OK - so I have been biding my time waiting for the right hardware to become available to plunk down some easy-come/easy-go cash on a half-way decent performing computer.
Primary use is single-threaded number crunching, forex backtesting in meta-trader (single-threaded app) to be specific. It is lucrative and I am time-to-result limited, so spending an extra $1k to make the setup faster is worth it, no question. Current back-test runs are taking me approximately 14hrs on a P4 NW at 2.6GHz which is seriously hampering my timeline to being able to maximum my profitability.
I am a very light gamer time-wise, but when I do get the luxury of having time to game I prefer to indulge myself in an hour or two of Oblivion with as much of the eye-candies turned on as I can.
Personal Hardware Biases - I prefer to avoid SCSI, yes I know 15k rpm RAID SCSI would be the bomb, but I'd rather skip SCSI and go straight to ram-disk for maximum impact to my latency-limited calculations.
Credit/Props -
Thanks in advance for your feedback and your time you spend reading this thread.
Proposed System Build:
Processor: Intel Core 2 Extreme X6800 Conroe 2.93GHz ($949.50)
Back Up Power Supply (Expansion): Tripp Lite 3U Modular 48V (BP48V60RT3U) Extended Run Battery Pack ($656.63 w/shipping)
DVD/CD Burner: LITE-ON 18X DVD±R & 8X DL DVD±R Burner Black IDE Model LH-18A1P-185 (2 x $30.99 = $61.98)
...like the idea of offloading CPU cycles that would have gone to audio processing, but I need a 3-PCI slot mobo to have sound card + ram-disk raid-0 array...
Speakers 5.1: Logitech X-540 70 watts 5.1 Speakers ($88.99)
Keyboard: Logitech G15 2-Tone 104 Normal Keys USB Wired Standard Keyboard ($71.99)
...have a thing for back-lighted keys, comments from anyone regarding alternative back-lighted keyboards?
Mouse: Logitech G7 USB RF Laser Mouse ($61.99)
Misc:
Total system price will probably be around $10k or so with shipping.
- Phil
Primary use is single-threaded number crunching, forex backtesting in meta-trader (single-threaded app) to be specific. It is lucrative and I am time-to-result limited, so spending an extra $1k to make the setup faster is worth it, no question. Current back-test runs are taking me approximately 14hrs on a P4 NW at 2.6GHz which is seriously hampering my timeline to being able to maximum my profitability.
I am a very light gamer time-wise, but when I do get the luxury of having time to game I prefer to indulge myself in an hour or two of Oblivion with as much of the eye-candies turned on as I can.
Personal Hardware Biases - I prefer to avoid SCSI, yes I know 15k rpm RAID SCSI would be the bomb, but I'd rather skip SCSI and go straight to ram-disk for maximum impact to my latency-limited calculations.
Credit/Props -
- 1. Much of my hardware choices surrounding CPU/MB/Cooling were motivated by Yoxxy's Overclocking Guide and PM's, thanks Yoxxy
2. Thanks goes to westihockey09 for convincing me to step-up on the video card, thanks westihockey09
3. Shout out to CurseTheSky for giving me some inspiration to upgrade the sound card and for making changes to my mouse selection (G7 vs MX1000), thanks CurseTheSky
Thanks in advance for your feedback and your time you spend reading this thread.
Proposed System Build:
Processor: Intel Core 2 Extreme X6800 Conroe 2.93GHz ($949.50)
- ...intend to overclock to 4+ GHz with Vapochill LS, see below...
- ...only 2 PCI slots, could be restrictive, see below...
- ...total of 4GB, intend to set aside 2 GB as ram-drive, comments from anyone regarding overclockability of having all 4 DIMMS fully-loaded?
- ...intend to upgrade in 6 months or so when DX10 cards have been out for a bit, this card is just a stop-gap to hold me over until then
- ...plan to raid-0 both of these ram-disks on the areca ARC-1280ML for total of 8GB, would buy four of them if the mobo had more than just 2 PCI slots
- ...recommended by Gigabyte for their i-RAM boards
- ...am holding out for the 1280ML with the Intel 800MHz 81341 I/O processor
- ...Areca specifies the 1280ML uses DDR2-533, am assuming low-latency DDR2-667 will be backwards compatible
- ...plan to raid-0 these on the areca ARC-1280ML, both the 2GB ram-drive and 8GB ram-disk array will have intra-day scheduled backups made to this raid-0 raptor array
- ...plan to raid-0 these on the areca ARC-1280ML, daily scheduled backups of the Raptor X array will be made to this 1TB raid-0 array
- ...have personal reservations about going with a modular PSU for a high-performance system, comments from anyone regarding signal quality for modular PSU?
- ...already own these LCD's, pretty sweet, setup in dual-view on current rig, will migrate to the new system
- ...recently purchased this case, I know it was money not well spent but I really didn't feel like hassling with cutting holes in another case, maybe in a few months time I'll get the energy and time
- ...recently purchased this vapochill unit, will be used to O/C this new system
Back Up Power Supply (Expansion): Tripp Lite 3U Modular 48V (BP48V60RT3U) Extended Run Battery Pack ($656.63 w/shipping)
DVD/CD Burner: LITE-ON 18X DVD±R & 8X DL DVD±R Burner Black IDE Model LH-18A1P-185 (2 x $30.99 = $61.98)
- ...one for source and the other for target so I can walk away and not have to swap discs during a burn
...like the idea of offloading CPU cycles that would have gone to audio processing, but I need a 3-PCI slot mobo to have sound card + ram-disk raid-0 array...
Speakers 5.1: Logitech X-540 70 watts 5.1 Speakers ($88.99)
Keyboard: Logitech G15 2-Tone 104 Normal Keys USB Wired Standard Keyboard ($71.99)
...have a thing for back-lighted keys, comments from anyone regarding alternative back-lighted keyboards?
Mouse: Logitech G7 USB RF Laser Mouse ($61.99)
Misc:
- Gel Keyboard Pad: BELKIN WaveRest F8E263-BLK Keyboard Wrist Support (Black) ($7.39)
Gel Mouse Pad: BELKIN WaveRest F8E262-BLK Gel Mouse Pad (Black) ($7.99)
CPU Paste: Arctic Silver Ceramique Thermal Compound ($4.99)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows XP Professional With SP2B 1 Pack - OEM ($139.99)
Total system price will probably be around $10k or so with shipping.
- Phil