These physics-neutral licenses can be used to run a simulation across multiple cores and/or GPUs and work with most Ansys applications. Some Ansys applications can utilize CPU processors and/or GPUs. We will use the following definitions to describe licensing behavior on GPUs:
Native GPU Solver: a solver that operates on GPUs to calculate the solution.
Offload GPU Solver: a solver that operates on CPUs but offloads some part of the solution to GPUs to accelerate the solution.
GCU (Graphics Compute Unit): a processing unit in a GPU card. In NVIDIA GPU cards these are called Streaming Multiprocessors (SMs), while in AMD GPU cards they are named Compute Units (CUs). Each GPU card contains many GCUs, with the number varying depending on the GPU model. While GCUs are architecturally different to cores on CPU, we can make the analogy to CPU cores from a licensing perspective.
Solvers running on CPUs license on a per core basis, while solvers using GPUs may be license per GPU card or per GCU.
Most Ansys applications allow you to use four CPU cores without using any HPC licenses, while the number of GPU cards or GCUs included in the solvers varies (see table below). Ansys HPC licenses add to this base solver functionality, enabling more CPU cores, GPU cards, or GCUs. For example, running Ansys CFD Enterprise using twelve CPU cores will consume only eight Ansys HPC licenses, since 4 cores are included in the solver. Contact your Ansys sales representative for a complete list of applications with this option.
Note: HPC licenses and HPC Pack licenses cannot be combined within the same solution. Additionally, HPC licenses do not participate in license borrowing.
Ansys HPC Pack Licenses can be used to run a simulation across multiple cores/GCUs and work with most Ansys applications. Contact your Ansys sales representative for a complete list of applications that can be used with Ansys HPC Pack Licenses. Individual HPC Pack Licenses cannot be split between multiple users or between multiple analyses.
Products with Included Cores
| Application/Module | Included CPU Cores | Included GPUs or GCUs | Native GPU Solver: HPC tasks per additional GCU or GPU | Offload GPU Solver: HPC tasks per GCU or GPU |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Additive Suite | 4 | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| Ansys Rocky | 4 | 112 GCUs | 1 per GCU ( 2) | N/A |
| Aqwa | 4 | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| Autodyn | 4 | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| CFX | 4 | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| Chemkin | 4 | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| Circuit | 4 | N/A | 8 per GPU | N/A |
| Discovery | 4 | 1 GPU | See 5 | See 5 |
| EMIT | 4 | N/A | 8 per GPU | N/A |
| Explicit | 4 | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| FENSAP | 4 | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| Fluent | 4 | 40 GCUs | 1 per GCU | N/A |
| Forte | 4 | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| FreeFlow | 4 | 75 GCUs | 1 per GCU | N/A |
| HFSS | 4 | 0 | 8 per GPU | 8 per GPU |
| Icepak | 4 | 0 | 8 per GPU | N/A |
| LS-DYNA | 1 (1) | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| Lumerical | 4 | 4 GCUs | 1 per GCU | N/A |
| Maxwell | 4 | 0 | N/A | 8 per GPU |
| Mechanical APDL | 4 | N/A | N/A | 1 per GPU (4) |
| Motion | 1 | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| Polyflow Classic | 4 | 0 | N/A | 1 per GPU (4) |
| Q3D | 4 | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| RBD | 4 | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| SIwave | 4 | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| Speos | 4 | 16 GCUs | 1 per 4 GCUs | N/A |
| Thermal Desktop (RadCAD) | 16 | N/A | N/A | N/A |
A maximum of 50% of the HPC tasks can be used to enable GPUs, for example 2 HPC Packs enables a total of 36 cores and a maximum of 18 can be used for GPUs.
Discovery offers GPU-based solvers, with 1 GPU card included. You cannot use multiple GPU cards. CPU solves are supported only in the Refine stage and follow standard HPC task consumption rates for cores requested.
HPC Packs per Simulation
You may only borrow one Ansys HPC Pack license at a time.
When running a system coupling calculation using multiple solvers. Each solver has to check out its own HPC licenses. For example: A system coupling calculation where Fluent is using six cores and Mechanical eight cores would require the simultaneous checkout of the following licenses.
Fluent: Requires the base CFD solver enabling the license plus either a HPC Pack, or 2 additional Ansys HPC licenses
Mechanical: Requires the base mechanical solver enabling the license plus either a HPC Pack, or 4 additional Ansys HPC licenses
For Ansys HPC licensing, a hyperthread core is treated as being the same as a physical CPU core. If you run a 24 core Ansys solution on a CPU with 12 physical and 12 hyperthread, you will consume the number of HPC licenses required to enable a total of 24 cores. Typically, the 12 Hyperthread cores will enable little or no speedup to the calculations and therefore hyperthreading is not recommended.