you can see in tradestation hardware recommendations that they recommend quad core processor , I had the same problem at the market open all the time , i had a call with the software technical support. and he said ts designed to work ideally through quad core processor b/c in this case ,it can spread data much faster than 6 or12 core processor.(i have 6 core 12 threats). as a result the software bottleneck and slow down in high volatility moments like the open(b/c it much harder to spread the data through more and more threads). the only solution for that is to minimize the opened windows before the market open (u can open them later) or just use third party charting software. *ts charts is the most part in the software that could cause bottleneck .