Using Sonnet EM simulator in 64 bit processor and 64 GB of memmory

Hi,

I have a 64 bit Intel Xeon computer. It has 64 Gb of internal memory and running using windows 7.
I wanted to run a sonnet simulation which requires about 5 Gb of memory. However, it still runs slowly. It seems like it does not use all 4 cores of the computer.
Can somebody help regarding this issue?

Thanks a lot!

Which Sonnet version and solver license do you have?

Multithreading is supported since version 12.56.
With the "emdesktop" license, Sonnet 12 will simulate on max. 2 cores.
With the "emhighperformance" license, Sonnet 12 will simulate on max. 8 cores.

Hi,
Thanks for the reply. Is it possible to know the cpu speed is also affects alot? My speed is about 2.4 GHz.

Thanks alot!

Hello again,

I have not tested in detail, but I expect that the simulation speed is somehow linear with CPU clock, if you compare the same CPU generation.

CPU generation makes a big difference. Sonnet on Xeon 55xx is much faster than Xeon 54xx (at the same clock speed).

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One note on your big model: Sonnet switches to 64bit mode for simulations that need > 3.3GB memory. In 64bit mode, only the matrix solve part of Sonnet 12 is multi threaded, but not the matrix fill part.

Sonnet 12 with model <= 3.3 GB:
matrix fill multi threaded, matrix solve multi threaded

Sonnet 12 with model > 3.3 GB:
matrix fill single threaded, matrix solve multi threaded

This will change in Sonnet 13, where everything is always multi threaded in 32 and 64bit mode. This means that models >3.3 GB will have faster matrix fill in Sonnet 13. The matrix solve is already multi threaded in Sonnet 12, so that will not change.

It depends on your model how much time is spent in matrix fill and matrix solve. You can look at Project > View log > Timing log to check what the matrix fill and matrix solve times are for your model, to see if Sonnet 13 will be much faster for this model.

Best regards
Volker

Hi,

Thank you for the information. Is it possible to know whether sonnet 13 is available?

Thanks!

Just to amplify, only the sonnet professional series will use more than one core. Anything from Sonnet level 3 gold and down will only use 1 core.

Trust me, you would like 2 or more cores!

The expected release date is July 2011.