Yes, I have no doubt that it is, but as I've written ITT, I stupidly did not prioritize a 4K screen when it has turned out to be one of the more important features for my purposes. So I'm buying another (17" + 4K display) and don't want to end up with a $5K laptop with specs that are a massive waste for my purposes...hence creation of this thread in which I try to ferret out what I can trade off.
RAM vs Processor vs # of Cores ... what matters most for a trading rig?
- Thread starter d0rian
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Yes, I have no doubt that it is, but as I've written ITT, I stupidly did not prioritize a 4K screen when it has turned out to be one of the more important features for my purposes. So I'm buying another (17" + 4K display) and don't want to end up with a $5K laptop with specs that are a massive waste for my purposes...hence creation of this thread in which I try to ferret out what I can trade off.
completely overkill for an amateur trader, are you a virgin?
Ahaha I see.
I'd just grab an Alienware 17" or Asus ROG cheapest one with 16GB/32gb ram.
Only issue I've ever had with my XPS setup was it running a little hot - these days I was using it for trading, working and home media simultaneously.
I have 3 screen setup for my lappy, I downgrade the screen to 1080p for TWS, and my two other screens also 1080p native.
I can't see shit on 4k 15"!!
For my scanners, I set everything up on the 4k screen at first, but I couldn't get the scaling nice, so I reverted back to 1080p and it works a treat.
- Yeah, they sell a whole bunch of these "flip-out" additional screens for laptops...though most of them are sold separately with some method to affix them to your laptop rather than coming as part of the machine. One of best purchases I ever made was this 17" USB 4K portable external display. Powered entirely via the TB3 cable too so no power cable needed.
- Maybe the ASUS product you're thinking about is this intriguing "Zenbook Pro Duo", which has a main 4K display and secondary 3840 x 1100 screen on the base, so effectively 3840 x 3260(!) Unfort they don't make a 17" version of it and 4K on 15" requires serious squinting.
- Found one last option for 17" @ 4K, from Gigabyte (hadn't heard of them before). There really aren't all that many choices, but at this point I'm down to:
- Lenovo ThinkPad P73 (~$3K) Workstation Laptop (Intel i7-9850H 6-Core, 64GB RAM, 128GB PCIe SSD + 1TB HDD, NVIDIA Quadro T2000, 17.3" 4K UHD (link)
- HP Envy 17t-cg (~$2K) 4K Home and Business Laptop (Intel i7-1165G7 4-Core, 64GB RAM, 512GB m.2 SATA SSD + 1TB HDD, MX450, 17.3" 4K UHD (link)
- Gigabyte AERO 17 HDR YC (~$3K) Intel Core i9-10980HK 8 x 2.4 - 5.3 GHz, Comet Lake-H, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Laptop GPU, 32 GB SO-DIMM DDR4-3200 (2nd slot for up to 64GB)
Eventually you will want to replace Excel with an easy to program language such as Python. Because Excel isn't meant for this task, even Python would be faster. So many people are using Python, there are many places to go to find help. Here is a YouTube Playlist called Python - Finance - All which shows you how to use Python to access the SEC, EDGAR database, TD Ameritrade and Interactive Brokers. The Interactive Brokers videos are numbers 49 to 56.
Later, you can also tweak Python to go faster using various methods such as branching to C++ for the slower parts or simply replacing code using NumPy or pandas. You can easily install Python with the free Anaconda Distribution. Anaconda allows you to easily add or update all of the Python packages or you can use Pip install.
As you mentioned, Excel is probably freezing because of the IB API calls. Either the data isn't coming through fast enough or there is corruption somewhere. With Python you would be able to test the data for corruption. Here is a book which also shows how to use IB data: Algorithmic Trading with Interactive Brokers (Python and C++).
Whenever I build a system, the first thing I do, even before installing an O/S, is to test the RAM. If you haven't tested the RAM, you can do this overnight or while you are AFK. I always use free MemTest86 with 3 passes. You write MemTest86 to a USB stick and boot from it, bypassing the O/S. One sign of faulty RAM is a spontaneous reboot. Everyone building or buying their computer should test their RAM at least once and then yearly afterwards.
There is a Microsoft group called Sysinternals which makes several useful free utilities. The utilities are Process Monitor, Process Explorer, Autoruns and TCPView. I have used all 4. Process Monitor allows you to monitor selected or all activity on Windows. If you run Process Monitor, select what you want to monitor and wait for Excel to freeze, you might be able to deduce why Excel is freezing. The problem is Windows has a lot of activity in the background and Process Monitor can create a huge log very quickly. I have never left Process Monitor collecting data for more than 40 minutes, let alone 2 days. Process Monitor can collect 1 million events in less than 30 minutes. If you set, Options > History Depth, to 1 million it should reduce the amount of RAM PM uses. Although, I tried this setting and it did not seem to work.
If you want to know the load your GeForce RTX 2080 is under, install free TechPowerUp GPU-Z. I doubt it is using very much GPU capacity, probably under 45%. If anyone wants to know the load their GPU or built-in (CPU)GPU is under, use GPU-Z. If you are running your broker charting interface or are seeing an HD 60 FPS video and you want to know if your GPU can manage the load, use GPU-Z. If the load is greater than 85%, then you know you need a new GPU.
Finally, if you haven't already, you should make a partition backup of your Windows and then tweak it. Windows 10 can have many unnecessary processes running. Having so many processes running simultaneously can cause your programs to stutter or lose performance. There are many sources to tweak your Windows. Here is one: Speed Up Windows 10 in 2020.
Use all the above mentioned programs and utilities at your own risk. Make all changes to your system at your own risk.
It is better to have some knowledge and experience and that is something that matters a lot. With the right information, a trader can make good profits and take careful decisions. It also helps them in managing their accounts and focusing on the two most important things - money management and risk management. In my experience, it is always a good idea to pay due attention to how much you are risking and managing your capital. This will be a really helpful thing that traders can do to save them from any unexpected losses.
Excel is meant for static analysis and things that are not mission critical (like trading). I still do some basic analysis sometimes in Excel, it's good for that but not much else. For trading it's really not suitable at all. IB doesn't seem to develop the ActiveX/DDE as much either, probably because they know they can never make it completely stable and suitable for larger projects. You can't make bread from shit as they say my part of the world.
The laptop CPU model might seem same/similar but it's still capped because laptop components have to operate in a small space and temperatures have to be strictly controlled. When the CPU gets hot, that hot air isn't directly sent to the exhaust as it will pass by other components that might also be hot. This all compounds the problems. That's not really a concern for most desktop components since (as you stated) most modern cases have multiple fans and plenty of room for air flow, air flow from the front of the case through CPU and GPU is often separate from PSU and so forth.
Yep, top advice.
Out of 4 systems I've built, 1 had faulty RAM so sort that problem out right from the start.