High-end PC for Trading
- Thread starter andysmith99
- Start date
What he said. Big time. Keep your laptop for the browsing, email, video and document editing. You don't want video streaming, or browsing a bad web site, nor any of your listed tasks, to impact the speed at which your charts populate with each piece of data that flows in.
Also highly recommend a six core processor over a four core. Particularly as you're running both IB and thinkorswim.
I've run as many as 24 charts (six 1920x1200 monitors), with multiple indicators, along with level 1, level 2, etc., and I've never gone above 8G of 12G installed. But I'm only running IB and my own code, no other platforms at the same time. Pay attention to the memory "speed" vs. the latency. Getting a higher "speed" isn't necessarily faster. Compare the actual speed in nano seconds to make sure what you're paying for actually is faster.
Instead of three 1920x1200 monitors, when it's time to upgrade, consider a 4K monitor with a 1920x1200 on the side. I place things I watch towards the bottom and left/centre; with things I scan along the top and to the right side. Account, Level I and market goes to the 28" on the left side. With careful selection (image quality), a cheaper 4K TV with HDMI 2.0 is sufficient. I greatly prefer my 55"4K seiki with a 28"1920x1200 on the side over the six 28" 1920x1200 I used to run, even though I lose a strip of real-estate across the top. I've seen my friend run a 39" 4K, and I find it's too small. I'd say a 48" or 50" would be fine. A 60" would be too big for me.
Make sure your graphic card has 4GB, not 2GB.
Now some things that seem obvious, but should be done, just in case, or just because.
On your trading machine, if live-tick or second to second data, charts and indicators matter to you:
- Turn off auto update on everything. You don't want that checking, downloading or using any resources (let alone hogging) while you're trading.
- Turn off the BIOS and operating system features that slow down your computer!!!
- People are often surprised when they upgrade their trading computer, to find that their system runs SLOWER. This is because the amount of processing for trading is surprisingly small. The more powerful your computer is, the easier it is for it to get that work done, so to be helpful it scales back its turbo and even the number of cores running. The more powerful your system, the more trivial a trading load looks to it, so it scales back and runs slow. With a power graphic card (which you DO want), your system can run the main CPU even slower, as it has even less of a load to deal with.
- Most traders will be wanting to see the results of the latest data as soon as possible.
- So dial that puppy up to it's rated capabilities and watch those charts fly! You'll need to research this to find out what settings and where they are for your motherboard and operating system.
- You may wish to upgrade your CPU cooler, as fans may end up roaring away to handle the heat of the CPU running through the day at its rated speed. Easy way is to buy an enclosed closed-loop water cooler. A single rad is sufficient. Nice to have for quiet anyway, if you're going to be sitting in front of the system while the market is open.
- P.S. In addition to charts finishing populating faster (no longer watching new data flow/cascade through the charts), my algo processing time went from 65ms to 42ms to 23ms, as I found more "helpful" features to turn off. Same system, going from a quad-core running at 3.9 to a hex-core I7 970 at 3.6 and it dropped to 16ms. My humble goal was 40ms, so code optimization is certainly no longer a priority.
- People are often surprised when they upgrade their trading computer, to find that their system runs SLOWER. This is because the amount of processing for trading is surprisingly small. The more powerful your computer is, the easier it is for it to get that work done, so to be helpful it scales back its turbo and even the number of cores running. The more powerful your system, the more trivial a trading load looks to it, so it scales back and runs slow. With a power graphic card (which you DO want), your system can run the main CPU even slower, as it has even less of a load to deal with.
> This is overkill most of the time anyway.
Often, but it depends on the time resolution one is trading at.
> I am out of my mind why people buy so much powerful machines
Here's results with an older pretty-good 2010 Hex-core work-horse
With dialing-back disabled throughout my computer, it's rare that the total durations of work performed within a second total more than 30 ms (tons of multi-threading). That's for running four times a second (every 250 ms) generating L1, calculating indicators, updating strategy, generating orders & housekeeping, plus every eighth second checking price plus some housekeeping. With improved metrics, I learnt that my 2010 i7 970 based computer:
And a modern consumer grade hex core based computer will blow the doors off of my 2010 i7 970.
Often, but it depends on the time resolution one is trading at.
> I am out of my mind why people buy so much powerful machines
- Because there's a belief that the latest & greatest will be faster and faster is needed.
- It doesn't help that perception when someone upgrades and the new computer sees the actual work load as, well, rather trivial. So it shuts down cores and dials speed back to save power, and it gets the load done in what it's set to see as a reasonable length of time.
- Only with some trading, people need or want to see the results of their calculating in the minimum time possible - they need (want) it ASAP.
- In some cases, the new faster/better computer dials itself back so far that the user sees slower results than they used to have, so they upgrade the new computer's CPU, memory, or the whole computer again.
- Which sees the load as even more trivial...
Here's results with an older pretty-good 2010 Hex-core work-horse
With dialing-back disabled throughout my computer, it's rare that the total durations of work performed within a second total more than 30 ms (tons of multi-threading). That's for running four times a second (every 250 ms) generating L1, calculating indicators, updating strategy, generating orders & housekeeping, plus every eighth second checking price plus some housekeeping. With improved metrics, I learnt that my 2010 i7 970 based computer:
- From timer-wakeup until L1 generated and delivered to Strategy, 99.7% of the time that is complete in under 1 ms.
- Where it decides an order is needed, from timer-wakeup until L1 generated & delivered to Strategy, indicators updated, decision made and the order is out the door to the socket, 98.1% of the time the total elapsed time is still under 1 ms.
- Various housekeeping tasks occur after the above critical work is done.
And a modern consumer grade hex core based computer will blow the doors off of my 2010 i7 970.