Home PC or Servers
Most home PC's or Windows Servers that you physically have in your office or home is usually much more powerful and are better for both optimising and running backtests for your automated trading systems.
Recommended RAM: 32 GB, Minimum RAM: 16 GB
DO:
- Run your automated trading systems (cBots).
- Run Backtesting.
- Run Optimisation.
- Manual Trade.
DON'T:
- Expect a 24/7 uptime.
- Use a home PC for mission-critical trading with real money using an automated trading system.
CPU Recommendations for the PC
Using a Home or Office PC or Windows Server is always the best option for manual trading and to run backtests or optimization, this is due to the fact that they are dedicated and powerful.
Recommended CPU: Intel Core i7-7700K / AMD Ryzen 5 1600 Minimum CPU: Intel Core i5 8600K / AMD Ryzen 5 3400G
If you are not using an Intel processor then you can find the comparison table below.
Low Latency Connections
Many new traders feel that they need a low latency VPS provider to be as close to the exchange as possible, this is a just a marketing gimmick to make traders pay the high price for VPS hosting. To start, you only need low latency if you are going to do High-Frequency trading so you can fill your orders as fast as possible, this is not relevant for 99% of traders.
It is always better to get a VPS server located in the same country or even city as your broker exchange, but high-speed trading benefits institutional traders and not the general retail traders.
Other Causes for High CPU Usage
If you are experiencing a high CPU usage on your PC or VPS it may not be caused by the cTrader trading platform, windows updates work in the background and can seriously affect the performance of your machine.
Thinking of using a VPS?
If you are considering using a VPS machine for backtesting or optimisation then we strongly advice to not do this, read the article below for the reasons why this is a bad idea.