I failed to state this earlier, but did say I’m a caveman when it comes to new stuff Guys I know nothing about server chips/boards etc… Never heard of the new Epyc chips till this thread, so no worries I’m happy to learn! I did a quick google search earlier and saw the prices start at 500 and goto 6 grand. Very impressive Cpu’s but that’s all I know.
Eureka moment and a great question to ask you guys. What PC benchmark would most closely simulate trading? I use TD Ameritrade’s thinkorswim program and it has a paper trading option where one can pretend to trade without real money involved. So the program should be freely available for anyone interested afaik.
I could throw another thousand into this build no problem. Just need to know if its worth it for what I’m doing.
I wish motherboards like the ASUS Pro WS X570-Ace that have ECC memory support. Had faster supported speeds! Since ECC memory isn’t the mainstream its not profitable for companys to spend money on the R&D etc afaik.
Here’s my build layout for the Pro WS X-570 Ace mb so far.
M.2 NVme on M.2_1 for OS boot drive, Like a Samsung 960 EVO NVMe 250GB (UEFI boot partition)
Minimum 16gb of ECC mem, Not sure if I should just buy 32gb at the same time to ensure the chips are exactly the same? Price isn’t a concern here since they are $100/8gb. And I’m saving lots by not going the Threadripper route since I can’t validate that expenditure for what I’m doing with what I know right now anyway in my research.
Please feel free to correct me guys, I have no ego when it comes to this. I’m mainly concerned with not wasting time trying out half baked plans at this point.
Quaduro or similar video card goes in PCiex16_1.
PCiex16_2 is reserved for 2nd video card when needed.
The Raid 1 array will use the X570 chipset pcie lanes in some fashion. The mb has two U.2 ports that would be ideal since they are 64GBS! I’m wide open to options here so please offer any suggestions you have.
LG MultiDrive DVD writer or similar plugged into SATA6G_1.
Still researching options for external backup storage. Need something small to keep in a bank safe deposit box.
CPU: 3700x : 6 cores is overkill for trading, but more cores might be useful if you’re going to run a VM or two.
RAM: all ecc ram I can find is slow 12.7 ns for 8G / 14.2 ns for 16G sticks. … nothing in the 8ns 3600MHz sweet spot… then again, it shouldn’t matter, get 2x16G unbuffered ecc 2666 DIMMs and you’ll be happy.
GPU: this is an issue, with 3 monitors without display ports. It might be a time to upgrade tiny benqs and get a pair of 43" 4k Philips Momentum screens now. Instead of 6x BenQ. Yes, the two monitors might be too nice for trading but they are good enough quality to be able to tune them to be easy on the eyes and still have enough color contrast to differentiate between different shades of oranges on charts.
Once you’re down to a dual 4k display port setup, since you don’t care about gaming or photo editing, you can cheap out and get the cheapest triple fan 1660 with at least 6G of ram.
Storage: 2x 1T or 2x2T of whatever Samsung Evo nvme in raid1 + get a pair of external HDDs of at least 4T to do backups with Acronis. Rotate between the two weekly, but keep at least one disconnected at all times in case you get some nastyware that you don’t want to let into your backups.
Case and cooling and PSU: if you want to stick with a single brand go with bequiet silent base 600, dark rock pro 4 for cpu, and whatever wattage PSU. make sure you have 2x140mm intakes at filtered front, and one exhaust on the back. If you want to frankenmatch for slightly higher quality, then seasonic psu, noctua d15 cpu cooling, noctua nf-a14 for case fans, and fractal meshify s2, buy at least 4case fans 3 intake 1 exhaust because GPUs can heat up. You can turn one or two of them off or ramp them down in software.
Don’t need optical drives. Keep your current setup for Linux and experimentation
@risk, Thanks for the recommendation on the mb! Pcpartpicker shows it doesn’t support ECC memory so I missed it in my earlier search.
If I’m understanding the Nvidia quadro p620 and my Benq GL2480 monitor specs correctly. This setup will run my monitors easily in HDMI@75hz with 3 mini-display port to hdmi cable adaptors.
“Connect the Quadro P620 to HDMI displays at resolutions up to 4K with PNY Part Number MDP-HDMI-FOUR-PCK. The four included latching mini-DisplayPort to HDMI adapters are recommended by NVIDIA, provide outstanding image quality, and are built to professional standards.”
So roughly $400 bucks or so and 4 monitors have a GPU that’s only using 40 watts. Provided I use their adapters, aftermarket has lots of cheaper adapters to check out also.
I remember reading the X570 chipset used more power than X470 chipset. But am surprised how small the VRM is on the X470D4U mb. Even though it supports 105 watt cpu’s. Wow!
Thanks for the storage, case, psu and cooling recommendations also! The research continues including finding some builds based on this mb and IPMI walk throughs. I have a lot to learn.
I normally browse components on geizhals.eu where I find it more comprehensive offering than pcpartpicker. Also I like the more detailed feature filtering… It also helps that I’m in Europe.
Wendel used that board in some nas videos with Steve from GN and they show the IPMI, might be useful.
The adapters will work, but not sure I like that card, even though it’s cheap.
1660 is marginally more expensive here (250-300 eur vs 200), but is a newer architecture built on a smaller process (Turing vs Pascal), and it should use less power for the same workload. The fans are there so that you can push it further if you want to e.g. render something or transcode hi res video for whatever reason, or do some light gaming. If you’re just showing random a Bloomberg terminal or some stock trading platforms and spreadsheets fans won’t have to turn on.
With Nvidia studio drivers (since mid last year), the 1660 will do 10bit color in opengl same as quadro cards - useful for ocassional Photoshop or Lightroom session; which brings us to better screens.
So, I’m a professional software engineer, my current setup is 2x 4k 60Hz 32" + laptop monitor to drive these. I upgraded from 2x 30" 2560x1600 back in 2016, and I can definitely claim that having this ability to display and correlate code and other info from multiple places at the same time gives me more of an edge every once in a while, sufficient to be worth it. I’m comfortable using 150dpi at 1:1 no scaling. I know a bunch of people in my profession who aren’t and they just use dual 1440p or 4k 40 or dual 4k 40. My very significant other is in finance and since she finally gets to WFH (wasn’t allowed before) she now uses my setup and is blown away how much of an upgrade it is compared to her old dual 1080. It just fits way more stuff. I don’t know what the rest of your system is like today, but having more pixels on screens might be a bigger upgrade for you than a new workstation. Logically, one of those Philips screens is like 4 of your BenQ driven by a single cable cable without a plastic bezel - already an upgrade, and healthy set of inputs and a bit of HDR bling as a cherry on top.
CPU wise, if not an Epyc chip, which is absolutely useful in your situation don’t overthink it, a Ryzen PRO chip will do what you want. But I really didn’t want to say anything till I had a better idea about how they worked vs the normal line. Ryzen PRO gives you ECC and some extra instructions for data management. IDK if theres a 3800, but a 3700 or 3900 PRO will fit your bill. Course me being me I got a 3900X for my build so you know which one I’ll say to get
You should also dig into ram timings some. Yeah you can have 32GB ECC ram, but what timings are on there and which chip is going to work best with what ram? Worth cranking over.
Here is a good AM4 motherboard https://www.newegg.com/asus-pro-ws-x570-ace/p/N82E16813119194?Description=amd%20workstation%20motherboard&cm_re=amd_workstation_motherboard--13-119-194--Product&quicklink=true Going back to an earlier point and I think something really interesting in this thread is what was pointed out by @risk, AM4 3700X would be just perfect with a good Mobo and other quality parts. I would only recommend a server platform if you are dead set on what I would call is “manufacturer guaranteed stability”, this is very important in the enterprise space where you are buying 100’s or 1000’s of these things and need uptime or need to be able to send it back full warranty to the manufacturer to fix it. Its very common in enterprise to purchase 5+year full coverage warranties for systems. So point being I would only recommend the extra money for server grade gear if you are looking for the no hassle experience, in regards to dealing with support and official validation. With that said main stream computer hardware has come a long way and is for the most part really stable now, especially keeping things in spec. Most of the delineation is in features between consumer and enterprise for things like raid boot support or IPMI
I feel like people have jumped in thinking oh cool tech build time! when no one even knows what you’re using the machine for.
Why do you need ECC memory for example? No one seems to have questioned this. Maybe you should use it, but people love ECC memory here for some reason when 99.9% of people have zero need for it. It’s just not required for almost everything you can think of, including trading.
Sounds like you have a great monitor setup risk! Which 4k monitors do you use? The Benq monitors I have and the Quadro VC also support these resolutions. Which do you think would be most comparable with your setup?
2560x1440@60Hz
3840x2160@60Hz
I can easily buy more monitors and use the Benq’s for something else. So far I’ve just been running one with my Thinkpad and it looks crisp but of course I don’t know what I’m missing!
Which 1660 video card were you referring to? I see this one is popular on pcpartpicker
MSI GeForce GTX 1660 6 GB VENTUS XS OC Video Card
This Quadro card is not as capable as the 1660 but better than the 600 I listed previously.
512 CUDA cores coupled with 4GB of GDDR5 GPU memory with fast bandwidth, the Quadro K1200 enables you to create large, complex 3D models, and an all-new display engine drives up to four displays natively with DisplayPort 1.2 support for true 4K resolutions like 3840 x 2160 at 60 Hz with 30-bit color. The NVDIA Quadro K1200 for DP includes four mini-DisplayPort to DP adapters for DisplayPort displays.
CUDA Cores
512
GPU Memory
4GB GDDR5
Memory Interface
128-bit
Memory Bandwidth
80 GB/s
System Interface
PCI Express 2.0 x16
Display Connectors
4 mini-DisplayPort (mDP)
DisplayPort 1.2
Yes
Warranty
3 Years
PNY Part Number
VCQK1200DP-PB
The reason why I’m leaning towards the Quadro video cards is because from what I read.
The quadro’s are designed to be run all day every day. They are supposed to be super stable, cool, and quiet.
@Eden
Great question, I’m not running any special software. TD Ameritrade’s Think or swim, lots of browser windows and some VM’s. All in Windows 10 pro for now. Later as I learn more I will be running Linux natively and in VM’s. Other programs that I don’t even know exist will come later as well but you catch my drift.
The reason why I’m going to such lengths to crash proof Windows as much as I can. Is because naturally I can’t have a BSOD or anything take down the pc or corrupt the data in any way. So as I’m learning that trading pc’s don’t need a lot of computational power like gaming etc… That has led to a natural migration to server/enterprise based equipment. I’m very much a DIY guy in all aspects of life. I was that kid that took everything apart, 95% of the time it went back together to! I don’t want to pay for “on-site” support and have someone hold my hand when things go sideways etc…
Your right ECC memory is not required for trading. But AFAIK it can only help and if something costs a little or even a lot more that’s fine with me. Bottom line I have to trust this computer completely and I do admit I’m overthinking this most likely.
Still though its fun learning what’s possible though isn’t it guys? Pushing the envelope of faster safer computing to new levels of knowledge and capability. I program my home computer, beam myself into the future!
@FaunCB
Thanks for the solid input again. I agree the 3900X really would be ideal provided I could use the extra power. It’s only like $150 more than the 3700X also I found to my surprise!
Once I finish researching the X470D4U I’m going to start down the path on ECC memory timings and what has been found to work with the mb. 2666mhz ECC is the fastest it supports per below. That’s pretty good since the absolute fastest ECC memory I could find on pcpartpicker is
Crucial DDR4 3200 (PC4 25600) CT16G4RFD832A 16GB . They also offer a 32GB
CT32G4RFD432A 3200mhz option.
How do I determine which CPU will work best with what ECC memory? I’m just going by posted specs. I think comparing benchmark results off different websites is what your referring to? Thanks!
At work I have these old hp z32x. And I used to use one at home until recently, but at the moment I’m using a pair of Asus PA329C at home. Other ones on my shortlist were BenQ pd3220u , Dell 3219q, I also briefly considered pa32ucx, … specs look great on paper but it’s stupid money.
I’m still trying to figure out proper calibration for HDR under Windows, windows clear type font rendering is half good, half strange depending on the app, Windows HDR support is still buggy, and Asus hardware profile support is strange (app that Asus ships for the monitor to upload color profiles is crashy)
Those are some very nice monitors @risk! Here at home I have my old HP LA2405wg to compare the Benqs against but nothing in your caliber. Btw do you wear any corrective lenses? I’m slightly near-sighted so I’m going to need to visit bestbuy or something to really see what differences my eyes can resolve between resolutions. At my previous job I was doing network surveillance so running 2 pc’s tied together with software to use 1 keyboard and mouse and 4 monitors.
Here’s a new question for this build. What’s a basic sound card that you guys would recommend for this board? I’ll put the first video card in PCIE6, the soundcard in PCIE5 and reserve PCIE4 for the 2nd video card if needed someday. I’m not gaming but will be watching news interviews, youtube and the like. Just going to use 2 powered speakers and headphones. Need something that’s supported in Linux if possible? The below Asus sound card looks fine but they don’t show Linux support unfortunately. I hate to ask such a simple question but I’ve been out of the market so long and have now found the master Asrock rack X470D4U thread so I’m buried for a while!
Check if your gpu will have a “soundcard” built-in probably and sould be able to route audio over displayport/HDMI to your monitor that should have a headphone out.
You could use an el cheapo $2-$15 USB soundcard
You could use a fancy USB sound card like a $70 creative x-fi or $300-$3000 audiophile grade thingie
You could use either Bluetooth or USB with a portable/detachable fiio btr3 or btr5. (I have a btr3, bt headphones are more practical for me around the house and office).
You’ll need a USB hub anyway if you don’t already have one in your monitor, you might be missing internal USB ports as well, depending on whether you get a power supply that connects to USB to track power usage/fans or if you get a fan controller. Perhaps a card with USB ports + that creative x-fi is a good combo, not sure. Are your keyboard and mouse wired or wireless? (I totally see myself going wireless with IPMI).
I’d get something like a Focusrite Scarlet Solo. Have a look at ebay. It’s probably not the “be all and all” of audio but it’s nice enough. I bought one from a friend of mine who is a musician. It’s USB-bus powered. Oh and you can get an XLR mic if you want to do video/audio conferences.
Thanks guys, I totally forgot HDMI has audio embedded in it. Was still thinking vga and where’s my soundblaster card going to go? Facepalm! I never even knew about gizmos like the Focusrite, amazing stuff.
eta- I haven’t chosen a keyboard or mouse yet for this. Will be going wired though.
After going thru the X470D4U mega-thread. I’m sad to report its a good mb but won’t work for my application. I really need ECC memory checking to be fully supported. IPMI would be wonderful as well but its now a function I’ll give up going forward in my home server class pc build.
Maybe there exists a X399 or X570 chipset based mb that fully supports ECC function?
Please feel free to throw out suggestions guys! I’m really impressed by the level of expertise on this forum!!!
Hopefully I can help others as well as I learn more. One thing that may help some that are spending $$$ on electronics between now and the end of June is a heads up. US Bank visa gives back 5% of your purchases on whatever categories you select.
Google “US bank visa + categories” to find their webpage if your interested. Naturally the more you spend the more you save, brilliant! Oh wait that’s not right?
The reality is you probably will always make a compromise. All you really need is a decent CPU and workstation GPU capable of handling a large number of monitors.
If ECC is what you want in a build then build around that as that’s your primary constrained component, that means sacrificing cpu choice etc. Potentially where needed.
Are you crunching 6 month industry wide simulations? Because if not you can make do with a less capable alternative processor that may not be top of the line. Or even Intel if it allows you to more easily build your setup.
I’m gunna be honest buddy, ECC is far and away probably not used for much anymore. Linus did a video on this recently, within 2 years of now, trying to show ECC actually doing something. Theres so much correction and technology in ram now ECC doesn’t really hane a use unless you’re doing micro sciences or space shit, near as I can tell at least.
Coirse I don’t try to say this often because theres always some fat nerd in the lounge who’ll hunt me down for downtalking ECC.
Owerall, its relatively over rated. If you want it there for security, fair. But unless you go ryzen pro with a really nice board, personally thinking about the asus ws-x570-ace, or go threadripper or epyc.
Guys I know nothing about server chips/boards etc… Never heard of the new Epyc chips till this thread, so no worries I’m happy to learn! I did a quick google search earlier and saw the prices start at 500 and goto 6 grand. Very impressive Cpu’s but that’s all I know.
