CPU cooler and CPU cabinet

Requirements on CPU cooler and CPU cabinet are primarily driven from the noise point of view. Although, hydrobased coolers provide the least noise, it is not worth the money and hassles associated with maintanance. More over for the softwares that run it would be just big over design. At the same time, it is important to have a good CPU cooler better than the default one. The choice of the CPU cabinet also must be driven from the noise point of view.

For my trading station, I chose Corsair 100R silent edition. This cabinet comes with 2 fans and also has noise reduction material in the inside part.

For CPU cooling, I chose Noctua (got it on the amazon global store https://noctua.at/en/nh-d15/specification)

For selecting CPU cooler, it is important to check the compatibility. It should not be affecting the RAM boards and it should fit in the cabinet.

RAM and Storage (Requirements and Selection)

RAM:

Size:
Just for OS, charting software and trading terminal, you would not require more than 8GB.  But, to ensure compatible memory cards, it would be better to purchase the cards as a set. So, 8GBx2 should be good enough.
Speed of RAM: As the system will not be RAM speed bound,a decent speed of 2400MHz should be good enough.


Storage:
As the system is only used for trading, no more than 512 GB is required. If this is the case, then a SSD of  512GB is more than enough. Infact, NVME storage would be slightly for speed. Why speed? In case, during market hours you need to power cycle the desktop, it should boot in few secs.  Newer systems it would be good to take a look at PCIE based storage device.


For my system, I have used 8GBx2 memory 2400MHz and 512GB SSD (Western Digital).

Gaming Graphics card Or Workstation Graphics card Or No Graphics card!

Whether to use a graphics card depends on how many symbols one trades. If you want to trade just Nifty, (and/or BNF) then even 1 monitor is good enough.

If you want to trade more than few symbols while NF and BNF continuously run on another monitor, then you would require multiple monitors.

In my setup, I have NF.BNF on 1 monitor. On another monitor, I run the scanning script. On another monitor, I run trading platforms.

So once you decide on how many monitors that you would require, then question is which graphics card or is the internal graphics available in core ix processors good enough. There will be some performance hit if internal graphics engine is used (my thinking!!). So, for supporting multiple monitors, it is better go for a graphics card for minimal load on the CPU. Further, most of the charting software do not use the complex graphics rendering which means again the reliability becomes preffered spec to look for.  For the same reason, it is just worth to go in for a workstation graphics card.

For 4 monitor support I use AMD Firepro W4100.
 
 For various thoughts you might want to check this answer on quora.
https://www.quora.com/How-are-professional-workstation-graphics-cards-different-from-consumer-gaming-graphics-cards

MoBo requirements and selection

Mother board is a key component of the rig. With so many options, how to choose?

Requirements of a Trading Computer :

1. Should support the chosen CPU socket and the chipset. 
2. Size of the Motherboard (Pref. ATX)
3. should support multiple RAM cards (atleast 8GBx2)
4. should support NVME storage
5. Should have GB lan controller
6. No. of PCIE slots

•  WIFI card 
•  Graphics Card
•  PCIE based Storage device(future proof).
•  PCIE based video capture  (optional)

I would go for a overclock supporting mother board. (My belief is that as it need to support over clocking, design would be better making it slightly more reliable).

High reliability is must.  Service center availability is a non-functional requirement.


When I built in 2016, I used https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/Z270-PC-MATE.html as I was sold by the feature Military Class 5, Guard-Pro: Latest evolution in high quality components for best protection and efficiency. Not sure how it helps.

Ref: https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/motherboard-buying-guide,5682.html

Video: https://youtu.be/fLMNQsoqgmg

Core i5 or i7 or i9

If you are scalper, then probably, you would be trading 1 script.  Software such as Jigsaw or Book-map do not expect a very high end CPU.

If you are a day trader with 50 symbols (NIFTY), then  no. of cores matter if you do real time scanning.Charting platform such as Amibroker uses N multi threads ( N= physical cores).  If the scanning time frame is 1m and multiple symbols are involved and further depending on the complexity of the scanning script, you might require a very high end CPU.

For a scanning time frame of 5m, and scanning script time of few ms, you would not require more than core i5. Any thing more than i5 is a premium not worth.

For a decent trading machine, you could be happy with core i5.



Ref: https://www.amibroker.com/guide/h_multithreading.html

How to Select a PSU

Following are the websites that you would need to select the PSU

https://www.corsair.com/uk/en/psufinder

http://www.coolermaster.com/power-supply-calculator/


Once all the power consumers are entered choose 1 level above that.  Although this is over designing, would be future proof.

Further, go for modular power supply to reduce the cable clutter in the rig.

Happy Building !

How to build a Desktop Video-Collection

Websites That you need (While you build your Trading Rig!)

General
=======
https://www.investorsunderground.com/how-to-build-a-day-trading-computer/

http://www.graitec.co.uk/hardware/cad-workstation-guide/workstation-vs-gaming-graphics

https://linustechtips.com/main/topic/286004-building-your-first-pc/

To select Parts
===========
https://pcpartpicker.com/
 
http://assembleyourpc.net/

http://www.logicalincrements.com/


To benchmark
===========
https://www.userbenchmark.com/


To compare CPU/GPU
=================

http://cpuboss.com/


Reviews
=======
https://www.anandtech.com/

http://www.tomshardware.com/


Vendors In India
===========
https://www.theitdepot.com/

http://bwindia.net/

http://www.computerwarehousepricelist.com/

High Level Requirements of a Trading Desktop (context India and NSE):

Requirements of a Trading Desktop (context India and NSE):
 ===================================================
Apps To be Run:

Following apps  are used for Charting and trading.

A. Charting software ( Amibroker, Ninja Trader, MT4 so on)
B. Trading Platforms

•  Zerodha PI
• NSE NOW
• FyersOne
• Finvasia Scalpert
• Microsoft Edge (Chrome and Firefox are not needed)

C. No. of Instruments

• NIFTY
• BANKNIFTY
• Setups in the Future stocks (50-60)

OS - Most of the softwares (esp. amibroker) can work on windows 10. 

Scanning for setups:  Typically, you would use scripts in the charting software to do the scanning. Charting software such as Amibroker (Pro version) creates multiple threads as many as physical cores and hence the scanning becomes much faster.

No. Of Monitors:  1 for Trading platform, 2nd for stocks, 3rd for (NIFTY and Bank Nifty)

Internet Connection: High bandwidth wired connection

                                  4G connection incase high band width connection fails

Additional machine : laptop, mobile or tablet 

Configuration on Windows 10: Windows 10 needs to be tweaked for high performance. Should be able to boot up in few secs if power reset has to be done during market hours.

Reliablity : Very high

Bloatware : Zero

Antivirus : No 3rd party Antivirus

No Firewall (Firewall sucks): Not required if you are using the machine only for trading. Many data plugins such as Truedata have this requirement.

HD - Not more than 256 GB. In which case you do not require HDD rather SSD or NVME SSD is required.

Desktop PC usually makes lot of noise. You need good CPU cooler and noise reduction

=====================================================================

 References:

1. http://www.mydaytradingtutor.com/5-biggest-misconceptions-trading-computers/
2. http://www.mydaytradingtutor.com/daytrading-computer/
3. http://www.tradingcomputers.com
4. http://falcontradingsystems.com
5. https://www.pugetsystems.com
6. https://claytrader.com/blog/build-the-best-stock-trading-computer-for-your-money/