I'm guessing it is, but they are cheap and I just wondered, for a dedicated trading rig are they slow performing compared with an i5 or i7? Dual cores, so half as many cores as an i5 as I understand. And 2MB less Level 3 cache as well, compared with an i5. It seems a bad idea, but any input on this? Would the more cores make a big difference?
If the trading is simple, like no complex ATS and no 20+ charts with gazillion indicators, the I3 will do just fine!
Ok, so a lot of charts and indicators would utilize the extra cores then. Kinda wondering what would be important for the extra cores. Sounds like an i5 or i7 might be a better idea then.
That depends if your charting software is even designed to take advantage of multiple cores. It might be single threaded.
I would think most would be by now? I just now looked up Ensign Software's system requirements and it lists for Power Users that it recommends a quad core. So I'd assume it's able to use the cores then. Edit: I just checked Sierra Chart and they recommend a dual core processor. So I would guess that it uses multiple cores too.
Dart I use an I5 with Ninja Trader, Tc2000, IB TWS, Chrome and Instant Messenger with 8gb in Windows 7, and zero hassles or slow down.
Multi-core is a form of parallel processing. There are things different cores can share and there are things they can't. How the software can make them work together towards a common goal can be tricky. Your trading software does have to support it in order to fully utilize the capability of a multi-core processor. For example, TradeStation 8.x was not multi-core capable. When I ran 8.x on my i7-930 machine (quad core) three years ago, it is like having a 4-cylinder car but only 1 cylinder will fire. It wasn't until 9.1 that they supported multi-core. Before, I used to see CPU "busy" when the overall % use reached 13%. And in Windows Task Manager, only 1 out of the 4 cores was really working. Now with multi-core option, the work-load spreaded evenly and I hardly run into CPU usage contention. Not without some growing pain though. When 9.1 was first released, I experienced many core-dumps and TS software crashes. Later on they plugged the holes and now things are fairly stable and nice. 2 weeks ago I purchased an I-5 processor (Passmark score over 6000) and motherboard combo for only $210 with rebates. So why nickle-and-dime on the price difference between i5 and i3? You may not need it. But the price differential seems so minute, so why bother? You are always better equipped with a faster CPU no matter the circumstances.
Guess I needed to see what the general response was to something that low powered. I believe, from this topic (which has helped me a lot) that you really can't have to much performance for a trading computer. More the better. Only reason I might nickel and dime is if it weren't being used. Multiple cores have been around long enough now that pretty much everyone has gotten their software to use them I guess. Your problems with Tradestation sounded interesting, I'm glad they resolved it for you. I'm somewhat uninformed on what level of use these softwares take, as it's been many years now since I last used any. But it looks like they are up to spec. I'm glad I have 16gb of ram in my trading system.
Where did you ever get THAT idea? Nearly all of us have 100x the horsepower we need for trading. Unless you're running lots of tic charts and/or custom formulas (in both cases the CPU is likely working on every tick), the software runs from RAM and the CPU sits nearly idle 99.99% of the day. If you already have the software running on another rig, check the Task Manager and see how much CPU is being use when everything is loaded. If it's a low percentage, then any old CPU will be more than adequate. If the CPU percentage use is high (and it's not due to a software malfunction), then more CPU is better. (We formerly ran trading rigs on dualcores... and single cores before that.)
Well, as I'm going to be running a lot of monitors on one processor, I'd assume the charts would burn a lot of processing power once setup with indicators, studies, trend lines, etc. The information I gleaned from this thread is that doing so would require multiple cores to process. I haven't actually set it up, which wont be for a bit yet, to see how much it actually uses.