How Simcenter STAR-CCM+ utilizes AMD 3D V-Cache Cloud technology.
Siemens has sponsored this post.
Written by: Bahaa Haddoukessouni, Technical Product Management Manager, Siemens Digital Industries Software.

Are you looking for a way to speed up simulation time? Getting fed up with having to find something else to do whilst your computer chugs away to produce results?
Best go and get budget approved for some additional processing power, right?
Wrong.
Extra processing power might not actually make much of a difference. And it isn’t cheap. Fortunately, there is new technology that can make a significant difference to your simulation time and it won’t cost a fortune to implement.
Read on to discover how you can make everyone on your project happier by speeding up simulation results and finalizing designs sooner.
More Than Just Processing Power
More CPU cores and higher clock rates might make games run faster but they are not necessarily enough on their own to deliver high performance when it comes to simulation. Simcenter STAR-CCM+ thrives on low-latency bandwidth, or as its usually known, an L3 cache. No matter how powerful your processor cores are, if the L3 cache they’re retrieving data from isn’t large enough, they have to go to the RAM to get it instead. That’s slower memory, so it takes longer. And when you consider how much data is being processed during a simulation, that’s a lot of additional time.
This is why Siemens and AMD teamed up to produce a solution that would deliver the fastest results for simulation experts.
Introducing AMD 3D V-Cache
A select group of powerful 3rd Gen AMD EPYC processors family uses 3D lithography technology to pack three times as much L3 caches into them. Known as 3D V-Cache, this technology makes it much quicker for Simcenter STAR-CCM+ to regularly grab data to solve flow equations as it’s much more likely to be available in the cache.
Take a look at this chart illustrating the performance difference between the EPYC 7763 and the new EPYC 7773X with 3D V-Cache technology.

As you can see, using the new EPYC 7773X with 3D V-Cache technology makes simulations complete up to 35 percent faster.
So, that’s the performance sorted, but what about the cost?
A high-performance computing (HPC) system can run to millions of dollars. That’s a serious investment that even those who can afford it will need to think twice about. Especially when many companies won’t need this power all of the time, only for specific stages of projects.
Businesses need a more flexible solution. One that gives them fast simulation times, allowing them to get products to market sooner, but that doesn’t require a large, fixed investment covering several years.
Powering Up with Cloud Services
Cloud services are a powerful answer to help companies stay within their budget and still produce advanced simulation results faster.
Rather than investing heavily in their own hardware, businesses can rent resources on a cloud platform when they need them. There’s no need to worry about the long-term use of their investment, and the cost can be integrated within each separate project.
Take virtual machines powered by 3rd Gen AMD EPYC processors with AMD 3D V-Cache technology and combine them with a high-bandwidth, low-latency network backbone and you have the power you need for true HPC-class performance and scalability.
Now, access to the latest technology and fast simulations needn’t be limited to the very biggest businesses anymore. All you need are the skills; the power is available to everyone.
Scaling Up, Up and Away
Can users see standard linear scaling in terms of simulation time on these new cloud servers?
Actually no—they can expect much better.
AMD 3D V-Cache was designed with the needs of software like Simcenter STAR-CCM+ in mind. Each additional instance partitions the problem into smaller pieces, fitting even more of it into this ultra-fast cache. Adding instances unlocks more capability in the AMD EPYC 7003 Series processor, so it achieves superlinear speedup in our standard LeMans race car benchmark.
The results below show how scaling is much more pronounced on these latest servers with the new cache technology. Users will get more value for each instance added to their virtual cluster, with faster simulations than was possible with previous generations.

Pushing Limits
Simcenter STAR-CCM+ is improving its multiphysics CFD capabilities with every new release. As it does, it requires improved hardware to run optimally. Technological innovations are essential.
New AMD processors are enabling computers to keep up with the demands of simulating ever-more complex models. And cloud platforms are helping to make this power more affordable for everyone.
Together, Siemens and AMD are pushing the limits of simulation further than ever before. By making the latest advancements available to as many users as possible, more engineering innovations will be delivered that can benefit people across the world.