Rob
Forum Moderator

If you only have 12 real cpu cores I'd not use any more, and would possibly check if 10 was faster given the OS load etc.  Do not use hyperthreading, it's generally not worth the licence "cost". Note, with some of the high core count chips if you don't have enough memory channels you'll find you're not getting a good speed up as the memory limits the performance. 

GPU assistance on the cpu solver is limited to certain tasks so tends not to be as effective as people expect. The pure gpu solver however is significantly faster, but you may find not all of the physics you want to be available: more is being added with each release.Â