Wow, I have never seen these level of CPU usage, even when I had a Pentium 4 2.75 Mhz with 512 Mb of memory. I always multitask, with Sierra charts, QuoteTracker, Skype, browsing etc. Now I run Intel Conroe E6400 with 2Gb of memory and a ATI 1950Pro with two Benq FP91G. CPU usage is 10 - 20% Memory in use is 650Mb
man, it's so nice to have more monitors. I'm getting more dialed in, and it's nice to have all my regular programs/windows laid out without having to toggle through them. I cranked up the ram from 1 gb to 3gb over the weekend, and it's running much better at the open now. there's still a slight hesitation sometimes when the market really moves. I may up it to 4 gb to see how it goes. that's the max ram that XP, and my computer, can handle. so I'm hitting a physical barrier, and I'll have to get a new computer and vista to up it more. dual core is fine though. I've been fairly conservative with the technology upgrades. I went from a P1 to a P3, skipping out on the P2. I went from the P3 to a P4 dual core, skipping out on the P4 single core. at that rate, I should bypass the quad core and wait for the hex or oct core
It seems like you are going overkill on the RAM. It is not expensive, but I would say that you would hardly use more than 2gb. A couple of things to watch for as resource hogs is Skype. If you are talking to someone, it just eats up a lot of CPU cycles. Also, I prefer trading over DSL more than I do cable. DSL is very consistent and more stable than cable. This assumes that you are within 21,000ft of the CO or DSLAM and have no coils, etc on your phone line. As far as bandwidth, it all depends on how much you have running. Generally though, 1.5mbps is plenty. You will hardly go over 512kbps while trading a fast market. The data is all highly compressible text. One thing to remember also is that a Hotbrick does take some time to switch over (at least the last I looked at one; this was the case). Finally, you might want to move this sort of hardware commentary to a separate hardware thread. There is plenty of information in that forum. Cheers! FT71
http://en.allexperts.com/e/i/is/isolation_tank.htm integrate this with a trading console and a set of monitors.
Load coils are used to extend the clarity on a phone line. They are there for better phone service for people who have a very long distance from the nearest CO, DSLAM or other point on the network. It is old-school technology but it is widespread and is what can kill having DSL as a service even if you are close to the CO. DSL was created after load coils were put to use.