High Performance/High Reliability Trading Machine

[Rasna]

Hello everyone.

I am a professional trader and am adept at building systems, although it's be 2 years since I built my last system. I need to build a high performance trading and analysis system for my work ( see comments below). I have a good ideas as to what I want to build, but I'm stuck on the RAM. Take a look at what I'm building and please feel free to comment and make recommendations if I've stumbled somewhere.

I'm planning on building a high performance workstation in a couple of months to offloade the db/analysis tasks from this system.

Approximate Purchase Date: Today's Date 8/10/2012 - Purchase Date: 8/17

Budget Range: Approx $3K

System Usage from Most to Least Important: Futures Trading Platform

Parts Not Required: Keyboard, Mouse, Monitors, Speakers

Preferred Website(s) for Parts: Newegg.com

Country: USA

Parts Preferences:

1. ASUS Sabertooth X79 LGA 2011 Intel X79 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard

2. Intel Core i7-3930K Sandy Bridge-E 3.2GHz (3.8GHz Turbo) LGA 2011 130W Six-Core Desktop Processor BX80619i73930K

3. OCZ Vertex 4 VTX4-25SAT3-256G 2.5" 256GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)

4. Western Digital Caviar Black WD2002FAEX 2TB 7200 RPM SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive

5. G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 16GB (4 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 2133 (PC3 17000) Desktop Memory Model F3-17000CL11Q-16GBXL
(This is where I need the help. I was just over at the Intel site and one of the engineers said that the 3930K was designed for memory up to 1600. Anything over that was a waste of money. Yet I read on this forum this am that the 3930K would work fine with 2133??? What do I need to buy to maximize/optimize the performance of the system?)

6. 2 - ASUS DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS Black SATA 24X DVD Burner - Bulk - OEM

7. PNY VCQ450NVS-X16-DVI-PB Quadro NVS 450 512MB 128-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 Workstation Video Card (Have to be able to run 4 monitors min)

8. SeaSonic X Series X-850 (SS-850KM Active PFC F3) 850W ATX12V v2.3 / EPS 12V v2.91 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS GOLD Certified Full Modular Active PFC Power Supply

9. COOLER MASTER HAF X RC-942-KKN1 Black Steel/ Plastic ATX Full Tower Computer Case

Overclocking: No / Maybe

SLI or Crossfire: No

Monitor Resolution: 1920x1200)

Additional Comments: The system will be used for realtime quotes and charting. I will be running 2 64 bit applications: NinjaTrader and MarketDelta Professional - (CPU and memory intensive apps - data stream is captured and analyzed at the millisecond level) during the day (7:30am - 2:30 pm mtn). Performance and reliability are a MUST. System is behind a firewall/ Dual WAN router with 2 broadband lines for redundancy.

After Hours the system will be used for programming, database/data analysis using MatLab, R and Mathematica.

I would appreciate any clarity and information regarding the best RAM configuration to bring out the best in the CPU and cause no harm.

Thanks in advance

 

[Rasna]

I forgot to add that I'll be running Win 7 Pro 64 bit with a separate partition for Linux.

In addition, It would be a big help if someone could recommend a good set of diagnostic, tuning and performance checking tools so that I can make sure the components are running as advertised on the bench before I put the MB assembly into the case.

Again, Thanks in advance.

Hello everyone.

I am a professional trader and am adept at building systems, although it's be 2 years since I built my last system. I need to build a high performance trading and analysis system for my work ( see comments below). I have a good ideas as to what I want to build, but I'm stuck on the RAM. Take a look at what I'm building and please feel free to comment and make recommendations if I've stumbled somewhere.

I'm planning on building a high performance workstation in a couple of months to offloade the db/analysis tasks from this system.

Approximate Purchase Date: Today's Date 8/10/2012 - Purchase Date: 8/17

Budget Range: Approx $3K

System Usage from Most to Least Important: Futures Trading Platform

Parts Not Required: Keyboard, Mouse, Monitors, Speakers

Preferred Website(s) for Parts: Newegg.com

Country: USA

Parts Preferences:

1. ASUS Sabertooth X79 LGA 2011 Intel X79 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard

2. Intel Core i7-3930K Sandy Bridge-E 3.2GHz (3.8GHz Turbo) LGA 2011 130W Six-Core Desktop Processor BX80619i73930K

3. OCZ Vertex 4 VTX4-25SAT3-256G 2.5" 256GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)

4. Western Digital Caviar Black WD2002FAEX 2TB 7200 RPM SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive

5. G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 16GB (4 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 2133 (PC3 17000) Desktop Memory Model F3-17000CL11Q-16GBXL
(This is where I need the help. I was just over at the Intel site and one of the engineers said that the 3930K was designed for memory up to 1600. Anything over that was a waste of money. Yet I read on this forum this am that the 3930K would work fine with 2133??? What do I need to buy to maximize/optimize the performance of the system?)

6. 2 - ASUS DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS Black SATA 24X DVD Burner - Bulk - OEM

7. PNY VCQ450NVS-X16-DVI-PB Quadro NVS 450 512MB 128-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 Workstation Video Card (Have to be able to run 4 monitors min)

8. SeaSonic X Series X-850 (SS-850KM Active PFC F3) 850W ATX12V v2.3 / EPS 12V v2.91 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS GOLD Certified Full Modular Active PFC Power Supply

9. COOLER MASTER HAF X RC-942-KKN1 Black Steel/ Plastic ATX Full Tower Computer Case

Overclocking: No / Maybe

SLI or Crossfire: No

Monitor Resolution: 1920x1200)

Additional Comments: The system will be used for realtime quotes and charting. I will be running 2 64 bit applications: NinjaTrader and MarketDelta Professional - (CPU and memory intensive apps - data stream is captured and analyzed at the millisecond level) during the day (7:30am - 2:30 pm mtn). Performance and reliability are a MUST. System is behind a firewall/ Dual WAN router with 2 broadband lines for redundancy.

After Hours the system will be used for programming, database/data analysis using MatLab, R and Mathematica.

I would appreciate any clarity and information regarding the best RAM configuration to bring out the best in the CPU and cause no harm.

Thanks in advance

 

[aqualipt]

Hello everyone.

I am a professional trader and am adept at building systems, although it's be 2 years since I built my last system. I need to build a high performance trading and analysis system for my work ( see comments below). I have a good ideas as to what I want to build, but I'm stuck on the RAM. Take a look at what I'm building and please feel free to comment and make recommendations if I've stumbled somewhere.

I'm planning on building a high performance workstation in a couple of months to offloade the db/analysis tasks from this system.

Approximate Purchase Date: Today's Date 8/10/2012 - Purchase Date: 8/17

Budget Range: Approx $3K

System Usage from Most to Least Important: Futures Trading Platform

Parts Not Required: Keyboard, Mouse, Monitors, Speakers

Preferred Website(s) for Parts: Newegg.com

Country: USA

Parts Preferences:

1. ASUS Sabertooth X79 LGA 2011 Intel X79 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard

2. Intel Core i7-3930K Sandy Bridge-E 3.2GHz (3.8GHz Turbo) LGA 2011 130W Six-Core Desktop Processor BX80619i73930K

3. OCZ Vertex 4 VTX4-25SAT3-256G 2.5" 256GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)

4. Western Digital Caviar Black WD2002FAEX 2TB 7200 RPM SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive

5. G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 16GB (4 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 2133 (PC3 17000) Desktop Memory Model F3-17000CL11Q-16GBXL
(This is where I need the help. I was just over at the Intel site and one of the engineers said that the 3930K was designed for memory up to 1600. Anything over that was a waste of money. Yet I read on this forum this am that the 3930K would work fine with 2133??? What do I need to buy to maximize/optimize the performance of the system?)

6. 2 - ASUS DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS Black SATA 24X DVD Burner - Bulk - OEM

7. PNY VCQ450NVS-X16-DVI-PB Quadro NVS 450 512MB 128-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 Workstation Video Card (Have to be able to run 4 monitors min)

8. SeaSonic X Series X-850 (SS-850KM Active PFC F3) 850W ATX12V v2.3 / EPS 12V v2.91 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS GOLD Certified Full Modular Active PFC Power Supply

9. COOLER MASTER HAF X RC-942-KKN1 Black Steel/ Plastic ATX Full Tower Computer Case

Overclocking: No / Maybe

SLI or Crossfire: No

Monitor Resolution: 1920x1200)

Additional Comments: The system will be used for realtime quotes and charting. I will be running 2 64 bit applications: NinjaTrader and MarketDelta Professional - (CPU and memory intensive apps - data stream is captured and analyzed at the millisecond level) during the day (7:30am - 2:30 pm mtn). Performance and reliability are a MUST. System is behind a firewall/ Dual WAN router with 2 broadband lines for redundancy.

After Hours the system will be used for programming, database/data analysis using MatLab, R and Mathematica.

I would appreciate any clarity and information regarding the best RAM configuration to bring out the best in the CPU and cause no harm.

Thanks in advance

*I have a 3960x with 32GB of 2400Mhz ram and it works fine, dont worry about it

*850w is simply waaaay to overkill for that PC, ~550W will be more than enough

*a AMD HD 7xxx Series GPU will be much better for you, they support 4 monitors and will put to shame the GPU you picked in a multi monitor set-up (because of the more VRAM) and they will perform professional task such as rendering very fluidly because of the unlocked double precision floating point processing (wich is only unlocked in professional GPUs but i guess AMD is having a hard time so they decided to unlock it as a nice plus)

*I would highly suggest you to overclock your CPU but that will requiere you to do a lot of test in order to qualify it as "Reliable", you will need to overclock it to about 4.5Ghz and then test it with Prime 95 for atleast 12 hours so you can be MORE than sure that the system will be stable.

*The HAF-X is a very nice case, be sure to add a few high quality fans to improve its airflow.

*This is what i recomend you to buy:

CPU: Intel Core i7-3930K 3.2GHz 6-Core Processor ($539.99 @ Newegg)
CPU Cooler: Zalman CNPS12X Ball Bearing CPU Cooler ($76.99 @ Newegg)
Motherboard: ASRock X79 Extreme7 ATX LGA2011 Motherboard ($254.47 @ Newegg)
Memory: Corsair XMS 32GB (4 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($186.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($99.99 @ NCIX US)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($99.99 @ NCIX US)
Storage: Samsung 830 Series 512GB 2.5" Solid State Disk ($529.00 @ B&H)
Video Card: Gigabyte Radeon HD 7970 3GB Video Card ($427.55 @ Newegg)
Case: NZXT Switch 810 (White) ATX Full Tower Case ($169.98 @ Outlet PC)
Power Supply: Corsair 650W ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply ($123.99 @ Best Buy)
Total: $2508.94

*I managed to cram 32GB of RAM in there just in case you need them, is always better to have more than what you need

*The cooler in this Computer is amazingly quiet and efficient (and good looking too)

*The 7970 will come in handy for rendering tasks or you could also intall a few games and play them with the highest settings

*I decided to change the case for a Switech 810 because it can hold a few more fans than the HAF-X (10 in total) and it looks better (and will perform equally good if not better)

*I added a 512GB SSD because i am sure you will want your apps to be lighting fast so will need a big SSD for that

*I added 2x 2TB drives so you can run them in RAID-1 so in case something bad happens you have a mirror backup.

Edit: Let me know if you are Completly sure that you do not need 32GB of RAM so i can find you a 16GB kit.

 

[Rasna]

aqualipt,

Thanks for the fast response... The clock is ticking on this one.

I hadn't considered overclocking, but will consider and research it.

I had originally considered the ASROCK, but thought that the ASUS would give me a little mor bang for the buck (bigger price tag though).

On the SWITECH, how does the clearance look behind the MB for cable management?

I'm pretty sure 16GB of RAM will do the trick since the GPU will pick up a lot of the slack. I kind of liked the NVIDIA GPU because of the Cuda cores and the fact that they offered an SDK for Cuda programming. I got one of the Matrox cards a few years ago, and had a nightmare with the drivers and never go the thing to work with 4 monitors. Sent it back got the Nvidia and haven't looked back. I will look into what you're recommending though.

Regarding the Seagate Barracuda 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive, I heard some things regarding the quality, and that the drives failed fairly quickly (2 months) after installation. Not all of the drives, but enough to give me concern. I've used WD for a long time and have had no problem. How long have you had your Barracuda's installed? Good call on the RAID though. Good call on the apps running on the SSD. Originally I was just planning to run the OS on the SSD, but running the 2 primary apps might not be a bad idea for performance.

Again, thanks. I'm going to wander over and take a look at some of your picks.

Ras

 

[aqualipt]

aqualipt,

Thanks for the fast response... The clock is ticking on this one.

I hadn't considered overclocking, but will consider and research it.

I had originally considered the ASROCK, but thought that the ASUS would give me a little mor bang for the buck (bigger price tag though).

On the SWITECH, how does the clearance look behind the MB for cable management?

I'm pretty sure 16GB of RAM will do the trick since the GPU will pick up a lot of the slack. I kind of liked the NVIDIA GPU because of the Cuda cores and the fact that they offered an SDK for Cuda programming. I got one of the Matrox cards a few years ago, and had a nightmare with the drivers and never go the thing to work with 4 monitors. Sent it back got the Nvidia and haven't looked back. I will look into what you're recommending though.

Regarding the Seagate Barracuda 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive, I heard some things regarding the quality, and that the drives failed fairly quickly (2 months) after installation. Not all of the drives, but enough to give me concern. I've used WD for a long time and have had no problem. How long have you had your Barracuda's installed? Good call on the RAID though. Good call on the apps running on the SSD. Originally I was just planning to run the OS on the SSD, but running the 2 primary apps might not be a bad idea for performance.

Again, thanks. I'm going to wander over and take a look at some of your picks.

Ras

*I imagined that, we will have to work quick then...

*Overclocking will come in handy for you, specially with the cooler i linked.

*I dont know..you tell me, how do you think it looks?

Awesome right?

*The motherboard i picked is fine, dont worry about it.

*Uh, thats great then, if 16GB is enough for you make sure to pick this kit up

*I think that for you the 7970/7950 is a must have because of its amazing speed in professional apps and their high amount of VRAM (the 512MB in the NVS 450 is simply not enough for 4 monitors)

*If you got that "Bad quality" image of seagate from newegg reviews then erase it, newegg reviews are written by a bunch of idiots who dont know anything about computers, read professional reviews ONLY...like this one : http://hothardware.com/Reviews/Seagate-Barracuda-Green-2TB-Hard-Drive-Review/

*If you are a fan of WD then i have good news, they released their Red series HDDs wich a NAS certified and are guaranteed to run 24/7 without problems. 2TB Version: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822236343 3TB version: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822236344 and a PROFESSIONAL review made by Tom's : http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/red-wd20efrx-wd30efrx-nas,3248.html

*If you are going to change any parts on my build let me know, please

 

[Rasna]

A,

Thanks for the time and rapid responses.

The system looks kewl! Great cable management. stock or custom cables? Good clearance under the MB?

There's a lot of bad info and uninformed reviews, like the voltage reqs for the RAM and the amount of RAM that can be used by a system/CPU. I'll take a look at the review you linked.

In addition, I'll review the RAM req. I'd rather have the head room, besides RAM is cheap.

One of the good things about ASRock is the BIOS screens and the ease of use.

I'm going to grab a bite to eat and then revisit this. I'll have all of this down by tomorrow and will repost.

Give me your rec on the 32 GB RAM kit.

Finally what tools do you use for diags, troubleshooting and performance testing of the components and the overall system? I read somewhere that Intel had some online, but I haven't looked and I don't know how good they might be.

Ras

 

[aqualipt]

A,

Thanks for the time and rapid responses.

The system looks kewl! Great cable management. stock or custom cables? Good clearance under the MB?

There's a lot of bad info and uninformed reviews, like the voltage reqs for the RAM and the amount of RAM that can be used by a system/CPU. I'll take a look at the review you linked.

In addition, I'll review the RAM req. I'd rather have the head room, besides RAM is cheap.

One of the good things about ASRock is the BIOS screens and the ease of use.

I'm going to grab a bite to eat and then revisit this. I'll have all of this down by tomorrow and will repost.

Give me your rec on the 32 GB RAM kit.

Finally what tools do you use for diags, troubleshooting and performance testing of the components and the overall system? I read somewhere that Intel had some online, but I haven't looked and I don't know how good they might be.

Ras

* i dont know what you mean by stock or custom cables but what you saw in that image a complete build with the cable managment feature fully utilized

*The CPU can only handle as much as ram as the motherboard supports.

*my recomendation on the 32GB kit is the one i linked in my original build, altough if you want crazy fast/expensive RAM you will need something like the TridentX RAM i have ---> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231590 anyways, faster ram doesnt impact in performance by a lot. IMPORTANT: if you are going to buy the RAM i just linked then you are going to need a diferent CPU cooler because the one i linked (The CNPS12x) doesnt allow tall ram dimms.

*For testing i use Furmark, 3DMark11, Mentest 86, Prime 95 and Super PI, for overclocking the GPU i use MSI afterburner and for overclocking the CPU i use the OC Key in my Asus Rampage IV Extreme but Asrock's OC tuner will do a great job overclocking.

 

[Rasna]

* i dont know what you mean by stock or custom cables but what you saw in that image a complete build with the cable managment feature fully utilized

*The CPU can only handle as much as ram as the motherboard supports.

*my recomendation on the 32GB kit is the one i linked in my original build, altough if you want crazy fast/expensive RAM you will need something like the TridentX RAM i have ---> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231590 anyways, faster ram doesnt impact in performance by a lot. IMPORTANT: if you are going to buy the RAM i just linked then you are going to need a diferent CPU cooler because the one i linked (The CNPS12x) doesnt allow tall ram dimms.

*For testing i use Furmark, 3DMark11, Mentest 86, Prime 95 and Super PI, for overclocking the GPU i use MSI afterburner and for overclocking the CPU i use the OC Key in my Asus Rampage IV Extreme but Asrock's OC tuner will do a great job overclocking.[/quotemsg

*************************************

A,

Many apologies for not closing this thread out. We were in the UK for the pas 8 weeks and am just now getting back to the topic.

Again, many thanks for all of your input. We decided to build 2 systems: one for strictly trading and a separate machine for real-time data processing and analysis.

I re-post with the specs for each soon.

 

[Rasna]

Best answer selected by Rasna.