Building a Daytrading Comp - $750 - $1000

Hello everyone,

i would like to build a comp for daytrading with multiple displays ( 4 monitors i guess) Getting Fast Quotes and Stability are the main concerns. Currently i am trading with 2 computers.

One is HP s5117c running on
- Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bits
- Intel Pentium Dual-core E5300 (2.6GHz)
- 4GB DDR2

Another is
- Windows XP Professional 32-bits
- AMD Athlon 64 3000+
- 2GB DDR

i m a beginner in comp. i do find that my old one in fact shows quotes slightly faster than the HP. the software i use is thinkorswim. Anybody knows why? or is there any ways to improve it and recommendation for my next build?

i hv done some research and heard that i dun need anything more than a dual core. so i m thinking AMD phenom II x2 555. or is there anything better ?

i dunno wut mobo, video card( especially video card! i heard gaming video card are for 3D and no good on 2D app), RAM, and hard drive i need. its not for any gaming, movie, music. i just want to build a pure trading comp.


Any help would be greatly appreciate. Thanks !!!

It woulld help if you followed the guidelines. The link is in my signature. Without a budget, we have no way to really help you...

XP is actually a bit faster of an O/S for trading IMHO.. I would use the fastest processor you can get, TOS is java based and has a limit of 1024MB per instance. Figure out how much RAM each app uses and size from there. It is best to use the execution machine for only execution. Also keep the # of charts to a minimum or dont run any on the machine you are executing trades on especially is your trading the futures..

Get a high ram fast video card and the fastest monitor.. This game is now measured in milliseconds.

Good luck..