The recently launched Intel Xeon processor 5600 series and the Intel Xeon enterprise-level 7500 series can potentially assist wholesale financial institutions by lowering latency and increasing data and order throughputs on financial markets. The latter series is scalable, offering everything from two to 256 chips per server, and an average performance time that is three times faster than its predecessor 7400 series. The 5600 series is 60 per cent faster than its predecessor, claims the manufacturer. Both are suitable for risk management and trading end uses.

The extra speed of the Intel Xeon 5600 and 7500 series' of microprocessors comes mainly thanks to smaller (32 nanometres in length), faster and more energy-efficient transistors (the building blocks of any processors), which improves the performance and reduces the overall energy consumption of the new Xeon chips.

Early adopters should see immediate benefits. A view supported by one of the launch customers, Anthony Warden, global head of algorithmic trading and quant prime broker technology, at Nomura, who said: "Handling bursts in trade traffic is a key factor in direct market access (DMA) and low latency, high throughput trading platforms. By enabling us to spread processing over more cores, the Intel Xeon processors, especially the 7500 series, will allow us to handle larger peaks more efficiently without any increase in response times. The increased core count of the 7500 series also allows us to host more trading algorithms on a single box which can communicate through local memory, thereby reducing latency."

"Early analysis of the Intel Xeon processor 5600 series shows an approximate 35 per cent reduction in latency," continues Warden. "With this improvement, our clients will be able to process even more orders in a given timeframe where they see market opportunity. It is critical for Nomura to maintain and build on its position as a leader in the low latency, high throughput trading space, and our partnership with Intel will help drive significant improvements in our client offering."

Up to a dozen vendors including Algorithmics, Kx Systems, ITRS, Cinnober, Orc Software and Thomson Reuters, are working with Intel engineers to optimise their products for the new processors in order to fully quantify the benefits. "Our approach is very comprehensive, from our engineering innovation at the processor and silicon level, right through to working closely with the community of domain experts in the software industry to help them tune up applications to get the most out of the processors," explains Nigel Woodward, director of financial services, Intel Corporation.

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