upgrading from Pentium 4

(sorry if i repeated a thread, just post this in case someone in same situation as me).

I use TradeStation 8.3 on an old Dell Dimension 8250, which is Pentium 4 with 2.66GHz CPU and 512MB memory, and running Windows XP Pro.

I haven't upgraded this desktop "yet", because it's working fine for my purpose and I don't run much indicators/analyses on charts or RadarScreen. Basically a simple single software trading station for two 20" monitors. I chose to spend money buying a new notebook during this time.

I wonder if a brand new Dell PC with Vista pre-loaded will make any significant improvement in performance compared to my dinosaur Pentium 4. I suppose a new Core 2 Duo processor with enough 2GB (or 3GB) memory will give my TradeStation platform a huge hardware boost, if I select only the Vista Basic?

Since I cannot pre-configure XP from Dell, is Windows Vista Home Basic the right choice for minimal graphics-processor-intensive OS?

I was also advised not to install my existing Norton Internet Security 2008 when i buy the new PC, as it will slow down my TradeStation datafeed/charts. But with the new hardware, TradeStation 8.3 and Norton Internet Security 2008 should co-exist well right? My family already paid for the Norton license for two yrs and it actually can be installed on multiple PCs in the family.

 

Actually, you can. Just get a Precision T3400. ANY C2D CPU will be faster than your P4... which, BTW, is not THAT much of a dinosaur.

 

Hey Gnomey,

How long before I gotta upgrade. Every now and then I get sticky charts and don't know if it's me or the feed.

I'm running a Pentium 4 / 3.19 GHz / 2 GB ram
Dell dim e310. Got the cheapest Dell I could find and upgraded the processor and memory... flawless all these years.

This thing was tops a few years ago... I must be getting old.

 

More than likely it's the feed or the software. If you haven't done a fresh WinXP install in 6 months or more, try that first. A fast P4 is still plenty good for trading.

 

Thanks. Those Nvidia cards you recommended awhile back also work wonderfully. You da man!

 

bronks, i see u still use Pentium 4 like me. i'm at Singapore, >9000 miles away from USA, so i always think datafeed lag (if any) was due to distance from source. but Realtick previously and now TradeStation seems to work well from here for many years now. of course there are times due to platform outage .....

 

Yeah bstay, I saw your post and it got me thinking.

I guess if it ain't broke, don't fix it

 

Really?

I run two comps.

One is a year older and has a 3.6G P4/ht with 2G ram.

The other has a 3.2G C2D with 2G ram.

Both of the machines are great for trading. The P4 machine is much faster for CAD drawing and surfing the web. The only time the C2D machine is faster, is when I'm streaming/burning music, and surfing the web at the same time.

BTW, I use XP pro on both machines. I used one with Vista once and it sucked.

 

Is your 3.6GHz P4 and "extreme" version? They might be a bit faster... I'd sort of forgotten about those for the moment.

 

Don't think it is extreme version, just hyper-threaded.

Better performance of CAD on the single-core machine might be due to graphics card differences though.

As far as web speed though. The P4 is noticeably faster as long as nothing else is running. If my anti-virus starts a scan or something while I'm on the web though, my C2D machine runs faster than the P4 machine.

It is my understanding that the whole point of the multi-core processor was to make running multiple applications faster, since the average user is a multi tasker. But for a single application the P4 devotes its entire processing capability to that one app. ???