I am running pretty much the same amount of symbols and half as many charts with 2 different quote feeds on my Dell T3400 Workstation. It has an E8200 Core 2-Duo with a 6MB L2 cache at 2.66 GHz. I am running 4 Gigs of RAM and it simply purrrrrs . . . Anything more than this would be TOTAL OVERKILL and a waste of money for your needs, in my opinion. P.S. Intel Core 2-Duo E8500's ( 3.16 GHz ) are going for $188.00 at New Egg. The E8400 at 3.0 GHz for $165!
Im enjoying spanking new rig on steroids Quad 9450, 2.66GHz with a 12MB cache and 4 gigs of RAM running 4 monitors on NVDIA GeForce 512MB 9800GT double cards which I switch to SLI mode during play time
there are different ways to benchmark a CPU. Read what you will... http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/desktop-cpu-charts-q3-2008/benchmarks-1,31.html
When running trading programs - 8 charts with two order entry platforms - processing power used usually less than 10% but RAM gets chewed up 75% usage. Only use 50% processing power during program downloads and in gaming mode
Well, I've seen systems charting lag with tick feeds (as oppossed to aggregated feeds, aka snapshot) because of underpowered rigs running many charts, indicators and other apps simultaneously. Never seen it happen on a quad core outfitted rig for that reason. You don't want to get what just fits for right now, but have a bit of foresight and get something you can grow with. If it were $1000 more, then likely no. But a Quad core CPU will cost you ~$180 - $270 if you're talking about dropping it into a LGA 775 socket. Ram is fairly cheap, considering. You can go 6GB for ~$160 or 8Gb ~$190-$200. Overkill is one thing. But leaving room to grow is another.
But why buy 6/8G Ram on a 32bit system - it wont be recognised? 64bit system yes but then sofware issues there
Issue with 64bit such as... ? I've been running 64 bit for some time now and haven't encountered any problems either for trading software, drivers or otherwise. That's old news. The only exception is TT's X-trader which doesn't support 64bit Vista. Well it doesn't support any vista for that matter. But any app written for 32 bit OS runs in x64 OS. 16bit code doesn't. I even game on Vista 64 without incident.
don't get upset... the other GB, though not available to you, is used by the OS. but of course... even if you have VISTA 64bit version, if your software is compiled in 32bit, the 64bit OS is not of much help. You are still living in the confines of 32bit World.
Is there a 64 bit version of windows XP that one could use with the i7 core to maximize the 6GB (3 x 2GB) memory or is that a complete waste?