help building a trading computer

[tippet]

help with building a trading computer

Was hoping to get some input in components I've selected to use in building a puter that will soley be used for trading the markets ..will have 4 monitors hooked up ...already have an appian dual card and xp home .... need advice on another video card and anyother suggestions ....well here goes
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/Produ...uctCode=80726-R

ASUS A8N-SLI Premium Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 SLI ATX AMD Motherboard
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...N82E16813131540
Western Digital Caviar® SE 320GB Internal Hard Drive
($80) circuitycity
Antec TRUEPOWERII TPII-550 ATX12V 550W
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...N82E16817103931
Asus Silent Square 3-in-1 CPU Cooler
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/Produ...tCode=372305-OP
Corsair TWINX2048-3200PT 2GB DDR400 XMS3200 Memory w/Platinum Heat Spreader
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/Produ...ctCode=80097-41
COOLER MASTER Centurion 534 RC-534-KKN1-GP Black Aluminum
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...N82E16811119106
SAMSUNG Black combo
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...N82E16827151118

thanks in advance
tip

 

[HGC]

tippet, I suggest you look around at matrox.com. They have a good selection of multimonitor cards for pcie, pci, and agp.

I trade from a home office and have one computer for general internet, games, and misc, and one computer dedicated solely to trading. I do think this is the way to go, so that you don't have software incompatibilities, spyware, etc interfering with your work computer. You can also use your non-trading computer as a backup in case your work computer goes down during trading.

I'd also suggest getting a good UPS from APC. The last thing you neeed is a momentary power drop as a trade is being executed.

If you are using trading software, like the older versions of TradeStation, that continuously writes to data to your hard drive, you might want to get a Western Digital Raptor.

If you're still shopping for monitors, I'd get the biggest LCDs you can afford, even if you have to buy fewer. I've used all sizes of monitors, and the big ones are more practical in terms of desk space, mounting them, and video cards. It's also easier to focus on a few bigger ones than many smaller ones.

Another important factor for me has been an easy backup system. You have to back up at least every day so that you have your records in case the broker's records are wrong. I have a second hard drive just for backup. I use System Guardian 2000 software for that from Duocor. I think Casper is also a good one. I am thinking about moving the backup hard drive to an external enclosure, to protect against a power problem that might take out even the backup drive, and I make CDs of the important stuff from time to time.

I like your hardware choices, especially the fast dual core processor.

Good luck!

PS
Get a good desk chair 🙂

 

[MagnusTheBrewer]

Dual core is a good idea for multi-tasking but, a 3800+ is more than adequate. 2Gb of ram? This is for trading not gaming. An external backup drive is excellent advice.