Custom Computers Vs. Best Buy

[jay bird 10]

Does anyone have any thoughts / experiences with custom built trading computers verse mass produced models.

I am in the market for a new laptop and don't have time to build my own, there are a few companies that build computers specifically for traders.

It is difficult to compare apples to apples but the main differance between "comparable" models seems to be in the price.

I mentioned the above comment to the custom computer company and he said that the reason for the higher cost was that they used better components and the way that they configured the components would eliminate bottle necks and allow platforms to run faster and more efficiently.

This sounds great and if true might make the higher costs a bargain.

 

Your thoughts O wise ones

[zdo 20]

If you are getting a laptop then just purchase 'off the shelf', include max ram, and confirm that the laptop video won't bottleneck processes.

If you are getting a desktop then build from scratch...

 

You don't really need to use a 'trading computer' specialist - machines tuned for 'gaming' do the trick for a whole lot less money...

 

hth

[jay bird 10]

Thanks alot.

as far as the bottle necking how do you go about figuring out if the video will or won't.

[brownsfan019 17]

I'm not the techie here by any means, but what I've learned w/ computers:

 

1) Get the max ram you can put in the machine (might be better off doing this yourself AFTER you purchase the laptop and get the good stuff).

 

2) Make sure the video card is top notch (this could be what the above post is referring to).

 

I underestimated the importance of the video card in a laptop that I bought for casual use. It has more RAM and better processor than my trading laptop, but I would never want to trade off of it as the trading platforms can get the bottleneck where things freeze or take longer to update b/c so much is going over the video card at once.

 

I would actually suggest making one online at HP or somewhere and that way you can ensure you get what you want inside the machine. My trading laptop is a compaq and I just custom built it online. Very easy and I know it has good stuff inside.

[BlowFish 10]

Depending on what you are doing 'trading' is not really a heavy weight application. Of course if you are building the S&P index from constituent stocks in real time your mileage may vary. Things like VWAP's and SD's are processor heavy too. I happily trade on an apple macbook pro laptop running windows (bootcamp).

[jay bird 10]

Thanks a lot guys.

I am in the process of selling one of my mountain bikes to lessen the pain of purchasing this computer. If I buy the computer from a major distributer I can afford to buy a new fly rod as well.

I currently have an old mac laptop and love the idea of not having to deal with firewalls and such. Any problems using software based platforms with bootcamp.

Once again thanks for taking the time to respond.

[jay bird 10]

I am thinking about going with a customized Dell XPS M1730 with the following components. A buddy of mine has a 20% business discount with Dell so the total purchase will run me about $2650. What do you think.

 

Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T8300 (2.4GHz/800Mhz FSB/3MB cache)

Genuine Windows® XP Professional

4GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz

RAID Performance: 400GB (2x200GB) 7200RPM Free Fall Sensor

CD / DVD Burner (DVD+/-RW Drive)

NVIDIA®SLI™Dual GeForce®8700MGT with 512MB GDDR3 Memory

Intel® PRO/Wireless 4965a/g/n Mini Card

85 WHr Lithium Ion Battery (9-cell)

High Definition Audio 2.0

My Software & Accessories

McAfee SecurityCenter 15-months

Microsoft Works

[fifty2aces 10]

I wouldn't bother with RAID - more trouble than it's worth, and not really relevant to trading anyway, since you aren't likely to be doing anything which requires heavy disk usage. As for graphics, while you need at least a decent card, trading isn't graphics intensive compared to gaming (high-end graphics are designed for 3D performance, rather than a bunch of charts). SLI is considered excessive by many gamers, so is definitely unnecessary - it will only help for multithreaded graphics, which won't be an issue for trading.

 

If you downgrade the graphics, and stick to 1 hard disk (no RAID), you'll get a cheaper computer, which will probably have much better battery life, without impacting performance. You could even look to get a faster processor, which will be far more useful than SLI or RAID.

 

Edit: Also, custom trading computers are pretty unnecessary - generally the ones I have seen use standard parts, but market towards insecure traders who are afraid that their computer might hold them back from getting that extra tick. The only time a custom job might be useful would be if you needed more than 2 monitors, in which case motherboard and graphics card selection is important, and most off the shelf computers won't do the job.

[Guest forsearch]

For 4, 6 or 8 monitors, what would you recommend?

[Sledge 13]

The ability to run a dual monitor system is key. I plan to upgrade my PC soon with a 2 monitor system- one for my charting, the other screen for my order entry and multitasking uses. In my head it will be sweet as honey!

Sledge

[fifty2aces 10]

forsearch - most modern video cards can support two monitors, either dual dvi, or one dvi + one vga, so if you want 4 monitors, you could run 2 mainstream dual dvi cards, provided you got a motherboard that can take 2 graphics cards.

 

If you want more than 4 monitors, you're looking at something more specialised - either two computers, or specific multi monitor cards - I don't know a huge amount about these, but googling "matrox" would be a good start.

 

 

Sledge - pretty much all PCs these days are capable of running two monitors straight out the box - most graphics cards have 2 connectors - either 2x DVI, or 1x DVI and 1xVGA.

[jay bird 10]

Well after way to much agonizing and a ton of reading it's done.I ended up going with HP, they have way more machine then any of the other companies I was looking at for 1/2 to 3/4 the price :thumbs up:.

Below is what I ended up with. Probably more then I will need but if I get addicted to gaming I'll have a kick ass machine.

Thanks for all the help both on this thread and all of the other ones in this forum

 

HP Pavilion dv9700t customizable Notebook PC

Upgrade to Genuine Windows Vista Home Premium with Service Pack 1 (64-bit)

Intel® Core 2 Duo Processor T9300 (2.50GHz)

17.0" diagonal WSXGA+ High-Definition HP BrightView Widescreen Display (1680 x 1050)

4GB DDR2 System Memory (2 Dimm)

512MB NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GS

FREE Upgrade to HP Imprint Finish (Radiance) + Fingerprint Reader + Microphone

Intel® PRO/Wireless 4965AGN Network Connection

240GB 7200RPM SATA Dual Hard Drive (120GB x 2)

LightScribe SuperMulti 8X DVD+/-RW with Double Layer Support

HP ExpressCard Digital/Analog TV Tuner

8 Cell Lithium Ion Battery

Norton Internet Security 2008 - 3 Year Subscription

Microsoft® Works 9.0

HP Home & Home Office Store in-box envelope

[fifty2aces 10]

That looks more sensible - graphics card will be good enough, without being way over the top. Not sure about 2 hard drives in a laptop, but that's not a problem - looks like a solid computer.

 

By the way, Norton is absolutely useless, and will slow the computer down - I'd uninstall it immediately, and get ESET nod32 as a virus scanner.

[Sledge 13]

Sledge - pretty much all PCs these days are capable of running two monitors straight out the box - most graphics cards have 2 connectors - either 2x DVI, or 1x DVI and 1xVGA.

 

Sweet, this is a good thread for me as well as I am looking to upgrade my 7+ year old PC. You appear to be the TL computer expert now. That didn't take long of your arrival to find your place

[jay bird 10]

Thanks 52.

I've been a mac guy for a quite a while so I'm out of the loop about protection, but your the second person thats told me that Norton sucks.They are still building the computer so I'm going to call and try to get the Norton removed from the order.

The people at Hp suggested the 2 hard drives to run vista properly.

[Sledge 13]

The people at Hp suggested the 2 hard drives to run vista properly.

 

2 hard drives to run an OS properly? Microsoft is going to hell in a handbasket! I've actually considered a Mac as my next desktop- I'm still running Windows 2000 Pro as every other Microsoft OS since it has been shit. I pray you never got saddled with the "Windows ME" nightmare. I won't even begin to soapbox that one!

[Guest forsearch]

I'm still running Windows 2000 Pro as every other Microsoft OS since it has been shit.

 

I have to agree here. Even though I'm running XP, I've found Windows 2000 to be the most stable build of Windows, as it closely adhered to the NT kernel it was built upon.

 

-fs

[jay bird 10]

Macs the bomb.

I've had an ibook for a few years and it has had a hard life. In and out of my truck, freezing cold to blasting covered in sawdust, dirt and dog hair and it's never missed a beat. Add to that that I never even think about viruses.

That being said man are they expensive and I would think that running vista on a mac would eliminate the virus protection.

[fifty2aces 10]

Macs the bomb.

I've had an ibook for a few years and it has had a hard life. In and out of my truck, freezing cold to blasting covered in sawdust, dirt and dog hair and it's never missed a beat. Add to that that I never even think about viruses.

That being said man are they expensive and I would think that running vista on a mac would eliminate the virus protection.

 

No, the operating system is what leaves you vulnerable to viruses - unfortunately since most people use Windows, most virus creators make viruses for windows. I'd get ESET nod32, as I mentioned before - it's seriously fast, and rated very highly. The modern macs running windows are basically just (expensive) branded PCs - same parts inside, same operating system, shiny packaging.

 

For what it's worth, I've been running Vista for a few months now without any problems, although I understand that people may feel safer on XP, so might be worth sticking with that for peace of mind. Most of the complaints about Vista seem to be either people who hate change (everyone hated XP when it came out), or people who try to install it on old computers which aren't powerful enough to run it properly.

 

Also, the 2 hard drives for vista thing is rubbish - you can run it on a single hard drive without a problem - either the HP guys are giving you a hard sell, or don't know what they're talking about (most likely both.

 

And yeah, Windows ME was awful, wish I'd never experienced that.

[Kiwi 16]

I am thinking about going with a customized Dell XPS M1730 with the following components. A buddy of mine has a 20% business discount with Dell so the total purchase will run me about $2650. What do you think.

 

Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T8300 (2.4GHz/800Mhz FSB/3MB cache)

Genuine Windows® XP Professional

4GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz

RAID Performance: 400GB (2x200GB) 7200RPM Free Fall Sensor

CD / DVD Burner (DVD+/-RW Drive)

NVIDIA®SLI™Dual GeForce®8700MGT with 512MB GDDR3 Memory

Intel® PRO/Wireless 4965a/g/n Mini Card

85 WHr Lithium Ion Battery (9-cell)

High Definition Audio 2.0

My Software & Accessories

McAfee SecurityCenter 15-months

Microsoft Works

 

My cut fwiw.

 

Most of the XPSP3 upgrade problems came from HP computers because of the way they put the os image on - HP was once a great company. Dells are ok but many are built to a price spec so its not as good as you could do building it yourself.

 

On Jay bird's spec.

1. I've got an 8500 but I'd get an 8400 because they are the sweet spot for price/performance (but the shop was out of 8400, and when I want to upgrade I upgrade NOW).

2. Yes to XP. No to Vista. If you get 4G of ram you can put a nice big ram disk in there and run your trading apps on the ramdisk (I run TWS, SierraChart and Firefox on the ramdisk for max speed and minimum disk wear (max reliability)).

3. They put 667M ram in! Yetch! 800M is very cheap now and 1000+ if you want real performance. Why get a good new core2 and be cheap or ram (unless you're dell and building to a price spec).

4. Why bother with raid for a trading machine but maybe you have some very specific needs.

5. That graphics card is way overspec except for gamers. If you want to trade then a 7300GS with passive cooling will be much cheaper and do base games (7900 for more gaming).

6. Don't use wireless anywhere in your trading - it adds latency in a big way. Fixed wire connections to your trading machine.

7. McAfee = rubbish; so's Norton except for Ghost. But if its free. If I was paying I'd get Nod32. If not AVG is pretty reasonable as is Comodo for firewalls.

 

So, drop the raid and you can probably save enough to upspec your processor to an 8400 and get 800Mhz ram. Drop the expensive fast graphics card if you're not a hard core gamer and you can reduce noise, save the environment and your pocket all in one step.

 

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