Dual processors needed?

R

Rearden Metal

I'm currently in transition from my (former) prop firm office, to trading pro, from home.

I'm now with Echo, and I intend to set up quad-monitors.

Analysis articles are mentioning "DUAL-PROCESSOR" configuration... I guess if you need speed, and you have the video signal going to 4 monitors, you'd need a little bit more processing power.

Is replacing my (1.4 GHZ) CPU with a dual-processor setup really necessary? Don't many of you run quad monitors on a single processor? Also, where can I find the connector to bind all 4 flat screens together? Thanx in advance- Elite trader never lets me down when I have questions...
 
7 monitors here, one p4 2.26ghz (133fsb), 1 gig pc2100 ram. I'll run TS on 6 monitors with a dozen charts and a crapload of indicaters, chat, TWS and a custom trading app and my system will peg 100% on occasion, but it's not bad.
 
D-
You do not need to upgrade your processor unless you plan on running a whole lot of real time analysis stuff that I know you wont be doing. You will want to make sure you have enough RAM though (512 at least), as that is much more important than processor speed.

As far as tying the monitors together, if you get multiple monitor cards, then you just plug each monitor into each card. If you get one multi-monitor card, then it will have an adaptor to plug all monitors in to. I am pretty sure you run Windows XP but all operating systems after and including W2000 have built in software for managing multiple screen layouts.

-Chad
 
Also, I run a dual processor computer at home, it has 4 monitors, It is definitely no faster than the single processor machines we have at the offices. At least for what I do, which is generally not extremely processor intensive. For what you want to do, your CPU is fine.
Check out the RAM situation though, the more the better.
 
Sure, more memory helps and a fast processor helps as well.
Yet, both are virtually worthless if you are using a program that is reading/writing intensive.

You need to have a speedy HARD DRIVE as well!

Good SCSI Drives that run at 10,000 or 15,000 rpm can certainly help, with seek times around 4.0ms. In fact, Fujitsu makes a real good one.

But now we have the advent of Serial ATA Drives, and a real good one by Western Digital called the RAPTOR.

It runs at 10,000rpm, (not at 7,200rpm) has a 8MB buffer and has seek times that are almost as fast ( average data seek time of 5.2ms ) as a SCSI Drive, but at only about half the cost when one takes into consideration the fact that the SCSI Controller Card usually goes for about $250.00

The WD Raptor (including controller card) goes for $250 total (retail), and has a 5 year warranty.

Check it out:

http://www.wdc.com/en/products/current/retailkits/wd360gdrtl.asp
 
Memory is faster than any hard drive every made. Get a gig like I did, and you don't really worry about disk, except when you are changing stuff around. I do run RAID0 though. . .
 
Quote from TGregg:

Memory is faster than any hard drive every made. Get a gig like I did, and you don't really worry about disk, except when you are changing stuff around. I do run RAID0 though. . .
More...

I've got 512 Ram on my machine. At full load, its "memory in use" runs about 360-420mb with leakage late in the day. Page memory is 768 for a total of about 1.2gig. How would increasing the physical memory to 1G improve performance, or would it?? TIA.
 
Quote from TGregg:

7 monitors here, one p4 2.26ghz (133fsb), 1 gig pc2100 ram. I'll run TS on 6 monitors with a dozen charts and a crapload of indicaters, chat, TWS and a custom trading app and my system will peg 100% on occasion, but it's not bad.
More...

Do you have multiple monitor cards or just one with an adaptor(s)? Which is the most cost effective way to do this that won't compromise performance? If you buy multiple monitor cards, what kind of RAM would you need for each. I see that good video cards can cost $300 each.
 
rearden: dual processors, i've found, usually don't help trading apps. however, as a test, try loading up all the software you normally use and see if the cpu ramps up and stays above 75 for most of the time. it probably won't. but if it does than dual procs might help you. still, it won't help a lot. i would upgrade almost everything else in the computer (ram and hd and single processor) first before going for dual procs. without knowing more, i would say dual procs are not needed in your situation.

gnome: more information needed. the pagefile size isn't that useful: when windows boots, it creates that pagefile to use as memory, and it just sits there. if you never use more than 512mb ram, then it will never get into that pagefile, and you're good. if you you use more than 512 ram, then it will start using the pagefile as virtual memory, and you'll start to see that hd light flash and hear it thrash. :) the more important number is commit charge, total and peak. lets say you boot up your computer and before opening anything you have a total commit of 100,000 and you have 512mb ram. after loading your apps you have a total commit charge of 660,000. well, that means all your real ram is used up and you're using about 150mb of virtual memory. this is bad. if this was a real situation, your computer would be virtually crawling. when the total commit goes over total physical memory, you're dipping into virtual memory and you want to avoid that at all costs. ram is so cheap these days you can get a whole extra gig of ram for about 100 dollars.

hope this helps.

complex

p.s. to get commit charge and those other numbers go into task manager. you didn't indicate what os you're using, but i'll assume win2k/xp.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top