What's the fastest CPU?

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mmillar

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Hi,

I'm currently running a 1.6GHz Xeon processor, 1Gb memory, Windows 2K Pro. My CPU is constantly maxed out. The memory usage only ever gets to 450Mb maximum. My two main applications are TradeStation 7 and Excel.

I can get a second Xeon processor cheaply or can buy a new P4 PC. What's the best option?

Also, I read somewhere that 2.8GHz P4 CPUs are better for our trading applications then 3.x P4 CPUs because <3 is designed for 2D graphics whereas >3 is designed for 3D graphics. Is this true? Does it make a difference?

Any help appreciated.

Cheers

mmillar
 
mmiller,

It wont be Excel that is using so much of your CPU but it is highly likely that TS7 is. When you have all your processes running and you hit Ctrl+Alt+Del and you select the Processes tab, what applications are taking the greatest % up ?

In particular what are you using TS7 for ? is it just charts or are you using any scanning functions ?

There are a few things that can help depending upon what you are doing.


Cheers


Paul
 
Hi mmillar,

The reason that the memory isn't being used is purely down to limitations in the OS. Therefor with beefy apps the processor will be busy swopping dlls in and out.

Have you used a good defrag program like Diskeeper as well?

Another option is a fast Hard Drive.

The best investment would probably be to run a Server OS Windows 2000 Server or better still Windows 2003 providing that your Apps will run. They will utilise facilities in the Zeon processor than a Desktop OS will not aswell as using the memory in a better manor.

Another possibility is if you are running Office 97 as it's a 16 bit app. Current processors arn't so hot when running 16 bit apps.

Make sure all your drivers are upto date, the Motherboard BIOS is upto date and of course a full windows update.

Also try running with your Anti-Virus software disabled and some AVs with certain apps cripple a machine.

Like Paul has said look at the processes to establish what is hogging the processor.

All in all a 1.6Ghz zeon shouldn't really have a problem!

I can run MarketMaker, TWS and SierraChart fine on a 350Mhz Celeron with 184Meg memory under XP Pro!

JonnyT
 
mmillar, this problem crops up regularly on http://pcpitstop.ibforums.com/ and the answer, as Jonny says, is not the cpu capacity.
PCPitstop is free and they can help you find out what's wrong.
Test your machine and post the results for help.
See you over there ;)
 
Thanks everyone for the replies.

I ran PCPitStop but it didn't say anything except that I needed to defragment my disks. However, what I then found was that an analysis of my C: drive takes less than 15 seconds with about 5 seconds of that at full CPU, whereas my D: drive takes 1 minute 45 seconds with virtually all that time at full CPU. Both drives are identical 40Gb disks. Though when I'm trading the D: drive shouldn't be accessed. Not sure what this means.

It is definately TS7 that is causing the CPU to max out. But when I think about it TS7 caches everything locally and so has constant disk access, whether I'm watching the market realtime, flicking through historical charts or running backtests.

I'm running Office 2002, everything is up to date.

I'll spend some time today looking at the anti-virus stuff and see if I can see what else is happening when TS7 is running. I'm increasingly suspicious that it is the disk access causing the CPU to max out. I'm not sure if this is normal or if there is anything I can do about it.

I'll let you know what I find. Thanks again for the replies.

Cheers

mmillar
 
Hi mmillar, if you haven't asked on PCPitstop I would strongly advise you to. There is a lot of computer expertise there. I'm sure they'll sort it quicker. If you meant your defrag was slow, run Diskeeperlite. It's quicker than Windows defrag and runs in the background without trouble.
http://www.webattack.com/get/dkeeperlite.shtml
Good luck
 
mmiller,

You seem to have almost dismissed the fact that pcpitstop recommended defragmenting your pc. Fragmentation can, and often is, one of the main reasons for high CPU usage.

I also ran this test a few months back and got the same recommendation. In the end I bought diskeeper so that my pc is always being defragmented when I am not trading. The one thing that stood out using diskeeper was just how unreliable my pc was and I needed to do what is called a "Boot Defrag" something that WIndows is not able to do.

Since then I have had no reliability issues and my pc runs much better. If pc pitstop says you need to defrag I would suggest getting something similar to diskeeper as I am sure you wont regret it.


Paul
 
Paul,

Sorry if I didn't explain myself correctly. I haven't dismissed defragmenting my disks - I did defragment them. The differences I described between my C: and D: drives occured after both disks were defragmented.

Cheers
 
Hi mmillar,

What specs are your Hard Disks? ATA66 ATA100 ATA133 SerialATA
SCSI?

What Spec does your motherboard support?

What Spindle speed and Cache do they have?

Are you running the Swap file on a different disk to the boot disk? (you should be). Is the Swap file set to 1.5 times system memory? (or managed by Windows)

Are the two Drives on different controllers or on the same one?

JonnyT
 
Hi again,

I defragged with Diskeeper8.

My disks are IBM Deskstar 45GXPs. Ultra ATA/100, 7200RPM. I (physically) removed the D: drive and it didn't make any difference. Removed my virus scanner and didn't make any difference. I think the drive speed thing is a red herring.

My PCPitstop results are here...

http://www.pcpitstop.com/TechExpress.asp?id=BVHLKWLXU3MSUXS3

When I play with TradeStation and look at the processes it looks like it is just TS hammering the CPU. orchart.exe runs at 99% whenever I am working with indicators on my charts or if I'm backtesting. It may be because my indicators are particularly difficult to calculate. I'll ask on the TS site about CPU usage.

Back to my original question. Will a second Xeon help? Or is the P4 (especially the new P4HTEE) significantly faster. Or an AMD chip?

Cheers

mmillar
 
mmillar,

Do your TS indicators use more than one datastream? If so, this is a known problem area with TS2000i and may well be for TS7 also. I had problems with indicators using 2 or more real-time datastreams and found from the TS forum that others had come across this too.

Paul
 
A second Zeion will only radically help if the Application and OS are multiprocessor aware. Your OS isn't, and I doubt a desktop application is!

I would think if you change your processor then you will need a new motherboard to support it.

JonnyT
 
Thanks all.

fowkesp - yes, I do use more than one datastream!! thanks for that. that's the information I needed.

Mayfly - just my monitor not recognised. can't find the disk that came with it and NEC are reorganising their website and don't have the right driver up at the mo. thanks anyway.

Mr Chill - lots of discussion around between AMD or Intel being best for trading applications. I'll ask TS if they have done any tests.

JonnyT - that's what I thought about the Xeon. I wouldn't just buy a new processor. I would get the whole shebang.

Oatman - thanks very much for your help on this. PCPitstop and the other sites you have given have been very helpful. I'm sure others will find them helpful as well.

Cheers all

mmillar
 
mmiller,

One thing a friend of mine noticed when using TS and that was if certain windows were minimised then the processor resources used dropped quite dramatically. We guessed that this may be down to the fact that the graphics being displayed had reduced but in all honestly we didnt know the exact reason.

During the trading day I am constantly monitoring over 160 stocks so I do expect resources to get used but I do all of this on an AMD 1GHz Laptop and it seems to just about cope.


Paul
 
mmillar,

If you've got more than one datastream in a chart then you are most likely going to suffer like I did. I have investigated this in TS2000i and it seems to me that the interface between GlobalServer and TradeStation (which TS uses to to retrieve the chart data) is screwy when more than one datastream is involved. It's probably a poor API design between the two components of TS.

It's best to ask the question in the TS forum to see if anyone has any tips. I found a partial solution for TS2000i which was to use the "PushPop" third-party utility: this allows you to split the two datastreams into two different charts, yet still access them as though they are on the same chart. But you need to have a progamming mentality to understand how it works.

Good luck,
Paul
 
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