You're ideal system under $3500
- Thread starter insidebuy
- Start date
Pentiums are not 'better processors' indeed, but the dual core Pentium do have an edge for multithreaded processing.
I personally am a AMD lover and user, but as a software engineer with lots of parallel processing experience i have to concede that the dual-core Pentiums are superior
AMDs are floating-point number crunching monsters, for aplications such as 3D rendering and multimedia processing, they sure are amazing. Too bad that no trading platform there can tap this power.
Now, if you want some empiric evidence, just create a couple hundred streams of price data and calculate any set of indicators you want using a threadpool on a dual core AMD and a dual core Pentium and you will see what i mean :eek:
About HT slowing things down, yes, that does happen with some highly concurrent applications. And by highly concurrent I mean reeeeeealy highly concurent
Also note that most dual cores from Intel DO NOT HAVE HT. Yeah, that is right! I think there is only one dual core model out there featuring HT and it is bloody expensive 
Quote from mrtwo:
My two cents are:
1. Go for a multicore machine.
2. Pentium are better for multithreaded processing than AMDs.
3. RAM, lots of RAM. 4Gb if you can.
4. If you want a setup with 4 monitors or less, you can go for a combo PCI-E, PCI setup with a GeForce 6600 Dual-DVI PCI-E as primary and a GeForce 5500 Dual-DVI PCI as secondary. This would give you a 4-DVI output.
5. If you want more than 4 monitors, go for two Quad-Head cards. ATI, NVIDIA and MATROX have Quad-head models on both PCI-E and PCI flavors.
6. Go for high resolution monitors. Anything under 1600x1200 or 1680x1050 wide is a waste of money IMO. Trying to juggle a bunch of charts on a 1280x1024 monitor isnt what I call 'fun'
7. Go for faster memory. Now, that is big. Backtesting and optimizing w/ 800mhz DDR2 memory will be significantly faster than doing the same with memory running at 533mhz.
Place with good prices: http://www.us.ncix.com
Peace,
mrtwo
Well, Big, you shouldn't be having that trouble. The 2 primary places to look for trouble....
(1) 3rd party cards... you should use "genuine" maker cards and drivers in muiti-card setups.
(2) General schmutz on your HD... whenever you to to multi-card (espcially if different makers) you should be prepared to do a fresh install of the OS.
Yes indeed. What most people talking about the HT issue out there doesnt undestand is that while it is true that HT can make some applications run significantly slower, this is a problem that only manifests itself on highly concurrent processing situations.
For the average trader, HT is a good thing
I particularly would rather configure my own box. Computers are the base of eletronic trading and I believe all traders could benefit of understanding how their underlying trading machines and networks work.
Building your own computer and network is a great way to learn the basics and knowing the basics, it will be much easier for you to recover from fault conditions that are bound to happen now and then.
I am not saying traders should be computer specialists, just that knowing a little bit about the hardware and networks setup will not hurt anyone.
You know, over the Traders Expo in Vegas I heard someone mentioning how great was to use a wireless internet PCMCIA card with their laptops to trade from his hotel room. Sounds cool huh? Well, if he had the bare basic understanding of computer security he would know how dangerous is to trade from a laptop to begin with...
So, build your own machine, set up your own network with a static IP address and for the love of God, set up an IP address exclusion rule with your brokerage house to make sure no other IP can touch your money!
tks mrtwo....
I hv been trading for several yrs on everyday type computers (latest being a dell dimension 8100 and a 4550) and think its time to put together a specialized system. Security is one of several reasons. I enjoy keeping my focus on my trading and have little interest in computer tech stuff.
I hv considered building my own however I am very hesitant as this is not my expertise and would prefer to hv an expert handle it. I am not overly concerned with price.
I have a very successlful friend (now ex-Refco) who recommended tradingcomputers saying several of his independant clients use them and are very satisfied with the performance and service.
so again, any pros or cons on tradingcomputer products.
tks
I hv been trading for several yrs on everyday type computers (latest being a dell dimension 8100 and a 4550) and think its time to put together a specialized system. Security is one of several reasons. I enjoy keeping my focus on my trading and have little interest in computer tech stuff.
I hv considered building my own however I am very hesitant as this is not my expertise and would prefer to hv an expert handle it. I am not overly concerned with price.
I have a very successlful friend (now ex-Refco) who recommended tradingcomputers saying several of his independant clients use them and are very satisfied with the performance and service.
so again, any pros or cons on tradingcomputer products.
tks