Learning Forum

[kedi]

My lab is going to purchase the HPC license for Ansys ED, specifically HFSS and Maxwell, and we need to understand the HPC pack and determine how many HPC packs we need.

 

This webpage explains the Ansys HPC packs. According to the webpage, if we want to benefit from GPU acceleration, we will have to buy HPC Pack cores >= GPU Streaming Multiprocessors (SMs).

 

We have a 32-core CPU and a H100 GPU (114 SMs). If we want to enable the GPU acceleration, do I need 3 HPC packs (128 pack cores): 114 GPU SMs + 14 CPU cores? 

I am also not sure if GPU SM counts take over CPU core counts. If we end up having 3 HPC packs (128 pack cores) and want to enable GPU acceleration, can we enable 32 CPU cores or only 14 CPU cores?

[randyk]

Hi Kedi,

HPC licensing packs allow multiple cores to be used during an analysis.

By default, Ansys applications allow 4 CPU cores to be used without HPC licensing.
HPC Packs provide a method to expand beyond those 4 cores.
A single HPC Pack would allow 5-12 CPU cores, two HPC Packs 13-36 CPU cores, three HPC Packs 37-132 CPU cores.

Solving parametrics or GPU 

1. Regarding GPU's:

HPC licensing enables the use of cores and GPUs to accelerate simulations. In general, each core requires one unit of HPC, while each GPU requires eight units. The selected HPC license type determines which license is used, and how units of HPC are converted to license counts. For details, see the discussion of licensing under Options in Setting HPC and Analysis Options.

 

If the number of simulation jobs exceeds the number of GPUs in a system, the excessive jobs will fall back to CPUs and will be accelerated by up to 8 CPU cores for each job.

Please search help for "GPU Acceleration"
ref:  https://ansyshelp.ansys.com/account/secured?returnurl=/Views/Secured/Electronics/v242/en/home.htm%23../Subsystems/HFSS/Content/HFSS/GPUAcceleration.htm

2. Regarding parametrics:
See the calculator at:
https://www.ansys.com/blog/perform-parametric-studies-hpc2

thanks
Randy