My next motherboard

Quote from brownsfan019:

nitro - forgive my ignorance, but what are your plans with these systems? I assume it's for trading and as much as I love my toys, I'm not sure where these systems would be used. If it's not for trading, sorry for intruding.
Trading. Since the systems will be housed in a cage at either the CBOE or at Equinix, density is important (price is $ per 1U of space).

nitro
 
SQL Server 2008 has a new datetime structure that can easily handle financial data.

Thanks wkoop for pointing this out to me:

http://blogs.msdn.com/manisblog/arc...enhancements-in-date-and-time-data-types.aspx

nitro :cool:
Quote from nitro:

Just began research into storing ticks into a SQL database. I decided to start with SQL Server 2005, and was soon hit with this:

"(NOTE: Although SQL Server allows for 3 digits of fractional precision, Microsoft's documentation for its datetime (i.e., timestamp) data type says:
"Date and time data from January 1, 1753, through December 31, 9999, with an accuracy of three-hundredths of a second, or 3.33 milliseconds.")"

I can't believe it :eek: 3.33 milliseconds resolution :confused: That makes it worthless for storing financial tick-data, which can have resolution of less than 1 millisecond. Unless I am missing something, I am moving to Oracle 10g, which has nanosecond resolution:

http://www.dbazine.com/db2/db2-disarticles/pelzer2

Bummer :(

nitro
 
Quote from nitro:

Ok, nVidia high end GPU card is out:

http://www.nvidia.com/object/quadro_fx_4500_x2.html

This is now the card to beat, but I believe it does not support double precision still. I need to call nVidia to make sure...

I think the 128-bit spec means 4-wide 32-bit operations, not the same thing as double precision.

nitro
Looks like AMD has beaten nVidia to double precision:

http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/34761/118/
http://ati.amd.com/products/streamprocessor/specs.html

Hmmm, may have to reconsider getting an nVidia and get an AMD instead. I will probably see what the GPU experts say.

The card is expensive at $2K.

nitro
 
It was a long wait, but I updated the quad opteron machine to 4 885 dual core opterons.

As you may recall, the machine originally had 844s bought from eBay. The 844s were 1.8Ghz, had 800 Mhz fsb, single core, and a 1Mb cache. The 885s are 2.6 Ghz, have dual cores, have 1000Mhz fsb, and 2 Mb cache. So they are considerably more powerful. The machine now has eight cores.

Also bought them from eBay at a fraction of retail prices. Gawd I love eBay.

nitro
 
If you are in the market for a blade system, wait two weeks to a month.

There is an exciting new product worth looking at. I can't tell you what or from whom because I am under non-disclosure.

nitro
Quote from nitro:

Now looking for a high density system, I am at a crossroads.

I am considering these systems:

http://www.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/pedge_1955_new?c=us&cs=04&l=en&s=bsd

http://www-306.ibm.com/software/data/integration/info_server/blade/

http://h18004.www1.hp.com/products/blades/components/enclosures/c-class/c3000/index.html

http://www.supermicro.com/products/superblade/

The Dell is the most cost effective, but doesn't have integrated storage blades and is Intel Xeon based only.

The IBM is very nice, but I feel like I am getting an avarage product for more $$ than other comparable systems. Support for opterons is big.

The HP is perfect in every sense. It supports opterons, allows built in storage over iSCSI, integrated tape backup etc. Problem is it is outrageously expensive. For example, a 1TB iSCSI storage is $9000!!! A PCIe expansion bay is $800!!!

The supermicro is comparable with the DELL, and is certainly a better buy. Problem is, they claim to support opterons but the opteron blade server is nowhere to be seen.

If anyone has any other suggestions, I would be glad to hear them.

nitro
 
Quote from armoured saint:

who do you work for?

i thought you are a software engineer?
In the past, I have worked as a programmer on and off. In 2006 I traded a discretionary futures account with size, and blew out my account. I was forced to go back into programming for a year.

I am now back auto trading a quantitative system. I am a partner in a two person prop firm.

nitro
 
AMD delivers the Firestream GPU:

http://www.amd.com/us-en/Corporate/VirtualPressRoom/0,,51_104_543_544~121775,00.html

Too bad is so damned expensive. Will probably end up getting it anyway.

nitro
Quote from nitro:

Looks like AMD has beaten nVidia to double precision:

http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/34761/118/
http://ati.amd.com/products/streamprocessor/specs.html

Hmmm, may have to reconsider getting an nVidia and get an AMD instead. I will probably see what the GPU experts say.

The card is expensive at $2K.

nitro
 
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