Building a Trading Station - help hardware selection.

[NetTecture]

Quote from vicirek:

Motherboard: Asus

MicroAtx may have some cooling issues if you put 4 core plus 2 cards for 3-4 monitors. Bigger box is recommended.

My experience with Dell is not so great. I would stay away from proprietary systems.

ECC memory is not necessary. Stable system can be built with standard memory carefully matched to motherboard specs (as per motherboard manufacturer recommended and tested modules). All modules have to come from the same manufacturing batch.

8GB is recommended for 64Bit systems but 4GB will do

Current built in graphics modules coming with CPU are different than the ones shipped years ago. Now this GPU is powerful and sufficient for most applications. More monitors means additional GPU card or two (of average quality if not used for anything special).

You need good power supply and stable electric power source.

Intel I7 is more than adequate and I would not settle for anything else even if it would do the job. Go with Intel. AMD fell behind (I was long time AMD fan)

Thanks.

I do not see a cooling issue with haswell - their TDP is in the 85 watt range. THat is a quad core for the same power than the dual cores we run now

I was thinking of stuffing the machines with 16gb memory, in 2 slots, so 2 are empty.

Power supply - agree. Power IS stable - as stable as "coming from a USV" can be. Anything else would be a problem - this is located in Poland, which has - sometimes- short power issues. I dont like the fluctuations and / or 30 second outages, which is why some time ago I bought a really big USV. We talk really big for anyone outside data centers - 13kw.

 

[Scataphagos]

Quote from vicirek:

"... My experience with Dell is not so great. I would stay away from proprietary systems.

1. Have you always bought from Dell's consumer lines... like Inspiron and Vostro? If so, you missed the good ones... the (old) Dimension and current Precision line.

2. I argue that a trader SHOULD buy a "model specific" proprietary system for trading or anything else where high use and reliability are important.

 

[NetTecture]

Quote from Scataphagos:

1. Have you always bought from Dell's consumer lines... like Inspiron and Vostro? If so, you missed the good ones... the (old) Dimension and current Precision line.

2. I argue that a trader SHOULD buy a "model specific" proprietary system for trading or anything else where high use and reliability are important.

Would you also argue that if you knew that the "Trader" has an IT business in his portfolio of business interests that will handle all services? It is not like I am doing that as hobby.

 

[vicirek]

Quote from Scataphagos:

1. Have you always bought from Dell's consumer lines... like Inspiron and Vostro? If so, you missed the good ones... the (old) Dimension and current Precision line.

2. I argue that a trader SHOULD buy a "model specific" proprietary system for trading or anything else where high use and reliability are important.

I was using Dell and some other company mid range consumer products. Now I occasionaly work on Dell workstations with i5 in it with low quality mouse and keyboard, also not happy with their monitors. Real problem was low quality motherboard with inferior chipset, BIOS, difficult to upgrade or put extra cards, low end power supply (blew up) etc. OS was supported by Dell but that was also a problem because they add some stuff and leave out important features. Once I changed motherboard it discovered that CPU is actually with HT and the machine was working faster.

Proprietary systems are made with limited durability. My home made boxes assembled with quality parts just perform and do not want to die which sucks because I cannot justify buying new toy.

For general purpose trading there is no need to go with anything special and the convenience of buying ready to go box with warranty is also good so I would not argue much about proprietary systems just wanted to point out that it might not be the best solution for higher end durable workstation.

 

[Scataphagos]

Quote from vicirek:

"... Proprietary systems are made with limited durability.... just wanted to point out that it might not be the best solution for higher end durable workstation.

Once again, disagree.

Dell workstations come with 3 yr warranty... can be extended... NOT difficult to "add cards" in Precision line. I ran 4 video cards at one time and used 3 video cards for several years along with sound card and USB3 adapter card. All works "smooth as a gravy sandwich".

Dell's Precision BIOS recognizes HT.

I sold a used Dimension 8300 to a neighbor who still uses it every day.. it's nearly 10 years old. My Precision T3500s are 4 years old... not even a hiccup yet.

I get it... you're a BIY guy and are biased in that direction. However, your opinion of Dell workstations is lower than deserved.

 

[vicirek]

Quote from Scataphagos:


I get it... you're a BIY guy and are biased in that direction. Your opinion of Dell workstations is lower than deserved.

Not really. I was not happy spending time building or upgrading boxes and was looking for ease and convenience of assembled quality computer with preloaded OS etc. It just did not work. I can build better box so why bother with proprietary system then.

 

[Scataphagos]

Quote from vicirek:

Not really. I was not happy spending time building or upgrading boxes and was looking for ease and convenience of assembled quality computer with preloaded OS etc. It just did not work. I can build better box so why bother with proprietary system then.

You can build a better box than OEM el-cheapo's, of course. Is that what you're comparing?

I've run the CRAP out of mine for years and they've ALWAYS worked. So, what's your problem??

 

[vicirek]

Quote from Scataphagos:

You can build a better box than OEM el-cheapo's, of course. Is that what you're comparing?

I've run the CRAP out of mine for years and they've ALWAYS worked. So, what's your problem??

I am a developer. If I spent time writing parallel programs maxing out CPU and memory usage or do GPU computing I do not want hardware to stand in my way.

 

[Scataphagos]

Quote from vicirek:

I am a developer. If I spent time writing parallel programs maxing out CPU and memory usage or do GPU computing I do not want hardware to stand in my way.

Your presumption that "Dell workstation hardware stands in your way" is likely incorrect... other than their BIOS doesn't allow overclocking... they don't want to burden their support staff with rookie mistakes trying to overclock... can't blame them.

I'm done responding in this thread. The more I hear from you, the less logical you seem... like arguing a point with my wife.

 

[ofthomas]

Quote from NetTecture:
Well,
my requirements definitely arei n the range of keeping power consumption as low as possible - we are going to pack 12 people into a relatively small space and power is heat. ....

as I said... trading floor to me means 100+ traders... so different requirements... 12 is really, really small... but I understand... that is still a trading floor in a way...

Quote from NetTecture:
Regarding the SAN - not sure where you see that coming from. I just happen to have a 3 node SAN anyway, as the systems all boot similar images - well - the storage requirements on the SAN side are minimal. Bandiwdth is quite low either - we have a 1gbit network in place. Once the machines boot up there is not exactly a lot of bandwidth they need outside their regular patching and anti virus thingies. That said, I still consider just putting a 64gb or 128gb SSD in them. No way I go with Hard Discs anymore - too slow, too loud.

ok, so you are not really booting off the type of SAN I thought you would be... you will be booting off iSCSI .. got it... that is still creating complexity for no reason, but with such a small base... I guess it might be simpler to manage...

Quote from NetTecture:

NEC screens? Anything you fancy? I wish I could get 1600x1200 screens, but those days are over - so it is 1920x1200 ;( I heard good things about Samsung otherwise. Bear with me - the last like 8 years all my screens were from Dell, but they stopped making "my" model. Right now the Dell UltraSharp U2412M would be the only one on the list that fullfills my requirements, as it looks like. That said, the NEC MultiSync EA244WMi is only a little more expensive, uses a lot less power (in relative terms).

Any particular recommendation?

you can still find the 20" NEC's with 1600x1200... LCD9020... you will pay a premium though...

look at the S27A850D from samsung... we are testing those for 2014 deployment... they are pretty good, and some of the traders like it because they run two workstations and keep some spreadsheet models on one and that shares the screen with the other workstation they are doing trading on... others do it for different reasons, but it is handy to have the ability to split the screen across two worsktations..

if power is truly a concern, then perhaps look at the lenovo C30... those are the 2014 trader workstation standard for us, we are moving from the Z600's... and spec wise.. 2xE5-2620 w/16GB RAM 180GB SSD and 2xNVS310's... power wise it will draw from 90-197W @ 100% cpu load...