that's generalized speak. Trading is a varied activity. An option trader/swing trader can use one screen on a 3 yrs old computer. An arb or scalper might use 4 screens and a hyperspeed computer. A trader can be anyone in between these 2 extreme. Bill Gates once said 640k is all people needed.
The key is in the multiplier. hint: DDR3 1333 does not give you true 1333 mHz bus speed. It is only a number. You have to know the core speed.
Is there an ET policy on thread hijacking? It looks like there are two or more different topics in this thread. Albeit interesting topics.
I can respect that opinion. When I traded 10 years ago I went to MSN or Yahoo and researched stocks, logged onto my broker and put on a trade, then shut it off. Today my trading is totally different. I trade futures and watch up to a dozen or so products running up to about 3 dozen charts at once. The concern is regarding processing of all this data that comes in, making sure there are no bottlenecks or otherwise, and sustaining the utmost of volatility when the incoming data can be 100x or more of what it would be in a normal sleepy market. What you use the system for and what style of trading you do are the first questions which should be asked when considering what your priorities are. I have no regrets building (and paying for) my hyperspeed system. If you work in an office and your job is to trade the Yen, you don't need nearly as much system as if you're an independent watching how the whole global markets act and react with each other; ie dollar down, euro up, gold up, etc. watching for the peaks and valleys/ imbalances in each to get into and out of your trades. And for scalpers it's yet another set of circumstances.
What proof is there that there is significant lag in the quote update depending on the 'speed' of the computer. I believe that as long as the cpu is not running at 100% , you will not see significant differences in quote or trade speed , no matter how 'slow' the computer.
basically you went overkill on the ram. you only needed 800mhz ram for a 1333 fsb mobo. because you bought good memory, you can probably overclock the hell out of that system (assuming it's a good mobo).