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Pastimes : Dream Machine ( Build your own PC ) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Street Walker who wrote (724)	5/20/1998 6:31:00 PM
From: Clarence Dodge	Respond to of 14778

Street Walker Im also putting together 'the list' to have a trading machine assembled . I just started to actually do reseach though..... not as far along as you. I've looked into Sag Electronics and JC Computers to do the assembly. May I ask you who the assembler is you refered to in your post? Clarence

To: Street Walker who wrote (724)	5/20/1998 6:55:00 PM
From: LTBH	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 14778

System comments Think you may have followed this discussion a long time ago, if not then here goes in brief: use the same care of selection for the home of your system components (case) as you do for the components. You don't need Win or NT either, just use DOS, a home computer doesn't need a 17" monitor, get a 14" instead. Point is they didn't try to tell ya to downgrade these parts, insist on the super micro case and get the full tower but NOT the server full tower. I believe the best price/performance is still the PII 300. It doesn't cost that much more than the 266, provides good scalable increase over 266. The 333,due to design decisions, is 2% slower to marginally better than the 300 so no point in buying one and paying the big price delta. As to what processor is really needed, see if some of the multi monitor folks can provide input..no experience there but believe for trading the key will be amount of RAM and 128 should be fine. On OS, think Spots is the guy to ask. Probably best bet is really get both. Backup of anything is good, and the software coverage difference is probably a good reason to install both. Something thats not really been addressed on the thread is backup subsystem. I recommend a tape subsystem and it doesn't have to be anything more than a 3G Zip drive that piggybacks on the parallel port. A nice extra to this approach is that disco the power plug, unscrew two knurled screws on connector and its ready to use on another platform. If your trading software suite contains a fair amount of data then I recommend you get a tape backup. BTW the SW that comes with it will allow you to for instance: speciify an incremental backup at 1AM every night. It will then automatically backup all new/delta data since the night before. Networm

To: Street Walker who wrote (724)	5/20/1998 8:19:00 PM
From: Howard R. Hansen	Respond to of 14778

>Is PII 233 sufficient? Or should I go higher? The answer to your question depends a lot on what trading software you will be using. I saw on another thread that Cyber-trader was a very demanding application in terms of computer resources used. Hence my first suggestion is ask the people in the other threads on Silicon Investor devoted to the software you will be using what speed CPU is required. My second suggestion is if you will be using level 2 real time NASDAQ data and either Cyber-trader or Manhattan Beach software on your computer go for a 350 megahertz PII CPU that can run at a front bus speed of 100 megahertz. And if you will not be using level 2 real time NASDAQ data and using software like Windows on Wall Street Real Time Day Trader or Trade Station than either a 233 or 300 Mhz PII is more than adequate. Warning I am not a day trader and have not used any of the programs mentioned above. My suggestion is based on the information I picked up while reading various thread on Silicon Investor. I hope we haven't over loaded you with to much information. I have no quibbles with any of your selections and when in doubt trust your own judgment.

To: Street Walker who wrote (724)	5/20/1998 8:23:00 PM
From: Marc D.	Respond to of 14778

Great thread folks. S.W., If you are still considering W95, why wouldn't you just use W98 w/multiple cheap cards and skip the multimonitor card? I've tried to read as many old posts here as possible, but haven't found enough arguments against doing this (if I missed a key post, please let me know). If you want NT for stability reasons, then that's another story. Have you looked at the Iiyama 9017e 17" monitor? It's the best looking 17 inch monitor I've seen - $525 on Pricewatch...slightly pricey. Have you decided on 17 inches? I always run at 1600x1200 and, therefore, wouldn't consider less than a 19" monitor. A friend of mine runs a Viewsonic G790 ($729 Pricewatch) driven by a Matrox Millenium at 1600x1200 and the text looks excellent. And I'm really anal when it comes to text clarity. For the record, I'm looking to build another system soon, too. I'll probably go PII 300 at the July 26 price cut. Right now I'm using a custom PC I built in December: AMD K6-233 Abit TX5 (or AX5..I can't remember) 64Mb Micropolis 9GB 7ms SCSI-3 HD Diamond Fireport 40 SCSI card Fujitsu HD for backup Panasonic E21 monitor ATI Pro Turbo 8Mb ATI TV/Tuner card running CNBC SuperMicro case/power (get one if you can) W95 (soon to be W98 with multimonitors, I think) @Home cable modem to be installed this Friday. Presently have 56k 3Com v.90 and wireless (Ricochet) modem as backup. If I can help by offering feedback on any of these components, let me know. Marc