PC setups, configurations, benchmarks and general recommendations

Because the interest is high among new users of SQX (i saw many topics with the same goal), i thought it would be a good idea to concentrate everything hardware related in one topic where new users but also more experienced ones, can easely find in one place what they are looking for. What to buy, what configuration, air or liquid cooled…etc.

This topic is designed to help users in choosing the most apropriate hardware configuration according to their budget, a new computer or an upgrade. Also, posting benchmarks for processors, general raw performance benchmarks as a guide but also examples of settings in SQX and the resulting performance for others to have an idea what expectations they can have from a certain processor.

I am sure the contribution of the more experienced users will be greatly appreciated by everyone.

For starters, in the following days and weeks, i will post different results (pairs and timeframes) on my configuration, an AMD 3700X (3,6Ghz 8 cores) and 32GB RAM.

To be relevant, we can agree on a minimum criteria, for example, each setting must be run at least 24 hours, and we can agree to count the accepted strategies/hour (in databank).

for power supply unit, i think its relevant something i have read some time ago:

“In our opinion, power supplies are investments. Aside from enabling lower electricity bills, good PSUs also protect your PC hardware in case something goes wrong and extend the life of your components through clean power. The more ripple in a PSU’s rail, the lower the DC quality and higher the stress on voltage regulation circuitry. The same goes for increased voltage deviations, which also apply huge stress on VRMs. This is why ripple suppression and load regulation are the key factors for a PSU’s performance, with efficiency following closely.”

https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/evga-supernova-750-p2-platinum-psu,4566-10.html

i am putting here the standards:
80 PLUS Bronze 82%
80 PLUS Silver 85%
80 PLUS Gold 87%
80 PLUS Platinum 90%
80 PLUS Titanium 92%

The rule of thumb or good practice for PSU is something between Bronze sau Platinum, double the wattage of the system and a model from a good brand, Seasonic or a platform from CWT or Fortron, meaning something from Corsair, EVGA, Bequiet.

hi Ivan…new pc is ready….ryzen 9 3900x   liquid cooler…ssd pciexpress 4.0      MB   new chip set

bench….95000/100-000    str/h

I thought something more…..

thanks gianfranco

please run the config file from hankeys to have a better image of the performance

hi   config file of what ?

where is config file from hankeys

there used to be prepared some basic building process so the users could compare their PC specs…but for now its old, because we have already new builds and many changes was made

truth is, that you have very good specs, but how many “profitable” strategies will you be producing is more in the setting itself and your knowledge, not the PC specs

I’m not doing a race to see who has the most powerful computer…. this discussion is about the characteristics of computers in relation to price and consumption…… It’s still true that if you have more power you can do more things in less time. it’s you can study and the faster you can notice the mistakes

@Gianfranco: what liquid cooling solution you have and what PC case ?

hankeys is right that the old config file is not relevant anymore

i think that 3900X is a very good processor and very efficient in power consumption for the performance it has. Someone, anyone with decent knowledge in SQ should get decent results

in my case, with a 3700X, i got modest results, only on 3 pairs, GBPJPY, GBPUSD and XAUUSD on M30 – H4 timeframes but the best strategies are around 40 pips/trade and aprox 100 pips/month.

I couldn’t get any decent strategy on M15 on any pair because 3700X is too weak and it would get me too much time, probably at least 2 weeks of generating. That is why, in my opinion, anyone with a processor weaker than 3700X or more energy inefficient, wont be able to get any decent, stable, working strategy, except for Daily timeframe, but those would take years of testing. To have at least 6 – 8 closed transactions on Daily, you need at least a year.

they had sent me an offer for dual xeon platinum workstations 8160 64 gb ram ssd nvme basic video card for about 1800 euros.. but unfortunately I had already just taken this

..liquid cooling ..but corsair with 2 fans n hidro series  h100 i pro    very silent

Xeon Platinum 8160 is a very recent and powerful processor, Skylake based, 24 cores. A desktop, be it a server, with 2 of those processors is a beast in terms of performance but also power consumption. Such a dual CPU configuration is on par with the most recent Threadrippers.

Regarding the price, 3 years ago when released, one processor was 4.000 EUR. If someone reliable offered you a dual configuration for just 1.800 EUR, that’s exceptional if not almost too good to be true.

it is on ebay   from

is a seller who took some servers etc etc. from engineering and architecture studies because these studios are closed

Or those XEON’s is engineering samples used when testing motherboards. There are 100000 ds of them in use for this and after some xxxx cycles they are discarded and people gets hold of them and sell them.

i started to get the first results from the last 3 – 4 months of testing and although i put on test all timeframes from M15 to H4, only the H4 and in some cases H1 gave me good, stable results. Most likely the best results are on Daily.which i will generate and test in the future

this finding has implications on the hardware used, meaning that with let’s say, normal, decent performing processor like the 3700X, 3800X and Intel equivalents, i would strongly recommend beginners not to generate below H1 and concentrate on H4 because they will waste electricity and time. In fact, this was also exactly the recommendation received long time ago from the SQ team members responsible with training.

Now,…because the interest on lower timeframes like M30 and M15 will always be high and having available much higher performing processors like the top Threadrippers, we will have to wait until someone available to share info, could confirm if with more powerful processors were able to get real, tangible results if any on those lower timeframes

Hi all. Looking to get a new PC (3900X based) and have a few questions that I’m not sure have been answered yet on this thread.

– How important is a fast SSD for SQ, e.g. PCIe 4.0 m.2? From what I understand most of the work is done using RAM?

– Would I notice much difference from a) faster MHz RAM, e.g. 3200 vs 4000 and/or b) dual vs quad channel memory?

– Is there anything to watch out for when choosing a motherboard? I’m going to get the PC built so this is more performance limitations rather than space

– Does Windows 10 version matter?