As of the end of January 2022 we have discontinued the Charter PC.
I’ll cover the reasons for this change and discuss our new recommendations below.
The Charter PC was originally built to be our second dedicated Trading PC, after the success of our Trader PC (which has been our bestselling machine for a number of years now), we decided to offer a lower cost trading computer designed specifically for traders who didn’t need the power offered by the full Trader PC.
Whilst not being unsuccessful, we did find that when quoting customers and offering both systems many ended up going for the full Trader PC spec over the Charter PC.
Graphics Card Issues
Due to a global chip shortage massively impacting the cost and availability of the graphics cards we used in the Charter PC we had to switch them to cards used in the full Trader PC system.
This started to impact our build costs meaning that we had to increase the cost of the Charter PC by a small amount.
The better quality graphics cards supported higher resolution screens so whilst being a win for the customer, the differentiation between the Charter and the Trader became less pronounced.
New Processors
At the end of 2021 Intel released their first batch of 12th generation processors, the i5, i7 and i9 chips. Despite being supposedly mid-range the 12th gen i5 offers phenomenal performance levels, but it did come at a price increase over the i5’s we were using in our more expensive Trader PC’s.
Due to no new i3 chip we kept the Charter PC using the 10th generation core i3 chip which was the latest one available, and continued to offer the full range of 10th gen chips as options.
January 2022 saw the launch of the new 12th generation i3 chip and what a chip it is!
Although it is supposed to be low end the performance matched the 10th gen i5 we offered in the full Trader PC, an unbelievable result when taking into account the cost of it.
Our problem was that if we moved the Charter across to this new i3 then what do we do with the Trader PC?
After a lot of thought we decided a bit of a change was necessary.
What we have done is moved the Trader PC to the Intel 12th gen i3, performance wise it pretty much matches (if not slightly improves) upon what the previous spec offered, and crucially this change along with a couple of adjustments has let us offer a significant price drop on that machine.
It is almost now at the price of what the Charter PC sold for meaning a major saving for our customers without any compromise on performance.
This change makes the Charter PC spec obsolete as we are not in the business of artificially raising prices, or using really low end equipment to hit certain price points. Nor can we in good conscience sell older CPU models that cost more and perform no better (or worse) than the newer components even though many other online sellers do this.
The Trader PC is now much lower cost whilst offering the same performance level as before.
Alongside this we have introduced our new trading machine called the Trader Pro.
The Trader Pro is for our customers who are power users of trading platforms like TradeStation, NinjaTrader, Bloomberg, or TT Trader.
It uses the Intel 12th gen i5 as a default option, remember that this is the CPU which was released at the end of 2021 and leapfrogged everything else in terms of raw processing speed. The new i7 and i9 chips are available options along with the full AMD Zen 3 line up.
You get 32GB of RAM, the fastest style SSD drives, a more powerful professional class graphics setup, and a premium case.
Despite having an increased price due to the increased component and performance levels it still works out better value than adding all the same equipment on to the previous Trader PC spec.
So, for repeat customers looking for a Charter PC we now recommend the full Trader PC spec, and for power users looking for the ultimate trading PC look no further than the Trader Pro.
View, configure, and buy your new Trading PC now.
Written by Darren @ Multiple Monitors
Last Updated: February, 2022