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I'm new to futures trading and read a lot here about software, indicators, rules etc. Thanks so much. BEfore I actually go live I wanted to see if anyone had any feedback as to what hardware to use and what specific specs should be needed. I have been using an old HP laptop with 4 garb of ram.
Can you help answer these questions from other members on NexusFi?
Hi bcesca12, think it depends on the software and trading method you will be using.
I am currently using an intel i5 8gb ram SSD laptop that suited charting and trading on the 30 minute time frame just fine. ( I do nothing else and having nothing else installed on there except for ninja trader)
Now that I have switched to shorter time frames where I use jigsaw software with gomi indicators my laptop is struggling at times. This is because now it has a lot more data in the form of all the level II it has to deal with. It gets a bit dicey when some big price moves happen.
An upgrade is on my to-buy list when I start on a real account.
Will be looking at (at a minimum) 3rd gen i7. 16gb ram SSD hardrive and a decent graphics card to handle the 3 screens I use. But I like I said, trading without jigsaw and the DOM I could have stuck to my current set up.
In truth, when it comes to desktops, you don't need much these days, so long as your keep your machine clean. Keep it free from fluff and junk.
Trading is a business, and your trading machine is your business. Why would you want the crux of your business clogged up with junk? Keep it clean and neat, and the following should be just fine...
Nothing fancy. Has expansion ability for more monitors. Should be fine for trading. (I haven't delved into the specs wholeheartedly, but there is something about SSD that seems off, based upon feedback I have had from fellow traders. Therefore, I stuck with the ol' spindle drives).
I cannot comment on laptops, since I hate them. :-\
I like the Lenovo T450 or the X1 carbon. With 16Go of RAM and a SSD it should be fine for CQG IC or CQG Qtrader since it does not use a lot of resources vs Ninja 7. What I like with them is the keyboard and the real mouse with buttons instead of the track pad.
This is my normal usage during trading hours. I don't know anything about tech so does it seems ok for a laptop because here it is a i7 vs the i5 ? For me it seems ok because I rarely go over 5% of CPU usage.
R.I.P. Olivier Terrier (aka "Okina"), 1969-2016.
Please visit this thread for more information.
I have QTrader and they recommend 12 GB of RAM. They say 4 GB is the minimum requirement.
My Lenovo laptop has 2 GB and QTrader runs fine. So I don't think any relatively new machine will have a problem.
My suggestion is to go for something with a reasonable screen size. Personally I like the X1 Carbon.
Your memory usage seems a little high but that depends on what apps you had running at the time. Either way CQG seems to be very efficient in using resources.
I would suggest you look at your performance data in the Task Manager to identify your needs.
Looking at the screenshot provided by @Okina, his CPU usage is very low. His free RAM on the other hand is a bit on the low side and his PC is probably caching to the disk quite frequently. If he has a SSD the performance hit won't be as bad, but with a mechanical HDD you will really feel the performance dropping.
With my own laptop, I use about 1-10% of my CPU (i7-4800) and I use about 5 GB of RAM with Ninja 7 running a Unirenko chart. Nothing else is being run.
If you upgrade to a new laptop, I would prioritise the upgrades as follows:
RAM - No less than 16GB. It is cheap right now and may give the laptop a longer lease on life. Having too little RAM hits performance across the board some laptops come with soldered-on RAM, i.e. not user-upgradeable.
SSD - Huge improvement over HDD technology. This could be the most noticeable upgrade to any PC.
CPU - Very much depends on your usage. I could use a i3 and not run into any issues - other people here need to run top-of-the-line rigs for their systems.
Edit: Screen size / resolution does not matter too much if you connect other displays to it. If you travel a lot, then you may need to factor the display into this as well.
I recomending PC case with fans in/out air flow . Then yours graphic/motherboard/rams will have longer lifetime usage. In attachment u can see first 4 temp are cores temp and fifth and sixth are gpu temp in running NT7 with few indicators. I do use 5 fans (3 in 2 out) . Also u can reduce ram/cpu usage by switch off windows services (spying services) as windows smartscreen,windows search, ICS (internet conection sharing), netTpc port sharing,remote registry,routing and remote acces,smart car. For best results All performace Options can be turned off.
