FPGA vs ASICS

[Oritemis]

Any idea what would be faster for financial application?

[ManIkWeet]

FPGA are still programmable (limited), usually a little bit slower

ASICS are not programmable anymore, they're the final hardware solution to a single task. The fastest possible architecture.

[werto165]

I don't know anything about this other than what ASIC's stand for, if it's an application specfic IC then I would assume that would be faster.

[Glenwing]

ASICs would be faster/more efficient, but requires quite an investment.

[AMICLG]

FPGAs are good for really large numbers and can do whatever you want them to. ASICS are application specific in the circuitry design so they're faster but you'd have to find one made for exactly what your running which would be hard. So I'd look at dev boards with the Spartan 6 FPGAs perhaps.

[KemoKa]

ASICS are incredibly fast, like mind-crushingly fast, but they can only do one thing, so it had better be something that needs to be done a lot for a long time. Remember the bitcoin craze from last year? yeah, that was dominated by ASICS.

[DigitalFruitcake]

If you can find an ASIC for your exact need, it will be faster, albeit more expensive. Should be quite a lot faster than anything else though.