Re: Building an home computer for best Poker Tracker performance

On Sun, Jul 17, 2011 at 7:37 PM, mdxxd <matann(at)gmail(dot)com> wrote:
> I'm about to buy a new desktop home computer and my main concern is best
> Poker Tracker performance.
> Poker Tracker uses PostgreSQL so I thought this will be the best place to
> ask.
>
> My DB is big, around 5M hands(big is relative of course), I use complex
> HUD(if you know what it is), run complex reports and play 12+ tables.
> Complex is relatively complex to other PT users, I don't know how it
> compared to other tasks.
>
> I have questions about CPU/RAM/SSD:
> CPU:
> *Will PostgreSQL benefit from using hyperthreading in i7 2600k CPU? Or will
> there be no noticeable performance change if I use i5 2500K CPU(i.e no HT,
> just 4 cores)?
> *Will there be noticeable performance improvements if I OC my CPU from
> 3.3ghz/3.4ghz(with turbo bust to 3.7ghz/3.8ghz) to 4.5ghz?

Most likely 4 cores is plenty, unless pokertracker can run > 1
connection, since PostgreSQL basically runs one process for each
connection. The difference from 3.7 to 4.5GHz is likely to be
minimal, but if you run queries that take more than a few seconds then
it might make a bit of a difference.

> RAM:
> *Will there be noticeable performance improvements if I will use 16GB RAM
> over 8GB RAM? I know big servers uses at least 16GB(often 32GB).
> *Will there be noticeable change between CAS 9 and CAS 8/7? 1333mhz/1600mgz
> ddr3 ram?

Unless each record is huge, I can't see 5M records needing more than 8
Gig, even with other stuff running. The change in ram will be pretty
much linear assuming the CPU can take advantage of the faster RAM.
I.e. if a CPU has a max bus frequency of 1333MHz going to 1600 MHz
memory won't make any real difference.

>
> SSD:
> Different SSD excel in different areas. I know that for general PC usage, 4K
> Q1 random read/write is the most important.
> What is the most important for PT3(and PostgreSQL)  usage? Random? sequel?
> 4K/8K/16K / 32K/ +? 4K-64Thrd? 4K QD4/QD16/QD32 ? etc ...

SSDs can make a HUGE difference if you're doing a lot of random
writes. I'm guessing your data will fit in memory, so there's no big
advantage for read performance. Note that most consumer SSDs and many
professional ones are not reliable in the event of a crash, so take
nightly backups so you can fix things if your machine crashes hard and
corrupts the db. If you're doing mostly reads, then the SSD will be
no big advantage.

> *I will use windows 7(x64)
>
> Any other recommendations? (regards to hardware, I will look for tuning
> after i'll buy the computer).

I'd expect a core i5 2500k to be plenty fast for pgsql performance.