadripper means it hasn’t been updated.

boston.co.uk

boxx-tech.co.uk

ipworkstations.com

pugetsystems.com

scan.co.uk/3xs

workstationspecialist.com

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Multitask like an octopus You always need to multitask.

Your graphics card should too.

86

AVERAGE MULTITASKING .82 SCORE1

AMD Radeon™ Pro W5500

7.91

AVERAGE MULTITASKING SCORE1

NVIDIA® Quadro® P2200

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RELATIVE PERF. IN IDENTICAL WORKLOADS EFFICIENT

NVIDIA® Quadro® P2200 ODE 441.66 Driver

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©2020 Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. All rights reserved. AMD and the AMD Arrow logo, Radeon, and combinations thereof are trademarks of Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. AutoCAD is a registered trademark or trademarks of Autodesk, Inc., and/or its subsidiaries and/or affiliates in the USA and/or other countries. NVIDIA, and Quadro, are trademarks and/ or registered trademarks of NVIDIA Corporation in the U.S. and other countries. Other product names used in this publication are for identification purposes only and may be trademarks of their respective companies.

See FOOTNOTE RPW-274 on http://amd.com/RadeonProW5500

1

WORKSTATION SPECIAL REPORT

SCAN 3XS GWP-CAD Q116C Greg Corke gets hands-on with this Intel Core i9 workstation from Bolton-based Scan. Despite strong competition from AMD across the board, the i9-9900K still rules the roost in single-threaded software such as CAD Recently, there’s been such a focus on AMD with its excellent 3rd Gen Ryzen and 3rd Gen Ryzen Threadripper CPUs that it’s been easy to forget about Intel. But the fact remains that Intel continues to have a lead in single-threaded performance, albeit a relatively small one, and we all know this is what matters for CAD or BIM. Scan’s new 3XS GWP-CAD Q116C is built around the Intel Core i9-9900K CPU. Even though it has eight cores and 16 threads, it has the highest Turbo frequency (5.0GHz) out of all of Intel’s desktop CPUs, and a base clock of 3.6GHz. The high frequency makes it good for CAD, but to help with multi-threaded workflows like rendering, simulation or point cloud processing, you’ve also got plenty of cores to play with.

In all the years I’ve been reviewing Intel Core-based 3XS workstations from Scan, this is first one I’ve seen where the CPU isn’t overclocked.

Scan’s reason for this is to deliver ultimate performance in CAD by running one or two cores at the full Turbo frequency of 5.0GHz. However, as Scan can deliver the same CPU overclocked, with all eight cores running at 4.9GHz, you only get a small additional benefit on paper. More importantly, when using a CPU renderer like KeyShot for any amount of time, the all-core frequency goes down to 4.2GHz. In Solidworks, when exporting an IGES model using a single thread, we saw no difference between the stock Core i9-9900K in the Scan 3XS GWPCAD Q116C and one that is overclocked to 4.9GHz, as reviewed in the Scan 3XS WI4000 Viz last year. Both machines finished the test in 75 secs, the fastest time we’ve recorded, and five seconds faster than the 16-core AMD Ryzen 9 3950X-based BOXX Apexx A3 workstation we reviewed last year.

When it comes to rendering, however,

the 4.9GHz overclocked Core of your models, you may even be Product spec i9-9900K has a significant able to go down to a Quadro P620 lead, finishing our 4K KeyShot (2GB). Entry-level AMD Radeon ■ Intel Core i9 9900K CPU (3.6GHz, scene in 255 secs, 13% faster Pro GPUs are also an option, 5.0GHz Turbo) than the standard Core i9including the Radeon Pro WX (8 cores, 16 threads) 9900K, which took 293 secs.

3100 (4GB) or WX 4100 (4GB).

■ 32GB (2 x 16GB) Corsair Vengeance Armed with this information, For those with bigger graphics DDR4 3000MHz memory we’d almost certainly go for demands, the Scan GWP-CAD ■ Nvidia Quadro an overclocked CPU in this Q116C can take anything up to a P2200 GPU (5GB machine, especially as it’s a nopair of Quadro RTX 8000 GPUs, GDDR5) cost option from Scan. But it’s so there’s plenty of scope for this ■ Asus Z390-A motherboard down to the customer to decide, machine. But unless you’re into ■ 1TB Samsung 970 and there are other factors to GPU rendering, there’s little Evo Plus M.2 consider such as workflow and benefit to having dual GPUs in a NMVe SSD energy consumption. system like this.

■ Corsair Carbide 275Q case For a CAD-focused With the cost of solid state ■ 550W Corsair TMX, workstation like this, 32GB (2 drives (SSDs) coming down, 80PLUS Gold PSU x 16GB) of DDR4 3,000MHz it’s increasingly common to ■ Microsoft Windows memory is pretty standard, see larger capacity M.2 NVMe 10 Professional 64-bit but the machine can actually SSDs as standard issue in ■ 3 Years warranty – hold up to 128GB, spread workstations. Scan has gone for 1st Year Onsite, 2nd and 3rd Year RTB across four modules. This a 1TB Samsung 970 Evo Plus, a (Parts and Labour) could be very useful for solid choice. With this capacity, ■ £1,667 (Ex VAT) memory-hungry applications you don’t necessarily need a hard £2,083 (Ex VAT) with 128GB memory like point cloud processing or disk drive (HDD) for secondary upgrade simulation. However, when storage, especially if you store scan.co.uk/3xs the machine is maxed out like most of your files on a server. this, Scan fits it with slower However, the machine can take 2,666MHz modules to maintain stability up to four 3.5-inch drives. due to the increased load on the memory As we’ve come to expect from Scan, the controller. machine runs incredibly quietly, even under Upgrading or replacing memory isn’t heavy load. The chassis is well-equipped straightforward. In order to get to the with ports, with two handy USB 3.1 on the modules, you first front and five more on the rear, together need to remove with a single USB Type C and two USB 2.0. the radiator/fan There’s also Gigabit Ethernet, but WiFi is unit from the top not built in. of the Corsair Carbide 275Q CONCLUSION case, which is If you use CAD or BIM software, you won’t attached with find many workstations faster than the eight screws.

Scan 3XS GWP-CAD Q116C. Intel offers It’s not hard to cheaper CPUs with fewer cores/threads, do, but it does but the Core i9-9900K continues to be the take a little time. fastest when it comes to single-threaded This isn’t an performance, closely followed by the Intel issue with the Core i7 9700K, which has a Max Turbo of larger Corsair 4.9GHz but costs around £100 less. cases that Scan With eight cores and 16 threads, the uses on some Intel Core i9-9900K also delivers decent of its other performance when rendering. But if you workstations, as take design visualisation seriously, you’ll the radiator sink likely get more out of the similarly priced is mounted on AMD Ryzen 9 3900X, which has 12 cores the front. and 24 threads, even though performance in The Nvidia CAD will take a small hit.

Quadro P2200 While rendering software will generally (5GB) graphics card is a solid choice devour all the CPU cores you throw at it, for CAD, delivering great performance in many other multi-threaded applications Solidworks 2020 in particular. However, if do not. Some point cloud processing and your CAD or BIM application is particularly simulation software, for example, peak CPU-limited, like Autodesk Revit or at fewer than eight cores. With multicore Autodesk Inventor, then you can probably CPUs now standard and Intel seeing save yourself some cash and go for a Quadro serious competition from AMD at all price P1000 (4GB) instead. Depending on the points, it’s never been more important to memory demands of your application and understand how your software works.

WS18 APRIL 2020 DEVELOP3D.COM

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WORKSTATION SPECIAL REPORT

CLOUD WORKSTATIONS MICROSOFT AZURE NVV4 In these uncertain times, the cloud workstation has suddenly become much more relevant. Greg Corke explores the new Microsoft Azure NVv4 family of virtual machines, some of which are extremely well-suited to 3D CAD

Price From $0.233/hour tinyurl.com/NVv4-Azure Cloud workstations capable of running 3D applications have been around for some time, but this has mostly been through smaller firms like Cloudalize (cloudalize.com) and Frame, now under the ownership of Nutanix (nutanix.com/products/frame).

It’s only in the last few years that the major cloud providers have come on board, offering a range of virtual machines (VMs) or workstation ‘instances’ that are accelerated by professional GPUs. Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Google all offer several different GPU-accelerated instances from their datacentres around the world. To date, most of these have been powered by Intel Xeon CPUs, Nvidia Tesla GPUs and Nvidia GRID technology.

But now, with new-generation hardware, AMD is starting to get in on the action.

Microsoft Azure NVv4 is a new series of virtual desktops that are built entirely on AMD technology, namely AMD Radeon Instinct MI25 GPUs and AMD 2nd Gen EPYC 7V12 (Rome) CPUs. The driving force behind NVv4 is to offer customers cost-effective, entry-level GPU-accelerated VMs. This could be for applications like CAD or BIM, which generally don’t place huge demands on the GPU, but also for anyone in an extended project team who might need to view or interact with 3D models – on desktop or mobile devices. In manufacturing, this could be through a product lifecycle management (PLM) system. In construction, it could be a common data environment (CDE).

Because the allocation of processing resources in NVv4 is really flexible, Microsoft is able to get a really good density of users on each of its servers, which means lower costs for customers. Prices start at $0.233/hour, which is very cheap as far as GPU-accelerated VMs go.

The key component that makes this possible is the AMD Radeon Instinct MI25 GPU, which can be virtualised at a hardware level. Each M125 can be partitioned into one eighth, one quarter or one half of a GPU. It can also be used as a full GPU. In contrast, Microsoft Azure instances powered by Nvidia, such as NVv3, can only be configured

with one or more GPUs, making them better suited to more demanding 3D workflows.

THE NVV4 INSTANCES Microsoft currently offers four different NVv4 instances, which are detailed in the table below. Just like a personal workstation, each offers different levels of CPU, memory, GPU, GPU memory and storage.

NV8as_v4 uses 1/4 of the AMD Radeon Instinct MI25. This makes it well-suited to 3D CAD and BIM software, as many of these applications have relatively low GPU requirements. If you work with small models in a 3D CAD tool like Inventor or Revit, you might even get away with the NV4as v4 instance, which uses 1/8 of a GPU, although this VM is probably better suited to part-time consumers of lightweight 3D models, who might typically struggle with a standard VM without GPU acceleration.

For more demanding 3D applications, you’ll need a more powerful instance.

NV32as v4, for example, features an entire AMD Radeon Instinct MI25 GPU with 16GB of memory. However, for more demanding 3D workflows, firms can also choose from several NV instances that use an entire Nvidia Tesla M60 GPU, including NVv3. Product design, architecture and engineering firms can choose a combination of instances to best support their teams and upscale or downscale as required.

The partitioning of the AMD Radeon Instinct MI25 GPU is made possible by AMD’s hardware-based GPU virtualisation technology. AMD MxGPU is built on the single root I/O virtualisation (SR-IOV) interface, an extension to PCI Express

(PCIe). Originally developed for networking, SR-IOV allows a PCIe device to appear as multiple separate physical PCIe devices. In the case of the AMD Radeon Instinct MI25, this is up to eight separate GPUs. As with most cloud-based VMs, the NVv4 family does have its limitations insofar as the instances that come with bigger GPUs also have increased CPU, memory and storage. Depending on your workflow, this could mean you end up paying for resources you don’t really need. For example, most real-time viz applications will benefit from a fast GPU but don’t need a CPU with lots of cores. If that is the case, you might get better value from one of the Nvidia-based instances, which sometimes have ‘promo’ pricing.

If you are after real flexibility, some of the smaller cloud workstation providers, such as Scan, who partners with Ebb3, can be more flexible, scaling individual VM resources up and down as required.

A GLOBAL SOLUTION NVv4 is currently limited to a few Azure regions, including South Central US, East US and West Europe (Amsterdam), but it will be rolled out to additional regions soon.

For cloud workstations, the location of the datacentre is really important, as latency (reaction time, measured in milliseconds) increases with distance. So the further away you are, the bigger the delay you might see between moving the mouse and seeing the 3D CAD model react on screen. High latency can severely impact the user experience.

Project data needs to be stored next to the VMs, but this doesn’t mean globally dispersed teams have to work out of the same

Size

vCPU

Memory: GiB

Temp storage (SSD) GiB

GPU

GPU memory: GiB

Standard_NV4as_v4

4

14

88

1/8

2

Standard_NV8as_v4

8

28

176

1/4

4

Standard_NV16as_v4

16

56

352

1/2

8

Standard_NV32as_v4

32

112

704

1

16

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WORKSTATION SPECIAL REPORT

datacentre, with those furthest away taking a performance hit. Azure can be set up to work with global file system technologies from firms including Panzura (panzura.com) and Nasuni (nasuni.com) which can automatically consolidate data from different data centres so there’s a ‘single source of truth’.

our London office, connecting to the West however good your connection is, NVv4 Europe Microsoft Azure datacentre in won’t be as fast as a personal workstation Amsterdam, a distance of around 250 miles. with a six- or eight-core CPU. CAD is mostly We used a Virgin 100Mbps internet single-threaded, so is very reliant on CPU connection (wired and wireless) and a frequency, and while desktop workstation ten-year-old Windows PC and five-year-old CPUs commonly go above 4.0GHz, the MacBook Pro as end points. We also tested 64-core “Rome” EPYC 7V12 CPU is locked over 4G, tethered to an iPhone 6S. at 2.4GHz. CPU frequency will also impact ENTERPRISE GRADE We tested first with Autodesk Inventor 3D performance, especially in CPU-limited Microsoft NVv4 is an enterprise solution. and Autodesk Revit, both at FHD and 4K applications like CAD. As such, it’s probably better suited to larger resolution. In general, everything worked We didn’t get involved with tuning the VM organisations. This doesn’t mean smaller very well. We got the best experience when – a task best done by experts, which we are engineering firms or architectural practices the Windows PC was connected directly certainly not. Working with some remote can’t benefit, but they would almost certainly to the router via Ethernet, cutting out any display protocols in constrained networks, need help to get up and running. additional latency. It was just like working for example, the VM could be configured to Firms can work directly with Microsoft, on a local workstation with no lag or image prioritise performance over visual quality. but there are also several service providers, degradation. This was the case when using In doing so, the model might be quite including Workspot (workspot.com), IMSCAD both Microsoft Windows Remote Desktop heavily compressed when in motion, but a Cloud (imscadcloud.com), CloudJumper (RDP) 10 and Teradici PCoIP. With the fraction of a second after you stop moving the (cloudjumper.com) and Nutanix Frame Teradici PCoIP Software Client, we also had mouse, it will render an uncompressed frame. (nutanix.com/products/frame). Some simplify the added benefit of being able to use a 3D deployment so new customers can get set Connexion SpaceMouse.

CONCLUSION up in a matter of minutes. Others offer Things didn’t work quite as well over NVv4 opens up a new chapter for Microsoft counsultancy, assessing in its ever-evolving cloud customer needs in order to workstation platform. It gives create ‘turnkey’ solutions NVv4 gives CAD users access to cost-effective CAD users and part-time based on Azure, handling consumers of 3D models GPU-accelerated VMs with a level of 3D everything from storage, access to cost-effective performance much better matched to the software, licensing, GPU-accelerated virtual performance tuning desktops with a level of 3D demands of their software and VM management, performance much better to ongoing monitoring, matched to the demands of maintenance and cost management.

802.11g WiFi, where we experienced a small their software. Using a high-end GPU to Remote display protocols allow the desktop lag. The lag was more noticeable over our run a CPU-limited CAD application like hosted in Azure to be displayed on the screen poor one-bar 4G connection, although the Inventor or Revit is not only overkill, but of the end client. The NVv4 VM series machine was still usable. We even got Revit also means firms pay for resources they works with three different types: Microsoft running on an iPhone. This was more of a simply don’t need.

Windows Remote Desktop (RDP) 10, technology demonstration than a practical NVv4 is not without compromises.

Teradici PCoIP, and Citrix HDX 3D Pro. test, as desktop applications with small While the NV8as_v4 instance is a good There are pros and cons to each, and this icons don’t mix well with tiny touchscreens. spec for CAD, anyone requiring more 3D is certainly where a service provider can However, with the right kit, you could performance for workflows including realearn its money with expert advice. RDP actually run CAD on an Android phone, time viz will also have to pay for unwanted is free and already installed/enabled in hooking it up to a TV, mouse and keyboard.

CPU cores and memory.

Windows and Azure by default. However, it’s We also tested out the instance with Also, in terms of single-threaded generally considered not to offer as good an a more demanding 3D application, the performance, the EPYC CPU can’t compete experience as HDX 3D Pro or PCoIP, which AEC-focused real-time viz tool Enscape. with a typical desktop workstation CPU. are more robust in terms of adjusting to With our standard test models, frame rates But comparing desktop to cloud in terms of meet network performance constraints. were very low and while you might get away specs alone misses the point entirely. with working with smaller models at FHD Cloud workstations are all about RESULTS ON TESTING resolution, for a GPU-hungry application flexibility and ease of deployment. In these We got hands-on with NVv4, testing out like this, you really need a bigger instance. unprecedented times, supporting CAD the CAD-focused NV8as_v4 instance from One thing that’s important to note is that, users working from home on PCs or laptops is very complex. With the cloud, you only need to worry about the end point and its Internet connection, although increased competition for bandwidth may also be a challenge.

The ability to work from Cloud workstations not huge files and manage workers are having to Cloud workstations can be used from anywhere on any device only allow architects, revisions. compete for bandwidth, anywhere, on any device, with resources is a key benefit of cloud engineers and designers But using cloud not only with neighbours scaled up and down on demand and workstations that has to access powerful CAD workstations in this but within their own long been promoted. workstations and licensed current climate also household, thanks to engineering datasets kept secure, in sync In light of the current software from home, brings its own set of schoolwork and YouTubeand available to global teams in seconds.

Coronavirus pandemic but firms can also retain challenges. In the UK, as based entertainment. This This isn’t just a workstation in a different and the dramatic much better control over we write this on March is especially true at peak increase in home their project data, storing 24, Internet usage has times, so individuals may guise. It’s a completely different way of working, it has become everything in the cloud, risen dramatically in the need to consider shifting working that has now become much more even more relevant. rather than having to share last week and many home their working days. cost-effective for CAD.

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CLOUD WORKSTATIONS AND CORONAVIRUS

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From BIM to digital fabrication Building Information Modelling (BIM) for Architecture, Engineering and Construction

Building Information Modelling technology for Architecture, Engineering & Construction

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06/06/2019 15:25