Is Sandy Bridge better than Bloomfield?

[strategy1]

Looking to build a new pc. Will be used for backtesting and live trading (futures mostly) intraday.

Narrowed it down to
Intel Core i7-960 Bloomfield 3.2GHZ

or
Intel Core i7-2600 Sandy Bridge 3.4GHz


Read some reviews saying that the sandy bridge would be faster for most tasks. But would it really be faster for backtesting and live trading with all other things being equal?

I would be using 12Gb if I were to go with the bloomfield and 8 or 16gb if I were to use the sandy bridge as it is only dual channel.

Interestingly the bloomfield is only $15 cheaper and it first came out about a year and a half ago. Sandy bridge just came out this year I believe.

Need my new build to be extremely fast with no lag.

Thanks

[NinjaTrader_RyanO]

Hi strategy1,

Thank you for your post.

Since both of those processors meet the minimum requirements for NinjaTrader either one should be sufficient for your purposes.

• Windows XP (SP3 Required), Windows Vista, Windows 7 or Windows 2003 Operating System
• Minimum screen resolution of 1024 x 768
• Minimum P4 Processor or higher
• 2GB RAM
• Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 (pre-installed on most PC’s or can be downloaded below)

The difference would be the core itself, but since both are high-end processors you will likely not see a large difference regardless. But for specific feedback I will refer to the experiences of other users.

[David Lean]

At the simplest level, the one with the highest Ghz clockspeed will run fastest.
They are both Quad Core, with 8MB L3 Cache.
Bloomfield is 45nm, Sandy Bridge is 32nm so you'd expect lower power consumption & it is a newer design which offers a few more instruction sets.

The focus on CPU speed is something Intel & AMD keenly promote, however it is much more important to create a balanced computer. Memory & Bus speeds are vital, get them as fast as possible. Amount of memory is also v important (because if you run out, you are back to disk speeds which is 10,000 times slower.

Ensure you get fast disks. Solid State give great Read Speeds handy for BackTesting. But mediocre Write speeds especially if you are only writing small changes. Typically 7,200 rpm is sufficient, 10,000 or 15,000 is noticeably quicker, but they run hotter & are less reliable, if you don't have cooling.
Formatting the Disk correctly is also vital. (if you have Windows 2008 or Win7 sp1 it does it correctly. Otherwise best to set the disk offset at 1Mb & not the default of 31.5K)

If you run multiple HiRes Screens its best to get a v powerful graphics card. Else you risk the CPU having to makeup for the limitations of your graphics.

Of course you'd go with 64Bit windows if for no other reason that 32Bit is limited to 4GB (actuallly less due to Graphics cards reserving some memory address space.)

That said, Ninja 7.0 is much improved over 6.5. It uses less memory. It has much better multi-threading, supports 64 bit, & uses SQL Server's CE engine as opposed to the MSDB (jet) Engine that once shipped with MS Access. So it is less demanding on a computer than v6.5 is.

Having a reliable fast internet connection is way more important.
In Short:
I'd go with Sandy Bridge.

But it really doesn't matter as evidenced by my live trading machine. It is over 3 yrs old. Has only 4GB RAM, supports 3 monitors (27" & 30") and I run Outlook, Onenote (IE: for ForexFactory) & a few other applications as well as Ninja, FXCM Trade Station II, occasionally VantageFX trader & OmniTrader.
Yet Ninja 7.0 shows 3 DOM's, 12 Charts with multiple complex custom written indicators, a Level II window, all with no problem & no issues with order execution.

My Development machines are much higher spec, I could easily use them to trade, but I don't need to.
Of course if I'm backtesting. I do shut most applications down & give it as much RAM as I can.

I hope this helps

[photog53]

I concur with David.... SandyBridge

[sledge]

I concur with David.... SandyBridge

turbo boost v2 means nothing?

[Baseheadz]

Sandybridge

[strategy1]

What about the fact that Sandy Bridge only supports dual channel memory while Bloomfield supports Tri-channel. I think everyone would agree that tri-channel is better than dual channel.
If I were to go with Sandy Bridge I would have to max out at only 8GB leaving the other 2 slots empty. If I were to go with Bloomfield I would have 12GB leaving the other 3 slots empty.
Wouldn't having 50% (4GB) more memory be much better for backtesting complex multi-series strategies? And wouldn't this advantage alone supercede any and all other advantages that Sandy Bridge has to offer?

Also, I read elsewhere that Sandy Bridge is like a turbo charged 4 cylinder compared to the V8 of Bloomfield. Is this true?

It very interesting that a 1 1/2 year old chip is only $15 cheaper than the one that just came out a few months ago yet all the reviews I read seem to state that Sandy bridge is 2600 is 15-20% faster than Bloomfield Core I7 950?
I was going to use Core I7 960 but being that 2600 is so much faster than 950 it would also be faster than the 960.
Can all these reviews be trusted?