That certainly depends on what you're doing, but even if it's the least important, it's still important.
Sure, it has to have internet, an OS and a screen. But beyond these universals, increasing spend on hardware is very unlikely to increase the return from trading: decreasing spend is very unlikely to disrupt profit flow. So how is it important?
ok.. non geek here! I'm currently using an old pc with: Intel Q6600 Quad @2.4GHZ 8.00GB Ram Windows 7 64bit (ulta fast fibre broadband) Using Rithmic > Multicharts. I have open 7 x charts (2 x time based, 5 x "contract volume." based.) I'm getting the "slow computer" warning & Rithmic DOM is very "jumpy/slow" so I'm guessing I need to upgrade. Is the processor / RAM/ Hard drive usually the main bottleneck? From some initial searching should something with a XEON, 16GB, SSD be able to cope ? Thanks for any advice.
My guess would be that the 8 GB RAM is a bit insufficient. You can verify this by running the monitor in Windows 7 which shows memory usage, CPU usage and so on. Have this running while you are running your trading software, and see which of the graphs is showing a bottle neck. If it is indeed RAM then it is possible to increase the RAM size without going to an entirely new computer.
I just broke out my new monitor. I only need one screen for trading. The two Raspberry Pi's and the Dell Laptop are just for my screener, web, and email. Not shown, the Dell refurb driving the trading monitor. Linux throughout, of course. No kid stuff OS for me.
Thanks... yes, it seems the RAM is the issue. After some googling apparantly 8GB RAM is maxed for the motherboard (EVGA nforce 780SLI) so.... I took the time getting things re-set up on a laptop which coped fine (i7-4800QM 2.7GHZ, 16GB RAM, SSD, AMD 8790M 2GB) so will use that with an extra monitor for now.
it depends on what sort of trader and what you are trading. if you do swing trading, then one monitor should suffice. I do day trading. so I have one 42" and four 32" monitors and 2 computers.