computer specs for trading stocks

Discussion in 'Hardware' started by mrmoose, Feb 15, 2010.

  1. mrmoose

    mrmoose

    lets say you are trading from home using 3 20'' monitors. watching a few hundred symbols and keep up between 5 and 10 charts. What would be the specs your computer should have in terms of Ram,cpu speed and video card?
     
  2. marine

    marine

    It all depends on the software you are using. From what you say you are doing; it's nothing special, so a normal PC should be fine.

    It's always good to have 3-4 Gb of memory and a nice video card as well. But ultimately your problem is going to be the sotfware you are running on that machine.
     
  3. Why do people keep asking this question? Unless you are doing heavy backtesting research any computer built in the last 3 years (maybe 5) is overkill for any sort of real time trading.

    Unless you're using the crappiest software ever written you'll max out your bandwidth long before you max out your CPU.

    PS. The cool kids all have 24" monitors these days :)
     
  4. I'm still a fan of 19" flat panels.

    Flat panel/square > widescreen
     
  5. As you'll be running 2 video cards, suggest (1) avoiding any computer with onboard video, and (2) get a computer with at least 2, PCIEx-16 slots.

    After that, 4G RAM, any C2D or better @2.5Ghz or any quad CPU, you've got it covered.
     
  6. Ditto. When you get ready to replace yours, suggest HP LP2065... 1600x1200, w/IPS panel. 2 of those in portrait mode are same size as a 30", though a bit lower horiz res.... 2400x1600 rather than 2560x1600.
     
  7. The most important things are: RAM (4 GB minimum), Video Card (non-integrated in the motherboard and 512k minimum) and of course a DSL/Cable at minimum.

    Tiger Direct has great prices on big monitors.

    ITrade
     
  8. 1. "4G RAM"? Depends on the OS.

    2. "512K" video card? Not necessary. My current setup has run without a hitch on video cards with only 4K memory.
     
  9. You have to pay up for the 1920x1200 24" panels. I agree that whoever decided 1920x1080 was a reasonable monitor size should be savagely beaten.
     
  10. ken__0

    ken__0

    What do you have now ?
     
    #10     Feb 15, 2010