In my experience, most full time manual traders can get by with:
I5 Quad Core
Win 7 64bit or higher-I would use 10 64 bit
16 GB of RAM
Video card with 2 to 4 digital outs
A more than adequate power supply
any DVD drive
2 to 4- 24" monitors that can handle 1920x1200 (I would use 3)
SSD Drive of at least 120 GB-For only trading, if also for your primary machine 256GB with a 1TB hard drive for music/pictures/backup (use this for your cloud accounts)
If you go to Dell or HP, the non-standard items get very expensive like more than 8GB of RAM, video card and SSD drive. Also, the higher resolution monitors can double the cost, but they make a big difference by adding more screen space up and down. I also think it is VERY important to have a backup system, even if it is an old PC or a laptop. Have your laptop turned on, with all the same software loaded but not running, just in case. I don't build my own to make a better PC, but to save money. There is nothing wrong with calling Dell and getting a custom computer setup. The customs stuff can make it 25% to 40% more than doing it yourself, while there is little savings from a stock PC. I also find the Dell computers are very quiet, while whatever I build is not.
Long story, read if you want to know my experience, skip it otherwise. It's the weekend.
I had an Acer that kept packing up and Scat told me to go with Dell, consumer class stuff isn't built to be on 18 hours a day.
I went with the Precision T-3600, 3 27" monitors, 16 gigs RAM. I had in mind two drives, an SSD and a 1 TB HDD as built-in backup. They set it up as RAID 0, without asking, and why I don't know, from what I understand RAID drives should be of similar size. My fault, I should have told them it wasn't going to be a server, or maybe they should have asked; RAID 0 with a 256 GB SSD and a 1 TB HDD?
As part of the deal, this being a business class machine, I had NBD onsite service for 3 years, and I chose the 5 year warranty for the monitors.
After a short few months, one monitor developed a blue vertical line smack down the middle. They replaced it NBD I think, onsite, but I ran a check on the SN and it was built well before mine. I called them back and said my monitor was really pretty new, and whilst I understood why they'd give a refurbished one, at least give me a newer build than mine, given it was such a short period. They swapped and gave me a new one.
The HDD developed bad sectors a few months later (Sierra Charts started acting weird) during warranty period, NBD onsite replacement. After lugging that wretched Acer to the service centre, having a tech come over to my home office and do the job was great.
As I have a quant approach to trading, it wasn't long before I got tired of waiting for 16 gigs RAM to do the job. Asked Dell for a quote to up it to 48 gigs, almost fainted. Watched many YouTube videos, went out and bought 2x16 gigs memory modules and installed them myself. Never worked on a PC before, but it turned out OK.
I recently extended the NBD onsite service for another 2 years. Cheap, peace of mind.
Any regrets? None. Yes, everyone will tell you you don't need a server class rig for trading. That's probably true, but my rig is rock solid stable, Dell does an automatic BIOS update as and when, I have a full range of online diagnostics for hardware and software when anything strange happens, like the HDD having bad sectors.
I don't know about you, I want my rig to be like my fridge. It's just there and it works. I have my rig to trade, as long as it works the way it should when I power on, I don't want to know anything more about it.
Money well spent.
