PC Spec suggestions

[ozza1310]

I'm in the process of setting up a trading station and need some advice on the PC requirements in terms of spec. I will ideally be looking to run a dual monitor setup.

[Temujin]

Any base model should do the trick these days. If you are only really trading you don't need much at all. The most resources you will need is to run Windows, so depending on which version you get, probably 7, take that into account. No point getting an old 1 GB system and trying to run 7 on it as you are probably not even able to run your OS on it.

4GB RAM should be about bare minimum these days and that is plenty, dual core processor would be minimum but most would be quad core these days anyway. i5 processors are pretty cheap and are quad core, so all good.

In regards to dual monitors, I think you can do that on any system?, although I could be wrong there. A simple graphics card running alongside a motherboard with onboard graphics is good enough to do the trick.
My old computer had a dual NVidia 512MB setup so 1GB graphics with 2 cards, so plenty of space for 2 monitors without eating into the motherboards specs. With that sort of setup you should have DVI/HDMI/SVGA ports anyway so can likely hook up 3+ monitors anyway using different ports depending on which you choose.

Moral of the story though, go into a shop, and any computer they have on the shelf should do the trick.

[ozza1310]

Fantastic thank you so much for the help that gives me a good idea aboiut whats required

[bazbaz]

All depends on what you need to trade the way you trade.

The one I'm using cost £85 second hand (already had the screen.) 2.8ghz, 2GB RAM, Windows XP, no graphics card. Works fine. I made over 70 times what I paid for it last month alone. If all you use is the ladder and you're not into PCs then what's the point of all the fancy stuff? Multiple screens and loads of fancy graphs look good but I think for most people it's just not neccessary and a waste of their money

[The Geek]

I use a 3ghz core II duo E8400 which is pretty equivalent to today's entry level PCs. I have up to 17 ladders over 2 x 24 inch monitors and it works beautifully.

There only thing that pushes processor usage & makes it struggle is having lots of streaming charts set to the fastest refresh rate. As each chart redraws 10 times a second and the rendering is quite processor intensive.