“At a conceptual level, putting a high-clock speed overclocked desktop CPU into a server has been executed in many ways before. What ICC has done is gone beyond simply taking consumer parts and fitting 1U coolers. Instead, the company has engineered the system to work together well. When we were first asked to review the system, I was skeptical about how much was custom versus off-the-shelf. After tearing the system apart, ICC truly went the extra mile to customize the system. It shows in the serviceability and usability of the platform.”

“High-Frequency Trading systems are no stranger to esoteric arrangements. Stories of companies spending 10s of millions to implement line-of-sight microwave transmitter towers to shave off 3 milliseconds from the latency time is a story I once heard. All the big financial traders have their servers located as close to the exchange as possible, because the speed of light through an optical cable still isn’t fast enough. These companies not only pay through the nose for the hardware, but also pay experts and specialists to tune those systems for low latency. That means tweaking the memory, overclocking the processor, and even implementing chillers to get a fully stable but the fastest possible system.”

“At a conceptual level, putting a high-clock speed overclocked desktop CPU into a server has been executed in many ways before. What ICC has done is gone beyond simply taking consumer parts and fitting 1U coolers. Instead, the company has engineered the system to work together well. When we were first asked to review the system, I was skeptical about how much was custom versus off-the-shelf. After tearing the system apart, ICC truly went the extra mile to customize the system. It shows in the serviceability and usability of the platform.”

“High-Frequency Trading systems are no stranger to esoteric arrangements. Stories of companies spending 10s of millions to implement line-of-sight microwave transmitter towers to shave off 3 milliseconds from the latency time is a story I once heard. All the big financial traders have their servers located as close to the exchange as possible, because the speed of light through an optical cable still isn’t fast enough. These companies not only pay through the nose for the hardware, but also pay experts and specialists to tune those systems for low latency. That means tweaking the memory, overclocking the processor, and even implementing chillers to get a fully stable but the fastest possible system.”