RE: [EnergyPlus_Support] Energy Modeling with the new MS Surface book Core i5 and no dGPU

I am pretty sure that even the entry level Surface Book is more than enough for running DesignBuilder (and OpenStudio, though I have less experience with it.) The 6th Gen mobile i5/i7 processors are very good. The i5 6300U nearly matches the performance of desktop i3s. For running EnergyPlus simulations, it will probably outperform 95% of laptops that are more than 1 year old. The performance difference between the i5 (6300U) and the i7 (6600U) is less than 10% according to some benchmarks.

Regarding the GPU, the integrated Intel HD Graphics 520 is surprisingly strong. If the rumors are correct that the Nvidia dGPU used in high spec Surface Books is similar to 940M, then the performance difference between the integrated and discrete GPU options is again less than 10%...

Both DesignBuilder and OpenStudio come with cloud computing functions, which is perfect for your mobility needs.

Dr Yi Zhang, PhD CEng MCIBSE MASHRAE

Director

Energy Simulation Solutions Ltd. (UK)

T: +44 (0)7809 572863

E: yi.zhang@xxxxxxxxxx

W: www.ensims.com

From: EnergyPlus_Support@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:EnergyPlus_Support@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: 20 October 2015 00:04
To: EnergyPlus_Support@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [EnergyPlus_Support] Energy Modeling with the new MS Surface book Core i5 and no dGPU

One thing I might be scared off if you're using openstudio is the sketchup plugin. On my old laptop I could do anything with large model. It would freeze a lot, an adding thermal zones in there was a no-no. Note that this was on openstudio like 0.8 and sketchup 8, not sure what has changed since then. The integrated gpu just wasn't enough.

If you can get your hands on a similar tablet, I'd suggest opening or creating a large model and see what's what.

Julien

Envoyé de mon iPhone

Le 19 oct. 2015 à 14:35, "Jim Dirkes jim@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [EnergyPlus_Support]" <EnergyPlus_Support@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> a écrit :

Since E+ was converted to C++, I understand it's getting faster, but don't know if it still cares (as it used to) a lot about RAM size and hard drive speed.
Nonetheless, we use 2 year old desktop i5s with 8GB and solid state hard drives and they work just fine. We always, however, run models as Design Days only until confident they're correct. That keeps run times down.
After we stat running full weather years, we still find problems, but most are already fixed.
Hope that helps.

On Sun, Oct 18, 2015 at 2:55 PM, variablespeed77@xxxxxxxxx [EnergyPlus_Support] <EnergyPlus_Support@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Im buying a new laptop and already made up my mind that its going to be the new MS Surface Book. I need your help deciding if the low spec model that I choose is the right one for my needs. It has Intel icore 5 8GB RAM with no dGPU (the more expensive model has Core i7 with dGPU). I will be using it to model residential and medium size office buildings using Designbuilder and probably open studio. How much slower do you think it could be relative to the higher spec model?

I know that a desktop is better for modeling, but that doesn’t suite my mobility needs, im also not considering laptop options other than Surface Book. I know that I higher specs model will perform better in general, but I don’t want to spend the extra $400 if its not going to make a bog difference, I will appreciate your insight. thanks

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James V Dirkes II, PE, BEMP, LEED AP
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The Building Performance Team Inc.
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