Builder PC Recommendations

[Matthew]

Hello - I am looking to get a new PC as my old one is a bit dated at this point with a single i7-5820K CPU on it. I use Builder as one of the main applications on the PC. 

I am debating between a new i7 with high clock speed but lower core count or Xeon with a high core count, but lower clock speed. 

Are there any recommendations for Adaptrade Builder PC specs in terms of cores vs clock speed?

[furytrader]

This is something I'm interested as well, as I'm looking to upgrade my PC and one thing I want to do is run Builder on it.  I assume more memory is better. Is there any significant advantage to using an SSD vs a regular hard drive? And as Matthew stated, are more cores at a slower processing speed > fewer cores with greater processing speed?

I know this topic has been discussed in the past, but technology changes pretty quickly!

[Matthew]

Michael - Can you provide some guidance on this? 

I am looking to build a new PC this year and Builder is the main application I am looking to build around.

[Michael R. Bryant]

The basics have not changed since the last time I commented on this. Most modern processes run at about the same speed, so processor speed differences won’t help much. The number of cores will make the biggest difference in processing times. However, because of the overhead associated with parallelizing an algorithm, it’s not a simple linear relationship (i.e., double the cores doesn’t mean double the speed). Builder only reads from the HD when starting a build or evaluation (and only if necessary) to read the price data, so a SSD won’t make much difference. More RAM is always good if you need it, which depends on your build parameters, because Builder stores everything in memory while building.

 

Mike Bryant

[Hugh Hammer]

eric...I have a 6 core that hyper threads into 12 automatically....32 GB solid state drive 1TB on operating system and regular wd 2TB on storage

Build it your self save a ton

Hugh

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Adaptrade Builder" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to adaptrade-builder+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

[craig beheler]

can builder utilize multiple cpu ie within a dual socket xeon workstation or can it only utilize one cpu

Hugh

To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to adaptrade-buil...@googlegroups.com.

[Lawrence Lewis]

We use multi socket Xeon boards all the time at work. Our software is written mostly in C, C++, and Java, and I've never seen a single line of code or build script that references the number of chips on the board. Also, we deploy our software to thousands of customers with widely differing configurations.

So, although you can never guarantee anything in the world of hardware/software, I pretty sure the answer is Builder can use as many cores as you have no matter how they're split into different chips.

That said, memory bandwidth can be an issue with compute intensive apps, and when you have 4 chips instead of 1, there's always the possibility of running into bandwidth issues that are different for different board designs.

In our performance tests, for compute intensive tasks, it is usually better to have fewer chips running at faster clock speeds, as long as you maximize the total throughput (# of cores * speed). Obviously better to have a single 5ghz core than four 1ghz cores. Is it better to have a single 5ghz core vs five 1 ghz cores? I'd probably go with the single 5ghz core. But it's not going to be that much difference.

To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to adaptrade-builder+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.

[craig beheler]

your statement is incorrect..windows limits processes to 1 NUMA topolgy per cpu unless the software is written to exploit multiple cpu it will only run on 1 cpu

[Lawrence Lewis]

Not sure I agree with you.

Although it does depend on whether you're running consumer Windows 10 (which only supports 2 physical cpus) or Windows Server. According to https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/dd405503(v=vs.85).aspx, although it's rather old:

"For better performance, the operating system takes physical locality into account when assigning logical processors to groups. All of the logical processors in a core, and all of the cores in a physical processor, are assigned to the same group, if possible. Physical processors that are physically close to one another are assigned to the same group. A NUMA node is assigned to a single group unless the capacity of the node exceeds the maximum group size. For more information, see NUMA Support.

On systems with 64 or fewer processors, existing applications will operate correctly without modification. Applications that do not call any functions that use processor affinity masks or processor numbers will operate correctly on all systems, regardless of the number of processors. To operate correctly on systems with more than 64 logical processors, the following kinds of applications might require modification:

To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to adaptrade-builder+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.

[craig beheler]

go under processes in windows and set process affinity..you can only use 1 group ie 1 cpu per process..builder would have to spawn mutliple processes to use multiple cpus

[Lawrence Lewis]

What about the statement:

"Physical processors that are physically close to one another are assigned to the same group"

That seems to imply there can be more than 1 processor per group

To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to adaptrade-builder+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.

[SystemTrader]

Can a blade system be used? I gather that each blade server requires its own windows installation. That suggests that a blade system could run several independent instances of Adaptrade Builder, but not a single, parallelized installation, which is the objective here.

[Michael R. Bryant]

I don't have any specific information on servers, but I doubt the OS would be able to distribute threads from a single process across multiple cpu's.

Mike Bryant

[SystemTrader]

My understanding is that it can be done. But it requires a specific type of framework that will distribute an application across cluster. An example would be Matlab parallel processing. My understanding is that Builder is not structured that way. So an implementation on a blade server would-be pointless.

[Matthew]

Mike - Are there any optimizations you're using in the application to have a preference for Intel or AMD processors? I am aiming at something like an Intel i9 or AMD Ryzen Threadripper.

I am looking at building a new PC and was wondering about this. 

[Mike Bryant]

There’s nothing specific to the processor type in Builder. I haven’t tested the program on Intel versus AMD. I can tell you I personally use an AMD Ryzen 7 1700 (8-core; 16 virtual cores) 3 GHz processor and it works well. With a typical build, all 16 logical processors are at 100% utilization. I believe the 7 1700 has since been replaced by a newer Ryzen 7.

 

Mike Bryant

Adaptrade Software

 

From: adaptrad...@googlegroups.com <adaptrad...@googlegroups.com> On Behalf Of Matthew
Sent: Saturday, February 16, 2019 10:16 AM
Subject: Re: Builder PC Recommendations

 

Mike - Are there any optimizations you're using in the application to have a preference for Intel or AMD processors? I am aiming at something like an Intel i9 or AMD Ryzen Threadripper.