Holmes , is there a tutorial linked somewhere you recommend? I had no idea such gains were available.
There is a lot of misinformation in this series of posts. I would say that the common reason that a trader has more than one processor is that they are misinformed. The majority of performance problems can be attributed to poorly written software. If the software is poorly written, a second processor will probably do little to speed improve performance. Multiple processors make sense when you may have two independent CPU-intensive threads operating on independent data simultaneously. Whenever these threads share a common resource there is a deadlock where one operation must wait on the other to complete. This implies that there must be a way for separate programs to operate on a common resource without stepping on one another. In software engineering terminology this is referred to as "locking". Locking is itself a CPU intensive operation, meaning that there is an overhead associated with multiprocessing. The locking overhead is associated with the frequency of common data access by the respective threads. Depending on the software and operating system, there might be no performance improvement as a result of having parallel processors. Even worse, performance could actually decrease as a result of locking. This does not even scratch the surface, but it should be sufficient to say that the majority of trader workstations will not benefit from multiple processors. To benefit, the software needs to be carefully designed to take advantage of the additional processors. Even then, there are operating constraints that must be accounted for to ensure performance. The bottom line is, "save your money". If you have totally separate applications, consider purchasing a second system instead of a second CPU. -segv
LOL. Guys. He may have software issues but he probably can't fix them anyway. He will benefit by increasing ram if hes under 512k but if his system is near antique now and his trading apps have continued to get hungrier he will also benefit by a new processor/motherboard. And given the price of mid range Core 2 Duo's he might as well get one. If I was buying a new system or needed to upgrade more than a cpu my pathetic motherboard could support I'd get one. Anyone who thinks the new processors won't improve performance of trading application suites is probably deliberately hanging onto their nonsense: tomshardware and anandtech tests should convince all but the most obtuse. PS. Holmes, If you can really make a trading system running on XP run three times as fast (I'll take twice) then how about proving it to us and benefiting everyone by setting up a thread to show how. I think 2-3x is an exaggeration but would always cheerfully take 1.5x
As an example, the price differene between a dual core AMD 4200+ x2 and a single core 3500+ is about $100. Clock speed is the same in the two chips. The situation is similiar with Intel. It doesn't make sense to not get dual core in a new machine. At this price, why not ? I'm quite aware that there are overheads with multiprocessor machines, not only in multithreaded applications, but also at the hardware and operating system levels. I do full well understand the issues. I was developing multithreaded high performance C++ code on muliprocessor Suns six years ago. It was not exactly bleeding edge then. As long as one does not expect some randomly chosen piece of software to double in speed on a dual core box then there won't be disappointment. For multiple simultaneous applications, in most cases there will be clear performance benefits.
Not as much as it cost you no-sense. Hee hee hee, once again typical response. Don't forget your medication Grampa