I see many people are asking about machines. I though I would share some thoughts. I have built machines, bought servers, and done a lot. My first PC was and IBM AT. Now 35 years later here is what I have and why I love it. MSI GT75 Gamming Laptop with an i7 and an RTX 2070, and Samsung Pro 970 SSD. It was about $2300, so high end expensive. Here are the reason I love this machine: I never really have to worry about power for trading software, EVER. It boots in 12 seconds and I am in IB in 30 sec or less. I can hook up to 3 monitors, DP, HDMI and Thunderbolt. I hook up a CAT6e cable to the fiber router, and Wifi backup to a Cellular hotspot. Automatic fall over takes about 10 seconds. Since it is a laptop, it has a backup power supply of about 90 minutes. Per Key RGB LED lighting allows custom key identification. I can prioritize network traffic, so IB is always first. 5 USB ports not counting Thunderbolt. high quality screen. Mechanical keyboard by Steel Series. Full Audio analog ports I put it in a Pelican case, so it is in perfect condition after MUCH travel. I can resell it for about 60% after 3 years. Overall, I can get out of the "computer support" business and just work on the "trading business". I know many will say you don't need all this, and this is true. But I do enjoy it all. I can play A rated games, and so much more. It is a highly reliable machine, I don't have to deal with the backup power and backup connection issues and it is portable. Cheers
Thanks for sharing. I am looking for something similar but want to stay at around 1k. What other brands would you consider?
The same way I cannot imagine running my platforms on my personal PC Now I have my entire trading business separated on a VPS near exchange while platforms are also installed in a "standby mode" and ready to fire on my laptop. This way my PC can blow up and I am still able to trade off my phone. If both blowup I will pull my old Dell laptop out and reconnect quickly. After some BSODs in the past, net connection drops, power outages etc I have found a VPS server with a remote connection from my PC to be a lot better solution
Since I trade CME from EU it is located in Chicago .. I believe it can save some slippage cost since I enter using the market order on a signal trigger (half-automatic). So, over time the slippage savings could pay for the VPS at least But stability and availability is lot more important
I'm doing something similar. Did you code the algo yourself? Which VPS and broker are u using for best latency combo?
Playing games on the same machine you trade with. Welcome to trading, even if it is using a high-powered unit.
Although I would personally never purchase a laptop with a GPU that gets toasty, bad idea. With a desktop that's sufficiently cooled and powerful, I see no reason not to.
I was thinking more along the lines about being serious with your profession. Do F1/Nascar drivers use their "work" vehicles for personal use?
I tend to like high build quality, so 1K is pretty low. I would check out the ASUS line. They run the AMD chips and that will help reduce costs, but they do tend to run a bit hot. You don't even need a dedicated GPU really. On the other hand, I would just consider the other parts lasting more than 3 years and resale value. Used gamming machines are easy to sell at a good price. Higher end laptop machines have made a lot of progress in the last 3 years. It seems with the "death of the PC" being a concern, the shift from desktops to remove VMs and Laptops accelerated. At first it was a clunky transition, but now things are pretty darn good. For me security is important, so I like a single machine that I can maintain and monitor tightly. Cheers