Seeking new PC setup on Black Friday

[evan 17]

My iMac is way too slow for DAS so I'm looking to take advantage of Black Friday (and Cyber Monday) deals to purchase a new PC setup just for my trading.  Others might want to do the same.  Please post if you find any noteworthy deals!

[Carlos M. 232]

Great time to upgrade. I will be looking for parts to upgrade the desktop unit I have already. New case for sure and maybe more powerful graphics card. 

[Brendon 146]

Personally, MACs are for entertainment besides some cad and photo work, and they are GOOD at that, but for business, you need something boring and ugly like a PC. 

 

Minimums to have:

CPU: at least an i5 or greater

RAM: 16BG or greater

Monitors: 24 inch or greater, 1080 is fine

Video Card: 4x ports or greater, by far the best is nVIDIA P620 (I have the older P600, they are not for gaming), you're gonna need a screen for chat, platform, and the other 2 for stock watching. 

https://www.amazon.com/HP-Quadro-P620-Graphic-Card/dp/B07C68M2GJ/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3JJ5SAP0BDV3V&keywords=p620+quadro&qid=1575047336&s=electronics&sprefix=p620+%2Celectronics%2C186&sr=1-1

 

Not much on the sales this year though 😕 

 

Edited November 29, 2019 by Brendon

[evan 17]

58 minutes ago, Brendon said:

Personally, MACs are for entertainment besides some cad and photo work, and they are GOOD at that, but for business, you need something boring and ugly like a PC. 

 

Minimums to have:

CPU: at least an i5 or greater

RAM: 16BG or greater

Monitors: 24 inch or greater, 1080 is fine

Video Card: 4x ports or greater, by far the best is nVIDIA P620 (I have the older P600, they are not for gaming), you're gonna need a screen for chat, platform, at the other 2 for stock watching. 

https://www.amazon.com/HP-Quadro-P620-Graphic-Card/dp/B07C68M2GJ/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3JJ5SAP0BDV3V&keywords=p620+quadro&qid=1575047336&s=electronics&sprefix=p620+%2Celectronics%2C186&sr=1-1

 

Not much on the sales this year though 😕 

 

Helpful!  Thanks for responding!

[Carlos M. 232]

1 hour ago, Brendon said:

Personally, MACs are for entertainment besides some cad and photo work, and they are GOOD at that, but for business, you need something boring and ugly like a PC. 

 

Minimums to have:

CPU: at least an i5 or greater

RAM: 16BG or greater

Monitors: 24 inch or greater, 1080 is fine

Video Card: 4x ports or greater, by far the best is nVIDIA P620 (I have the older P600, they are not for gaming), you're gonna need a screen for chat, platform, at the other 2 for stock watching. 

https://www.amazon.com/HP-Quadro-P620-Graphic-Card/dp/B07C68M2GJ/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3JJ5SAP0BDV3V&keywords=p620+quadro&qid=1575047336&s=electronics&sprefix=p620+%2Celectronics%2C186&sr=1-1

 

Not much on the sales this year though 😕 

 

Perfect advice! 

Edited November 29, 2019 by Carlos M.

[Carlos M. 232]

I was talking to a kid about upgrading my PC or maybe building a new one (nothing wrong with my PC but I do enjoy building these rigs since my gaming days,) and they recommended this website https://pcpartpicker.com/. 

They help you find PC parts across different online retailers. You can also confirm that the parts of the machine you are building are compatible with each other, and that they fit in the case you are buying. Nothing more crappy then getting all your gear and finding out that some stuff does not fit or is compatible with your setup. 

 

[evan 17]

UPDATE:  

So I didn't end up getting anything on Black Friday, but I am buying one this week.  At this point I'm thinking that just purchasing a "pre-built" gaming PC is the way to go for me.  Trying to build something piecemeal has proved too overwhelming, and is making me lose sight of the bigger goal -- actually getting started trading.   

From my research I've come up with these target specs for my new machine: 

-500GB SSD hard drive

-16 GB RAM

-3.3GHz quad-core processer

-2GB GPU

...And this is the machine I'm looking at getting now: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/p/cyberpowerpc-gamer-xtreme-msaag1000-gaming-pc/9068RB4S16XG/37ZR?OCID=AID2000012_OLA_22988823_260604391_124639344&activetab=pivot:techspecstab

 

For those of you more experienced with this, do you think this would be sufficient for starting out?  It appears to meet all of my specs save one: the processer is only 3 GHz and not 3.3.  Should that be okay, and is it this something I could upgrade later if needed without much hassle?  Many have mentioned the importance of a good motherboard.  This one comes with an ASRock B360M PRO, which has mostly good reviews online.

Is there anything you see here that I could be missing?  In a nutshell, I want something that will work excellent for me during my 3 months of SIM and perhaps my first year of live trading, but also has the ability to be built upon later as I get more sophisticated.

Ready to buy this today as long as there are no red flags.

Evan

[Brendon 146]

Hi Evan, 

Yes, learning how build a custom PC can take some time, if not years, so I feel your pain. That PC is alright but overpriced and not what you want for trading. A gaming PC is not a Trading PC, not by a long shot. That CPU is vastly overkill for trading, more towards gaming, so you're paying for something you do not need and won't use. The GHZ doesn't matter much anymore like it did in the 90s and 2000s, it's all chip architecture now just fyi.  

My professional advice is...grab this PC and video card below. It's cheap and powerful and all you need for a number of years to come.

I did a scan of Newegg (the best overall online pc hardware site) and I say buy yourself 1 key component, a graphics card that can run 4 displays well, and not a lower-end gamer card (in the PC you selected) that can hybrid into multi displays, barely. The Nvidia Quaddro driver support will be much better and stable for multi display in Windows.

https://www.newegg.com/acer-aspire-tc-885-student-home-office/p/1VK-0017-00AY9?Item=9SIAEYA96C6574

https://www.newegg.com/p/1FT-0014-00118?Item=9SIA6ZP7EZ3426&Description=nvidia quaddro p620&cm_re=nvidia_quaddro_p620-_-1FT-0014-00118-_-Product

Let me know if you have any questions, installing the gfx card is extremely easy, you just drop it in like a memory card and install. I would be happy to help!

Edited January 2, 2020 by Brendon

[Carlos M. 232]

Great advice Brendon, both system for day trading are solid!  but have to agree if you plan on going 4 to 6 monitors Quadro is the way to do. Very very stable that's what I have. 

[evan 17]

Thanks, guys!  As far as monitors, is this still considered the best option?  https://www.amazon.com/Acer-KN242HYL-UM-QX2AA-001-LED-Lit-Monitor/dp/B014JJ6XA8/ref=as_li_ss_tl?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1511121977&sr=1-1-fkmr0&keywords=acer+screen+23.8+vesa+compatible&linkCode=sl1&tag=tradingbook09-20&linkId=8fece39e50587874b3915bfa2e71f7db

 

That's the one Andrew recommends under trading tools but it appears to be from 2017, so wondering if there are better options now.

 

 

[Brendon 146]

Grab a handful of these my man, all you need for trading. But cross reference prices to get the best deal. $100 or so is the sweet spot for monitors like these. You want at least 24 inches, 1080 res is fine. VESA compatible for mounts obviously, you dont want to be 'that guy' with 3 or 4 screens across their desk lol.  Lenovo is a respected brand too, Acer, eh not my first choice nowadays. 

https://www.newegg.com/p/0JC-0006-00TH4?Item=9SIAHRC9EM9361&Description=1080p monitor&cm_re=1080p_monitor-_-0JC-0006-00TH4-_-Product

 

Edited January 3, 2020 by Brendon

[jonosg 11]

Not sure if these are available in US but I've been using the Prism X340 34" 21:9 UHD Curved monitor for 6 months and its been great for the price. About USD400. My PC spec is completely over the top for a trading as i still like to game plus I'm a bit of a tech nerd - so I wont post it here

I have 2 x 34" 21:9 4K Curved monitors, 1 x 27" 4K Monitor and 1 x 1080 27" monitor which is good for the chat room

Personally I prefer higher resolution 4K monitors - more efficient use of screen estate but its personal preference no right or wrong, i usually have MT4 open as well as DAS as I like to trade Forex on the london exchange prior to US markets open living in Asia and being 12hrs ahead of new york

https://prismplus.sg/collections/gaming-monitors

 

Edited January 4, 2020 by jonosg

[evan 17]

Figured that since I created this thread, I might as well post the finished product.  Since I was coming from the Mac world and was functionally illiterate when it came to building my own rig, I ended up just buying a pre-built.   Here's what I ended up with: 

HP Pavilion Gaming Desktop Tower 690-0073w

Processor: 9th Gen Intel Core i5-9400F

Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660Ti 

8GB RAM

256GB SSD

People were raving about this system on the r/buildapcsales subreddit.  Walmart sells it for $599 which is already a good deal, but for a limited time select locations were selling it for $499 or $399 in-store.  I was able to score the last one at my local Walmart for $399.  The graphics card itself is worth $300, so I was pretty psyched to get it.  I plan to upgrade the RAM to 16GB, and the SSD as needed.  I will also likely switch out the GFX card for a Quaddro once I decide to go to 4 monitors, but for now I'm running 2 just fine with the pre-installed one.  

The monitors are AOC 24E1Q 24" IPS LCDs, 1080P, VESA compatible.  I got them on sale at Staples for $69 each.  They look and perform great.  Overall I'm pretty satisfied with this as my "starter" PC.  I feel like I accomplished my goal of getting something solid that I can build upon.  Now I'm ready to start SIM.

Thanks again to everyone who chipped in with their advice!  

 

[Brendon 146]

Your boy has to hook you up with a standing desk 😉 Dope looking green Sauron eye rig btw. Nice dual monitors too but I know you will get 4 very soon. 

[yeahdudeman 2]

Lookin good Evan!