antoine wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I'm developing / sup****ting a java "client" application (running on PCs
> with XP pro, jre 1.5) which is a high performance trading client. it
> receives market updates, displays them on screen (swing), does a serie
> of computation, and performs several actions based on computated values
> (order sending, cancelation, etc...). it is designed to run for 8 hours
> straight without interruption, does not access any database, only uses
> socket-based I/O, and is correctly multi-threaded.
>
> I'm looking at upgrading our workstations, to hopefully get a speed
> increase. currently, our "base computation" routine takes around 5ms
> average, and I'm looking at reducing this number (I'm also looking at
> improving CODE performances, but this post is about hardware).
>
> currently we're running on dual CPU intel Xeon 2.8GHz, roughly 3 years
> old, with 1GB RAM. virtual memory usage is around 128MB, so I believe
> RAM is not an issue.
>
> which kind of upgrade would sound smart to you ? I've seen technologies
> like:
> - all the "dual core" family
> - 64-bit architecture (although no JVM for intel on XP pro 64-bit)
> - simply pu****ng the frequency to 3.6GHz...
>
> does 64-bit make sense ? or is it only for memory intensive application
> (we're more concerned with execution speed) ?
>
> any insight or link to any informative page would be most welcome !
>
> thanks
>
> -Antoine
Its hard to say without testing your particular code on the different
types of upgrades.
If your code can utilize multithreading effectively, I would probably
look into dual core (or quad processor) technologies.
There is a 64 bit JVM for Linux, and it might provide a boost.
Actually, just move to Linux may provide a slight boost.
Its really hard to say exactly what will be the most cost-effective
upgrade without actually testing results. I suggest you talk your
distributor into allowing you to run some custom benchmarks. Ofcourse,
the benchmarks should accurately reflect the profile of your
application.
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