Intel i7 Nehalem CPU

[whitmark]

Perhaps you were especially good this year and Santa brought you a shiny new computer with an Intel i7 chip inside. Would you care to comment on your experience running with NinjaTrader 6.5?

Curious if the i7 is markedly better than available Core 2 Duo and Quad CPUs for trading and optimization operations. Any comments on this topic are most welcome.

[ClayB1]

I'm using NT with a Core i7 920 and have found the performance to be superb. The rest of the system includes a 10K Velociraptor hard drive, an ATI 4850 graphics card driving two 22" widescreen monitors, and 3 GB of Corsair matched triple channel memory.

I upgraded from a 2.66 GHz P4 - my average processor usage while using Ninja during the trading day has dropped from around 35% down to less than 3%. I was shocked by the overall improvement. I had originally intended to overclock the 920 to about 3.5 GHz, but that is clearly not necessary.

[whitmark]

Thanks, Clay, for your input. I too have the WD VelociRaptor drive on my component list and might consider a solid state drive.

Since this box will do a fair amount of optimzation work, I am concerned about the ability to overclock the chip to get the most throughput. I understand most brand name motherboards (including Intel's) will allow this on the 920 or 940 Core i7 chips but not sure if this will be on option on OEM boards that you might find on a Dell pc, for example (excluding the extreme 965 i7 which readily allows overclocking).

My optimization times on a Core 2 Duo 2.4 GHz 2GB are nearly one-third that of my older P4 3.2 Ghz 2GB PC despite the lower operating frequency . . . your mileage my vary. Wonder if there is much more to be had with the i7 under the current NT 6.5 not to mention the planned multi-core, 64 bit NT 7.

Cheers

Additional comments welcome.

[ClayB1]

My motherboard is the Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD5. It has a lot of overclocking options - many people have reported getting 3.3 to 3.5 GHz easily. Some have gone as high as 4.0 GHz.

I am currently using the standard Intel cooler as there are not a lot of 3rd party options available just yet. The CPU runs very cool using the stock cooler, but I will probably install a 3rd party cooler when some good options become available. Frostytech (http://www.frostytech.com/) is an excellent source of reviews/information about cooling products.

Hope this helps

[T2020]

I'm using NT with a Core i7 920 and have found the performance to be superb.

I upgraded from a 2.66 GHz P4 - my average processor usage while using Ninja during the trading day has dropped from around 35% down to less than 3%. I was shocked by the overall improvement.

That's just one processor right . I'm running an old AMD 3800 dual core and
cpu usage can run anywhere from 25 to 60 % usage depending on volume .
When cpu usage gets above 50 % , I get concerned about order execution
firing off properly . Things get slow and jerky . Always thought dual core was
the way to go . Now not so sure . I run 6 charts usually ....

[ClayB1]

The Core i7 920 is a quad core. My previous CPU (P4 2.66 GHz) was single core. I can tell a very big difference between the two.