I use Sierra Chart and Ninja Trader on desktop. My PC only runs these three programs. I am currently running an i5-8400 and have had no problems but I would like to upgrade a few things. What is the consensus on AMD vs Intel here? I am leaning towards Ryzen 5800 at the moment. It's my understanding that Intel chips are better for multi-core performance and that the trading softwares wouldn't really utilize these high core set-ups(12+ cores) but I may be mistaken. As far as im concerned, money is imaginary when it comes to buying the right tool for your job so cost will not factor in. I just dont want to buy something that I will in no way utilize so im curious how we as traders would determine what thee line is in terms of CPU utilization. These new chips are so fast and so complex. What is the proper tool for the job and to buy a little future proofing. to note: I want to stay on DDR4 not interested in DDR5 at the moment.
It's actually the opposite. AMD has the CPUs with highest core count. However, Intel offers the best per-core performance. https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/cpu-hierarchy,4312.html Go with an Intel® Core™ i5-13600K Processor, 6 performance, 8 efficiency cores and 24MB of cache will get the job done. If you want to spend more, look at the i7 or i9. Not sure if there's a board that will run that with DDR4.
You say that you want to upgrade even though your current PC has no issues. What is the goal of the upgrade? What are you trying to achieve? You won’t be able to get less issues with that new PC than you have with your current one.
If you're thinking of upgrading your present machine, you'll need to check your owner's manual. The mobo will likely accommodate only certain "CPU Series(s)", so you'll have to choose from among those.
Upgrading your CPU likely won't improve trading performance in a way you'll notice. Your present CPU has a Passmark score of ~9000 My old workstation Passmark is ~7000 The machine I'm using at this moment, ~3000 (Sierra runs fine) Generally the CPU isn't used much in trading... it's mostly used when loading programs from the drive storage into RAM. After that the CPU mostly sits idle... unless you're graphing tics. Any new machine you get today, so long as it's not just the cheapest thing you can find, will probably have at 2-3x performance all around vs. your present machine.
We specialize in Chicago VPS for remote chart trading, but I think I can offer some information to help you make your choice. With NinjaTrader, the decision of more cores vs. performance per core should be based on the type of NinjaTrader charts. One core concept that is important to understand about NinjaTrader's multi-threaded design is that each instrument is assigned to a thread and all windows with that instrument will run on that same thread. This is done so that an instrument cannot become out of sync with itself. Here is a simplified example: 10 charts with 10 separate instruments = 10 threads. 10 charts with 1 instrument in all charts = 1 thread So for example if you have multiple charts with ES 03-23 with different timeframe and all using 3rd party indicators, all of that is run on a single CPU thread. This is the reason why for our VPS services, we chose Ryzen 5900x or 5950x for CPU. The single thread rating is 3469, and the performance gain is noticeable in general. If you're interested, here's more on NinjaTrader multi-threading from the support forum: https://ninjatrader.com/support/for...076753-any-plan-to-utilize-multiple-cpu-cores
Thanks for all the insight. It’s just time to do a new case, motherboard, and chip so I want to do it right. I just can’t afford any hiccups(extremely active futures trader) and I want to move towards have faster ram as well as dedicated 4.0 SSDs for my softwares and cache files. I already hav the ram and SSDs but the motherboard I have will not service their respective performance capacities. Small price to pay for peace of mind. Entirety project will be under $1000 or so
I would go for AMD. I actually only have Intel cpu's. If I buy a new pc it is always an overkill. But I don't care as 1 profitable trade makes much more money than a new high performance PC with all options will cost. It is a bit like buying a 200 mph car for driving around in the US where there is even not a single road where you can drive legally 50% of the topspeed. You buy it for fun, and you can afford it. So why not?
I like taking my money and setting it on fire sometimes. It's fake and made of paper anyway so why not?