Comment on Computer Configuration

[a5519]

I am considering to buy a computer for runing a trading system.
Could somebody share the opinion about the following configuration. Will it be possible to extend RAM to 1.5 GB ?
Price 1'520.

Prozessor:
Intel Pentium IV 3.06 GHz

RAM:
512MB DDR-RAM PC333

Mainboard:
ASUS P4PE/RL, i845E, DDR333,USB, FireWire, LAN, Serial-ATA, 6-Kanal Sound

Floppy:
3 1/2" Floppy

Harddisk:
80GB 7200rpm

Grafikkarte:
ATI Radeon 9000 128MB DDR, DVI, TV-out

DVD-Laufwerk:
LiteOn 16x/40x

Brenner:
MSI 48x/16x/48x

Gehäuse:
Midi Tower

Maus und Tastatur:
Standard

 

[gnome]

Quote from a5519:

I am considering to buy a computer for runing a trading system.
Could somebody share the opinion about the following configuration. Will it be possible to extend RAM to 1.5 GB ?
Price 1'520.

Prozessor:
Intel Pentium IV 3.06 GHz

RAM:
512MB DDR-RAM PC333

Mainboard:
ASUS P4PE/RL, i845E, DDR333,USB, FireWire, LAN, Serial-ATA, 6-Kanal Sound

Floppy:
3 1/2" Floppy

Harddisk:
80GB 7200rpm

Grafikkarte:
ATI Radeon 9000 128MB DDR, DVI, TV-out

DVD-Laufwerk:
LiteOn 16x/40x

Brenner:
MSI 48x/16x/48x

Gehäuse:
Midi Tower

Maus und Tastatur:
Standard

Unless you have some heavy duty number crunching software, your proposed system is overkill. It would be no more competent for trading than a run-of-the-mill P4, 512 RAM, Win2000 or XP OS.
(In fact, a PIII, 800 is plenty of horsepower for a trading setup.)

 

[j_medved]

gnome, if you are using real-time charting and are tracking lots of high volume symbols, its very easy to peg a P III 800 CPU usage. The trading only does not require high speed CPU. Serious real-time charting does however.

 

[gnome]

Quote from j_medved:

gnome, if you are using real-time charting and are tracking lots of high volume symbols, its very easy to peg a P III 800 CPU usage. The trading only does not require high speed CPU. Serious real-time charting does however.

Maybe "serious real-time charting" comes under the heading of "heavy duty number crunching"?. I do what seems to be serious real-time charting, and my P4 is no faster than my old PII 350. Then again, I apparently don't have any CPU hogs working, either.

 

[TGregg]

My 2.26 Ghz p4 is occasionally pegged, now that I run 7 monitors.

 

[a5519]

Overkill I would see may be only in a graphic card. It has built in 2 monitor capability, what could be OK. But the TV-Out I definitely don't need.
Other considerations:
1) The processor speed is needed if I want to compute correlations for pairs trading. For S&P 500 it's necessary to compute correlation matrix 500x500. It needs speed and RAM.
2) To make portfolio optimization using Markovitz model, it's necessary to solve 20-30 times linear programming in order to get 20-30 points on the efficient frontier. It needs speed and RAM.
3) running scanning scripts and trading simulation on portfolio of 1000-2000 stocks needs speed and RAM.

Processor and RAM may be OK. But what is really redundant ?

 

[gnome]

Quote from a5519:

Overkill I would see may be only in a graphic card. It has built in 2 monitor capability, what could be OK. But the TV-Out I definitely don't need.
Other considerations:
1) The processor speed is needed if I want to compute correlations for pairs trading. For S&P 500 it's necessary to compute correlation matrix 500x500. It needs speed and RAM.
2) To make portfolio optimization using Markovitz model, it's necessary to solve 20-30 times linear programming in order to get 20-30 points on the efficient frontier. It needs speed and RAM.
3) running scanning scripts and trading simulation on portfolio of 1000-2000 stocks needs speed and RAM.

Processor and RAM may be OK. But what is really redundant ?

If you care about not overbuying on a new machine, run your system up on a lesser model and see how it handles it. Then, you'll know.

 

[gnome]

Quote from TGregg:

My 2.26 Ghz p4 is occasionally pegged, now that I run 7 monitors.

I run 5 monitors, data, realtime graphics, browsers, TV tuner... and my CPU never hits 30%. Your maxing out is probably due to software.. Monitors don't consume that much... not even 7 of them.

 

[TGregg]

Quote from gnome:



I run 5 monitors, data, realtime graphics, browsers, TV tuner... and my CPU never hits 30%. Your maxing out is probably due to software.. Monitors don't consume that much... not even 7 of them.

You're right, I shoulda clarified my earlier statement to say that I filled up 6 of those monitors with charts and plenty of TA.

 

[gnome]

Quote from TGregg:



You're right, I shoulda clarified my earlier statement to say that I filled up 6 of those monitors with charts and plenty of TA.

Even 7 monitors "loaded" wouldn't gobble up the CPU. One of your programs is likely a CPU hogg, and that's causing your CPU to run pegged. (From what I've read on ET, I get the idea that eSignal charting might be one such hog [if wrong about that, sorry, eSig]. I use eSignal for data, but MetaStock for charting.)

It only takes one hogger, and then it probably doesn't matter how powerful your system or how much ram... the hogger will dominate it.