PC Config SuggestionsPost Date: 2009-05-22 |
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dtrader 
Newbie 
Joined: 17 May 2009 Online Status: Offline Posts: 10 |
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 Topic: PC Config SuggestionsPosted: 22 May 2009 at 7:01pm |
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I need help from fellow DS customers. I need to build a fast stable system with HD redundency. Uptime is of the utmost importance. I need your advice and suggestions to give me potential DS system configs that you feel will meet my computing needs. System will be used for business and pleasure. On the pleasure front, I'll be playing most of the latest memory/video intensive games that most of you play. On the business front, it will be used to stream large video w/ audio files, record live video/audio streaming webinars that run for several hours (4-8 hrs long), and provide live stock market data streams consisting of numerous charts, time & sales tick by tick data, NASDAQ & NYSE Top 20% Gainers/Losers plus several other Top 20 watch lists, and multiple NASDAQ Level II live queues. At any given moment, I can be using ALL of the above! Ugh! The reason I need redundencey is I can NOT afford downtime at inopportune moments. For example: if I'm in a trade with large sums of money on the line, I can NOT afford to have a HD failure cause the system to crash and not be able to gain access to my trading account. I know I can have a standby laptop for emergencies but I also want to limit the new DS system's downtime. I was thinking an SDD for the OS and 3x300GB Velociraptors in a Raid-5 for anything stock trading related, and possibly an 1.5 or 2.0GB HD for videos and misc. I already have 2x24" Acer G24 monitors so I won't need any monitors.The one drawback is that I will need to use WinXP Pro for the OS since the trading platform performs BEST with XP as opposed to Vista, which will limit the amount of RAM I can use.
Can you guys help me out with a system config that will meet these computing needs? I thank you ALL in advance!!!
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DST4ME
DS ELITE 
Joined: 14 Apr 2008 Online Status: Offline Posts: 36758 |
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Posted: 22 May 2009 at 7:17pm |
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ouch, well then you got a big problem, all the stuff you named requires lot of ram, I was gonna suggest you going with 6GB and then if you see you need more then go with 12GB, then I was gonna suggest 2 GPUs for another 2GB.
I can't do any of that cause your XP will see 4GB at most and it does that by limiting the OS to 2GB and in this case the rest will be taken by your GPUs. you are not gonna be able to do much multitasking with 2GB for OS/apps/games. are you doing everything you names right now on your current PC? are you able to do more then one of those tasks at a time? is there any problems when you try and do these tasks? PC freeze or BSOD or etc.,? have you tried running these softwares on vista and had problem or are you going by what you heard people say? Edited by DST4ME - 22 May 2009 at 7:18pm |
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dtrader
Newbie
Joined: 17 May 2009 Online Status: Offline Posts: 10 |
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Posted: 22 May 2009 at 7:48pm |
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funny u should ask. this was the first time i tried doing ALL at the same time with all of the mentioned trading data screens opened while recording the live training seminars each day this week. the recorded seminars ran an average of 4-8 hours. the only thing I was NOT able to do was display the info on both of my acer g24 monitors. when i tried, my video suffered from terrible latency issues. my data was taking too long to update and everything was 'stuttering' before being displayed. i think that's because my old system has an ancient GeForce4 Ti4600 graphics card. ok, stop laughing now please. :) u know, even though my platform will run faster on XP, i could run it on Vista. so let's go with that. gimme a config for vista (i'm hoping u'll suppgest one of the 64bit versions). i'm also thinking water cooling and o.c. the cpu. Since DS state they test their systems for 72hrs i'm guessing the o.c. to 4.0 - 4.2ghz will be at a "stable" level). i was wondering too if there is any advantage to o.c. the video and/or water cool the video? i also love the HAF 932 case, but i don't want to influence your suggestions so i'll defer to you now for yours... and thanks again.
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DST4ME
DS ELITE
Joined: 14 Apr 2008 Online Status: Offline Posts: 36758 |
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Posted: 22 May 2009 at 7:56pm |
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OK hold on, yes we have to go with a 64bit cause its the 64bit that will see more ram then 4GB.
as for stage 2 oc and LC and the rest, lets figure what your price range is |
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dtrader
Newbie
Joined: 17 May 2009 Online Status: Offline Posts: 10 |
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Posted: 23 May 2009 at 8:15am |
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price range is up to $6.5k
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DST4ME
DS ELITE
Joined: 14 Apr 2008 Online Status: Offline Posts: 36758 |
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Posted: 23 May 2009 at 10:13am |
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so something like this:
here you go Ticket# 286141 --- Price: $5884 (To see this build click here) Price after current promotion $5684 Copy of Specifications: Chassis Model: Cooler Master HAF 932 Exterior Finish: - Standard Factory Finish Interior Finish: - Standard Factory Finish Trim Accents: - Standard Factory Finish Processor: Intel Core i7 Extreme Edition 965 3.2GHz (Quad Core) (Extreme Performance) Motherboard: EVGA X58 Classified 3X SLI (Intel X58 Chipset) (Supports Triple SLI or CrossFire) System Memory: 6GB DDR3 1600MHz Mushkin (Highly Recommended) (Digital Storm Certified) Power Supply: 1000W Corsair HX (Dual/Triple/Quad SLI Compatible) (Silent Edition) Card Reader: - No Thanks Hard Drive Set 1: Operating System: 1x (80GB Solid State (By: Intel) (Extreme Performance) (Model: SSDSA2MH080G1C5) Set 1 Raid Options: - No Thanks Hard Drive Set 2: Multimedia\Data: 2x (300GB Western Digital VelociRaptor (10K RPM) (16MB Cache) (Extreme Speed) Hard Drive Set 3: Backup\Misc.: 1x (1TB Western Digital (7200 RPM) (16MB Cache) (SATA) (Extreme Speed) Optical Drive 1: DVD±R/RW/CD-R/RW (DVD Writer 20x / CD-Writer 48x) Optical Drive 2: DVD±R/RW/CD-R/RW (DVD Writer 20x / CD-Writer 48x) Internet Access: High Speed Network Port (Supports High-Speed Cable / DSL / Network Connections) Video Card: 2x SLI Dual (NVIDIA GeForce GTX 275 896MB (Includes PhysX Technology) Add-on Card: - No Thanks Sound Card: Integrated Motherboard Audio Extreme Cooling: H20: Stage 3: High-Performance Liquid Chilled FrostBite System For CPU Liquid Color:- Not Applicable, I do not have a H20: Stage 3 Cooling System Selected Chassis Airflow: Upgrade Chassis With LED Performance Fans (Red) Internal Lighting: Internal Chassis Lighting System (UV) (Creates Glowing Effect For H20: Stage 3 UV Fluid) Enhancements: - No Thanks Chassis Mods: - No Thanks Boost Processor: Stage 2: Overclock the processor between 4.0GHz to 4.2GHz (Requires H20 Cooling Upgrade) Boost Video Card: - No Thanks, Please do not overclock my video card(s) Boost Memory: Memory Fan Kit Only (Does not include memory overclocking service) Tweak Windows: - No Thanks, Please do not tweak the services on the operating system Windows OS: Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate (64-Bit Edition) Restore Kit: Digital Storm Specialized Recovery System (DVD Image Based) Virus Protection: - No Thanks Office: - No Thanks Benchmarking: - No Thanks Install/Test Game: - No Thanks LCD Display: - No Thanks Surge Shield: - No Thanks Speakers: - No Thanks Keyboard: - No Thanks Mouse: - No Thanks External Storage: - No Thanks Exclusive T-Shirt: - No Thanks Priority Build: - No Thanks, Ship Within 5-10 Business Days After Order Is Successfully Processed Warranty: 5 Year Platinum Care Extended Parts & Labor Warranty (Highly Recommended) its comes with a 5 year warranty. if you don't see me pick an option you wanted, its because that option was pointless, thats why you don't see it picked 
when you order you have to ask them to raid 5 the 2 raptors for you. but if I were you I would keep my os/apps/games on the same drive and just raid 5 that drive. in the above system, if the OS drives dies, you are screwed, even tho your apps are installed on the raid Raptor, your regkeys for those apps are all on the SSD drive. |
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dtrader
Newbie
Joined: 17 May 2009 Online Status: Offline Posts: 10 |
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Posted: 23 May 2009 at 10:52am |
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thanks for the config. i like your suggestions. got a question on the HD front. since the reason for building this system is to use 1 system for all my computing needs instead of the current 2 PC setup that i currently have which makes me have to switch back and forth between to get my work done.
having said that, uptime and redundency is very important to me. what if i put the OS in a 2xSSD's raid-0 mirror setup (mirror=100% redundency of driveA to drive B). So if SSD drive1 of set1 fails, my OS will continue to run off the 2nd SSD drive1? If my assumption of how raid-0 works is correct then this will accomplish my uptime needs... of no downtime with 1HD failure. if my understanding of raid-0 is wrong, please let me know what is correct. another reason i wanted to use SSD HDs for the OS is because i keep hearing how fast SSD boot. if that's true, then that will server me need well. if i'm in a trade and my system blue screens or reboots, then i need to got booted and logged in as FAST as possible to manage my active trades. i know using 2 pricy SSD's in raid-0 seems like overkill just to house the OS, but bootime and OS read speeds are critical to my trading needs.
i also didn't know u could raid-5 a drive set with less than 3 HDs. i thought u had to have at least 3 HDs to do raid-5. am i wrong? you comments on raid-5 leads me to think maybe i'm wrong. let me know.
i was thinking of keeping the trading system on a seperate HD raid-5 set so that the larger amount of writes that market data streams write to the HDs would be faster and secure on its own HD set. this way the OS can do what it needs to without negatively impacting the trading data HDs and the trading data HDs would not impact the OS HDs.
DST4ME, i read an article in the Nov. 2008 issue of Maximum PC that rated SSD drives strengths and weaknesses. they said the SSDs can't be beat for read speeds... they blew the doors off the velociraptors. however, they said on large writes, the velociraptors were faster. since my trading systems needs to write a lot of data, that's kind of why i wanted to mix the SSDs for the OS and the velociraptors for the trading data. the article also said that SSD drives come in two flavors... SLC (Single-Layer Cell) and MLC (Multi-Level Cell). they recommended SLC SSDs since they're faster than the lesser costing MLC SSDs. u know anything about that?
i'm really trying to get a handle on the boot speed and redundency issue for my new system. any help will be much appreciated to clarify what u said about HD choices and raid-5 in conjunction with what i've 'attempted' to explain here.
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dtrader
Newbie
Joined: 17 May 2009 Online Status: Offline Posts: 10 |
Quote Reply
Posted: 23 May 2009 at 10:57am |
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typeo. i ments raid-1 for mirroring. in error i wrote raid-0 when referring to mirroring. my culpa.
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DST4ME
DS ELITE
Joined: 14 Apr 2008 Online Status: Offline Posts: 36758 |
Quote Reply
Posted: 23 May 2009 at 6:35pm |
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right now the Intel x25 extreme will blow the doors off any any SATA drive.
there are many new SSDs out also, your raid vertex will take the veloci but in iops Intel is king. raid 1 and raid 5 do mirror but offer no performance gain. you are right about raid 5 I missed that, you need 3 HDDs for raid 5 to work. why not just do raid 1 instead? isn't it simpler if you just clone your drive once a day? yes SLC will be faster they have faster iops generally. raid 2 SSDs in raid and I think you should be good to go. if you want to spend the money and 80GB will cover the space you need for your OS/apps then get 2 x "Intel x25 M" (MLC SSD), and use raid 1 on them. this will cost you around $650 total, saving you money over the configuration I offered in my previous post. If not, then raid 2 x 160GB "Intel x25 m", this will cost you around $1200, if we remove the Raptor from my previous build and instead go with 2 x 160GB Intel x25 m and a 1TB drive for storage the price after discount will be $6061. Ticket Number: 286228 I think this is a better choice and all can be on the same fast drive with mirroring. Edited by DST4ME - 23 May 2009 at 6:45pm |
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dtrader
Newbie
Joined: 17 May 2009 Online Status: Offline Posts: 10 |
Quote Reply
Posted: 23 May 2009 at 8:18pm |
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thank you for taking the time to offer some sound advice. i earnestly thank you. i think i'll take your advice about doing a raid-1 instead of raid-5. raid-5 cuts the latency by 33% over raid-1, but raid-1 will give me 100% redundency so i'll take your advice on ditching raid-5 for raid-1. i'll take a look at the ticket and proceed with the order this week. thanks again DST4ME!
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DST4ME
DS ELITE
Joined: 14 Apr 2008 Online Status: Offline Posts: 36758 |
Quote Reply
Posted: 23 May 2009 at 9:00pm |
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You are very welcome, I was just trying to see what is the best way of keeping OS/apps/games on one HDD with mirror raid so that you can have your copy and your speed.
my biggest problem with the other setup is that our raid with the Raptor would be pointless if the SSD failed. its been a pleasure and good luck 
this might sound crazy but backup your raid to an external once a week via cloning, this is for that one in a million chance, seems like you can't afford to have that happen either so to cover yourself, clone the raid setup to an external, your external can be a regular 7200rpm drive. this is so that if both drives happen, you can restore back to 2 new duplicate SSDs from this external. I have an easy walk thru for it, you can follow my clone guide here |
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