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Building a PC for Discretionary/Automated Trading and Strategy Development
Take any quad core CPU from the last several years and it will display your charts and indicators without a problem. Most modern trading applications are now multithreaded, so MultiCharts, NinjaTrader, etc will use all your cores to split up chart duty simultaneously/concurrently.
Buying a huge powerhouse rig and putting it side by side just for loading charts you will see only a small difference in the initial loading time the first time the chart is brought up, but no real difference in "real time" chart updates.
A faster computer is really only beneficial for backtesting once you get past just any decent quad core system (say any ~2ghz quad core).
I have a Z200 that should be here in a the next couple of hours... It's a 3.2 GHZ i5, but 650, which is dual core, I believe. I went for the 3.2 as that was the fastest in my price range. Think a quad core will make a notable difference?
It has a high clock rate so I'm sure it's more than enough for you. It also has HyperThreading, so Windows will see four cpu's which is how MultiCharts, Ninja, etc will divide things up for multithreading.
This this will be a 4 monitor system, using MC, so when you say "enough" for me, I just want to be clear on how I plan to tax the system. Four 24" screens at 1920 x 1200 resolution, packed with charts, DOM, etc... Back-testing will happen at some point, but I don't mind some sacrifices there with speed / time... Actual trading, yes.
If this changes your mind, please reply. If not, no need to bother. Thanks again.
The speed will help your system boot faster and launch applications faster. If you close down your charting application on Friday, and re-open it on Sunday, a dual core may take an extra 10 seconds over a quad core, just for comparison.
But beyond these types of things -- and focusing solely on the charting process itself, calculating indicators, drawing objects, downloading data, etc - there is no discernible difference between a dual and quad core.
Some people that have older dual cores with low frequency clocks, or even worse - single core cpu's - will have performance problems because the cpu simply isn't fast enough to calculate 50 indicators at once every tick, resulting in chart lag. MultiCharts has a status bar which would light up red if your charts are lagging for any reason, another way to detect this is by using a CPU usage meter gadget or run the "taskmgr.exe" application and just monitor CPU load. If it's not going over 80-90% then you aren't lagging on your charts.
For comparison sake, I think my MultiCharts workspace has about 15 instruments, all set to tick data (mainly for purpose of collecting the data), then I have ten additional "real" charts that chart my two favorite instruments to trade, and these charts have a couple indicators on them. I also have Investor/RT up, email, MP3 player, skype, and Chrome internet browser with 15-20 tabs open, and my average CPU during cash RTH hours is around 5-8% usage. I have a quad core i7 920 overclocked to 4.0ghz. Your system might see 10-20% load on same conditions.
Ooh, the Fedex truck arrived with the HP Z200 workstation and the first 2 monitors. Amazon's delivery of the second NVS 295 and RAM was earlier in the morning. I've got some work to do...
Mike, I imagine that this new computer will have superfluous software / applications that can be removed. I want this system lean. If there is a thread that discusses what is essential and can be eliminated, to free-up resources, that would be great. I will perform a search.
I always build my own systems. Except for my notebooks, I've not purchased an OEM system. But my recommendation is to blow it away and start over, just format the drives, delete their bullshit OEM partitions and stuff, and do a fresh clean copy of Windows.
However, most OEM builders do not support this nor do they provide a means to do it. The "license" they give you for Windows doesn't include the full media for instance. Talk to their tech support and see what they say.
If you can't do a complete format re-install, there are programs out there to delete the crap from the system. I think one popular one is called Revo Uninstaller, but I've never used it:
I haven't opened the box yet, but that brings-up a good point. I don't even know if it comes with the OS CD. I hope so. I should tackle this before upgrading the RAM and the additional video card...
I opened the box and found no NVS 295. Called tech support, and I need to let the guy know who I purchased it from (HP Outlet).
There are 4 RAM memory slots, with slots 1 & 3 occupied with 2GB each. I have 2 4GB's to add, making for 12GB of RAM. Two of these slots are white in color, and two black. Do you have any recommendations on where to place this memory (2 x 2GB's and 2 x 4GB's)? I'm guessing a 2 and 4 in each of the white and black slots...
