Anyone uses an older PC with XP to trade?

What CPU do you use and how much RAM do you have to run XP satisfactorily for your trades?

I'm using a P4 1.8Ghz 400FSB with 256Mb RAM. I'm wondering if upgrading to 1GB of RAM will give a noticeable boost in performance.

 

If you use this PC for charts too, it will help, otherwise is not necessary.

 

256Mb is a too small these days.

You will definitely notice the difference, when moving up to 1024.

 

P4, 1.8Ghz, 1G RAM on XP Pro is plenty of machine for a trading rig.... unless you have special needs.

 

What's the "sweetspot" memory amount for XP?

 

1GB... performance is slightly improved over 512MB + price is right... especially if you catch a rebate deal.

 

I have an old P3 with XP pro...no prob...(paid 150 bucks to pcsurplus online for this old used P3 and that was 2 years ago)

Naturally, I have more than one computer for the day when this one quits...(they are turned on, all of the time)

863MHz (Compaq AP550)
256MB Ram
Nvidia NVS280 by PNY Dual monitor card DVI+VGA (got it for 60 bucks in Ebay)
Western Digital HD 80GB (Got it free at Office Max w/rebate)
I put a new CD reader in it...(can't rememeber the specs)

If someone wants to buy it for 150 bucks or make me an offer (no XP pro CD) they can have it...works great...you pay the shipping or pick it up in Denver, CO. (I will buy you lunch with a coupon )...

You guys might check with gnome..he has lots of parts and puters' for traders...(he is going to kill me for this post)

Michael B.

 

Unfortunately, mine runs on expensive RDRAM.

 

I have an older computer, too. It's a P4 running at 1.6GHz with XP. I upgraded to 1 Gig of RAM from the, I think, 256M that it had. I noticed a huge difference. Of course, it matters how many applications you are running at the same time. If you have a trading platform, charts, IM, webpages, and more open at the same time then having more RAM will definitely help. I run quite a few applications at the same time, so I would still notice a bit of a lag when opening new programs. It's a pain when you just want to open your music player or check your email while trading. I then added one more gig and went to 2 gigs of DDR RAM. Two gigs is pretty good. RAM is the cheapest and best upgrade you can do. I'd say get as much as you are willing to pay for.

 

Does XP run better when you no longer require virtual memory and have it turned off and run the system on 100% physical memory?