i have always traded through prop firms and therefore used their systems, backup, IT support etc... i have recently begun to look into setting up at home...but still trading via my account with the firm i use at the moment. i am pretty computer illiterate and was wondering whether anyone out there could give me any advice on the minimum hardware requirements i would need. i basically need 4 screens to trade with (charting and trading platform..TT) but was wondering how powerful a computer i need etc. and which brand people could recommend. i don't know too much about processor speed, memory etc!! also what kind of line would provide me with the necessary speed to trade eurex products? is a dedicated 2 meg broadband line enough? any advice would be greatly appreciated.
If your trading software runs on Linux, that's fine. Otherwise, get Windows XP Pro. ANY modern P4 or Athlon computer with 1GB RAM will be fine. Best thing for 4-monitor rig would be 2 dualhead cards from either Nvidia Quadro NVS or Matrox. (If you want your trading computer for gaming also, then you'll need more powerful Nvidia or ATI cards for one of the dualheads.) As for computer brand, Any of the ones ETers mention for online box makers will be fine*. Or, have one made at a local clone shop. If you are not very computer savvy, be sure your system includes some tech support... you'll surely need it at least for a while. *Though many bitch about Dell, I happen to like them. However, they've shipped their tech support overseas... that's likely to be a problem for your limited computer skills.
Because of Dell's support and extensive selection, try looking at their PCs made for financial trading and buy the most expensive, most powerful workstation they have. It'll seem like overkill now, but in 6 months you'll be using it. Buy Dells extended warranty so you can US-based help, try buying from their small biz dept and not consumer. Go for a Cisco router and not some retail oriented equipment. Buy the Cisco support pacxkage as well. Get your cable company/DSL supplier to sell you a guaranteed uptime/reliability package. If you live where you can get competeing internet suppliers, get both and buy a router with the ability to fall-over to the other vendor in case one has a problem. Buy a very good uninterrupted power supply from APC. This may sound like overkill, but the first time any of this equipment saves you downtime and you can exit a position gracefully and not in panic, it'll pay for itself. As a final note of what you dont want to hear, you'll probably replace all this equipment in 2 years anyways. Keep a digital cell phone handy and fully charged in case all this fails so you can still call your broker.
I've been doing this for quite some time. For the video card, a single quad card would be my choice, although two duals can be had for less via ebay. The cards do not need much memory for charting BTW. Also, be sure to match up the cards output with monitors input. Most decent monitors will have both analog and DVI. I use the cheapest 19" analog monitors with thin bezels you can buy. Works perfect. Any basic box with a meg of memory is fine. Trading does not work a PC hard at all. 2 megs speed is plenty, although I opt for cable at 4 megs, mostly cause its rock solid and never crashes. You may also want a basic phone line (56k) for backup. The whole setup can be done on the cheap, and there will be no difference with an expensive system. Not if using just for trading anyway. I run 4 monitors, IB, Ensign, and the net all at the same time on my 1 meg Dell 4400, and rarely use more than 10% of CPU resources. I don't do any gaming or other resource intensive shit though. Jay
You may want to check out www.tradingcomputers.com for their trading hardware platforms. I have one of their systems with multiple monitors. The monitor array is very inexpensive, and the system will come fully configured with cards, monitor stands, etc. When I compared their package prices with other vendors (Dell, etc.), and the personalized support, I was sold. Like you, I'm no gearhead, and I was happy to see that the system came with color coded connections and clear instructions for setup. I'd heard too many complaints from other folks who tried to configure multi-monitor systems and ran into problems with card compatibility,etc when trying to configure a system using different vendors. And if you do need to call for support, you go direct to the (Americans) who built the system. What a treat that is. They actually speak English.
I don't really want to build my own or go to small pc box maker and I'm not a gamer so I was looking into a Dell Optiplex GX620 mini-tower with a Pentium D 830/3Ghz, Dual Core with 2 GB 533Mhz DDR2 Ram. Win XP Pro With Office Pro. Sound like a good trading PC ?
Plenty good. Also, be sure to ask about expansion slots when buying the video card (s). For example, using old terminology, if you buy two AGP cards you would be sol cause pc's only had 1 AGP slot, and then several pci slots. They have renamed this stuff for current models, but be sure to look into it. If you buy one quad card, it will almost certainly work.