Hello everyone, Whats a good place to buy a good, really fast trading laptops or desktops? I found Custom Trading Computers. Any other inputs?
It all depends on your style of trading. Active full-time traders usually want lots of screens. If they use broker supplied or 3rd party software they need to check the software system requirements to match OS and sometimes hardware too. If you provide more information as to what kind of trading you do, there are many qualified people on here who will help you out.
I just need a fast processor so that I can open multiple applications. Having multiple screens is not an issue as you can always add them as per your requirements.
You can't always add screens. You are limited depending on whether you have onboard (motherboard) video or a video card in an expansion slot. After that you're limited by how many expansion slots there are and what speed they run at. You're also limited in monitor resolution right out of the gate. How fast your applications run is very much a factor of how much RAM you have and what speed that RAM runs at. Nothing is going to run faster than your slowest bottleneck. I like to buy computers through Dell Small Business. Another guy on here buys through Dell Outlet. Any decent multi-core system running 6-8gB of DDR3 RAM with enough expansion slots for your future monitor needs should serve you well. Most people on here suggest staying away from companies that specialize in trading computers because of cost, quality and service. Dell stress tests their computers and they sell a whole lot of them. By the time you buy one it's well proven to work dependably. The last thing any trader wants is a system that is not dependable which has demonstrated to be a problem from these niche computer companies.
thinkpad notebooks are second to none in terms of build quality, and the only one certified by NASA to be used in space. Three lines most favored by business are X series: 12.5" and some of them can be converted into tablets for note taking T series: mainstream 14" and 15.6" W series: mobile workstations with max 32GB Ram but to purchase them is not straightforward, and mostly likely one has to do it online.
Op, just go to the dell outlet and buy a T3500. I've thought about a speedy laptop in the past, but asked myself why do I need to trade on the go requiring a laptop? Never looked back.
I use to buy from Dell, But God forbid if you should have a problem, then you have to go through either email or telephone hell, and if it really gets bad, you better hope you saved your shipping boxes. I bought this one from staples, and I have been back there three times, not with problems, but just asking them what to do about a problem. They are usually bored selling and love it when you bring in a computer and ask them what to do. Plus, if it ever goes to crap, all I have to do is drive 1 1/4 miles and put it on the counter.
+1 to buying the t3500 (i believe this replaced the t3400 which was the previous recommendation). if buying from dell either use the outlet or from the business side in order to get support from someone who speaks english - this is not being racist - i'm simply saying i'd rather speak to someone about a motherboard problem who also speaks the same language i do. if you decide to order through dell business, it asks for your company name. obviously you don't have a company name if it's just you so just enter your name as the company. dell doesn't really care what letters go in that box.
What do you really want? Trading is a low power thing, except backtesting and then no laptop and no normal desktop comes close to what you need (Which is a multi processor server or better a whole bunch of them). This is like asaying "I need a super powerfull and fast city car". Bad news - city cars are neither super powerfull now fast nor expensive. Those are racing cars. Want to have a super powerfull laptop these days? Look for an alienware gaming desktop. GAMING (!) is where the power is needed. Any decent low to mid range computer is capable of trading, and any decent graphcis card these days can drive 6 or more screens with one or more of thoese cards (and having multiple cards is a decent gamer trick - there are motherboards build for 5 - 6 cards these days). COmpanies that sell custom trading computers mostly rip you off. If you want to go top end, go for a LGA 2011 based mobo with a nice I7 3870 chip (not worth going to the next higher up) and the mobo will allow fast overclocking - one button clock and all cores run at 4ghz permanent. THe motherboards that are good for this though are - well Made for gamers. I got myselv f a nice one, and it is from Asus - and their line is called "Republic of Gamers" (use it to run backtests, play with window sserver 2012 etc.). But again - trading is like "get a low power thing with lots of battery time" (in case of a laptop"). Even automated trading is not really high power computer unless you go HFT (and then this is a totally different specialized hardware setup to fight for microseconds) and other elements are a lot more important (like colocating).
Dell Small Business gives live, quick, American speaking support from in America whether it's the business side (the transaction) or the technical side (something wrong). You can get free one day shipping if you buy a preconfigured, brand new machine. As previous poster said, just use your name as company name; even Dell says to do that.