[mesa-users] Reccomendations on hardware to run MESA

[Bill Paxton]

On Feb 19, 2015, at 1:31 AM, Pablo Marchant wrote:

> Hi Bill (and also mesa-users, guess many of you would have something to say on this topic)!
> 
> Norbert over here is planning on upgrading some machines that we use to run stellar models. The idea would be to buy something tailored towards running lots of MESA models, but without actually buying something on the cluster range. I know a while ago you bought some extra hardware for yourself, so I wanted to know if you could give me any pointers in this direction. Also regarding whether things like Xeon Phi accelerators could be of use at some point.
> 

Hi Pablo,

We're working with the Phi to explore ways to make mesa/star use 100's of hardware threads instead of 10's.  The current Phi is perfect for that sort of exploration, but it is years away from maturing to the point that it is a competitive alternative to today's machines for running mesa/star.  That will change, but not yet. 

I don't have extensive knowledge of the current alternatives, but I can report that the workstation I got last year is a great machine for cranking out mesa runs.

It comes with 2 processors, so you have a 20 core machine.  It isn't the option with the most cores, but I think it is the best overall choice.  Unless of course even better things have come along since last year.

	Intel Xeon E5-2680v2 Ivy Bridge 2.80 GHz Ten Core 22nm CPU with 25MB L3 Cache, DDR3-1866, 8.00GT/sec QPI, 115W 
	Supports Hyper-Threading and Turbo Boost up to 3.6 GHz

I purchased mine from Microway and they've been very helpful.  (jan.smith at microway.com)

-Bill


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